Let's bitch about STEAM! - The Thread!

[Infinitron]

Like other bros said ITT already, this has been discussed at length several times in the past already and nothing really new has surfaced in the meantime.

Though I will leave you with two figures pulled from Wikipedia:

In early 2011, Forbes reported that Steam sales constituted 50-70% of the $4 billion market for downloaded PC games and that Steam offered game producers gross margins of 70% of purchase price, compared with 30% at retail.[117]
In November 2011, it was revealed by the developer of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings that Steam was responsible for 200,000 of the 250,000 (80%) total online sales of the game.[121]

Witcher 2 only sold 250,000 copies? That's less than an indie game like Legend of Grimrock which is said to have sold 600,000.

Online sales.

 

[Redlands]

That worries me, because once something does become a monopoly, it has no reason to get better. And if all of your games are tied to the service, that makes it worse because you have money tied up in the service. So, at its most base, you can't leave this service without sacrificing all the money you poured into it.

Let's think of the features and improvements Valve has brought to Steam over the last couple years:

- Overhauled community features and game hubs
- New community guides which allow players to upload walkthroughs and users to access them with 1-2 clicks in game
- Mod support and distribution for titles (this is huge)
- A voting system that allows users to decide what games get on Steam (for better or worse)
- An entirely new front-end for playing with a gamepad/on a TV
- A new hardware unit that will function as a living room gaming PC

And you are telling me that Valve have no desire to improve the service?

To be honest, a lot of those things seem shitty to me.

Granted, other people might like them, but I'm not here to care about other people's feelings.



With a bit more seriousness, mod support is the only thing that doesn't set off warning bells for me. I'm sure I can ignore/disable most of the annoying community features; however, the last three have me most concerned. Greenlight started with problems, and it will continue to have problems (albeit probably not any Valve can do anything about), because there are a lot of people who will just vote for games based on artwork or presentation video.

But the biggest problem is the last two. I don't really care for console gaming, but as it is there's no thought put in by a lot of companies into their computer user UI; this just strikes me as a way to give in and just play console games using a computer rather than a computer game.

 

[sea]

My point isn't whether the features are "good" or not. It's that they demonstrate a desire on Valve's part to improve the service. There is a difference.

 

[AgentBJ09]

Like other bros said ITT already, this has been discussed at length several times in the past already and nothing really new has surfaced in the meantime.

Though I will leave you with two figures pulled from Wikipedia:

In early 2011, Forbes reported that Steam sales constituted 50-70% of the $4 billion market for downloaded PC games and that Steam offered game producers gross margins of 70% of purchase price, compared with 30% at retail.[117]
In November 2011, it was revealed by the developer of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings that Steam was responsible for 200,000 of the 250,000 (80%) total online sales of the game.[121]

If GabeN says jump, the next words out of a Developers and/or Publishers mouth better be "how high" or they will miss out on much potential income.

In return, I'll link you to this article about the sale points. http://blog.tsai.co/2012/07/analysis-of-economics-behind-valve.html - And here's a snapshot of the sales of Garry's Mod over a period of six years, also from the same site. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E9-Zv1CM-G0/T_916VEjsYI/AAAAAAAAAn8/RVtbFaDb8pI/s1600/steamsales1.png

What you said about about the sales may be true, but you overlooked something: How much those versions sold for. The best Steam sales can be predicted down to the day, and are broadcast ahead of time. Knowing that, how do you know those units sold at the full $40 they do right now, or the discounted prices of $20 or even less? And you're also talking about online sales only. What makes physical sales not worth commenting on in the same stroke?

Anyway, the heavy discounts through Steam are only good if you intend for your product to be a loss leader. To intentionally lose you money to get more buyers. And I doubt CDProjeck Red is thinking that way about The Witcher 2. Unlike Valve can do with TF2 and DOTA.

That worries me, because once something does become a monopoly, it has no reason to get better. And if all of your games are tied to the service, that makes it worse because you have money tied up in the service. So, at its most base, you can't leave this service without sacrificing all the money you poured into it.

Let's think of the features and improvements Valve has brought to Steam over the last couple years:

- Overhauled community features and game hubs
- New community guides which allow players to upload walkthroughs and users to access them with 1-2 clicks in game
- Mod support and distribution for titles (this is huge)
- A voting system that allows users to decide what games get on Steam (for better or worse)
- An entirely new front-end for playing with a gamepad/on a TV
- A new hardware unit that will function as a living room gaming PC

And you are telling me that Valve have no desire to improve the service?

Tell me this instead: Is Steam a voluntary use service? Can you play your games without the client working if you wish? Can you still buy physical copies of newer triple-A games without getting a Steam registry code, or a notice that you must use the service somewhere on the box? Or buy DLC without having to load them via Steam?

Because everything you've listed makes the assumption that Steam is just that. That you want to use their client because it truly is a good service, and that you can opt-out of using it, or registering though it, if you want. They all ignore the idea of having to use the service to play a lot of newer games. So, despite the ancillary features you just listed, they all tie back to one point: You must use this service.

When most of what you do gaming wise becomes tied to a central hub, run by one company, the monopoly idea only gets strengthened.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Like other bros said ITT already, this has been discussed at length several times in the past already and nothing really new has surfaced in the meantime.

Though I will leave you with two figures pulled from Wikipedia:

In early 2011, Forbes reported that Steam sales constituted 50-70% of the $4 billion market for downloaded PC games and that Steam offered game producers gross margins of 70% of purchase price, compared with 30% at retail.[117]
In November 2011, it was revealed by the developer of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings that Steam was responsible for 200,000 of the 250,000 (80%) total online sales of the game.[121]

If GabeN says jump, the next words out of a Developers and/or Publishers mouth better be "how high" or they will miss out on much potential income.

In return, I'll link you to this article about the sale points. http://blog.tsai.co/2012/07/analysis-of-economics-behind-valve.html - And here's a snapshot of the sales of Garry's Mod over a period of six years, also from the same site. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E9-Zv1CM-G0/T_916VEjsYI/AAAAAAAAAn8/RVtbFaDb8pI/s1600/steamsales1.png

Note that it is bad for the developers and for the publishers, but not for consumers. This is not a monopoly problem, this is a DRM problem. The businesses making the goods have let their need for DRM create a situation in which they are highly dependent on a single distributor. This gives the distributor a disproportionate level of control over game prices and profit margins. (see, e.g. iTunes)

Now I think that the "stickiness" of steam is a problem for consumers (as it is with almost every online service of this sort, like gmail, facebook etc.). However, this stickiness is, again, entirely the product of the publisher/dev need for DRM.

Whether you have to use steam to play games is completely within the publisher's control. If publisher's didn't require DRM, then there would be plenty of ways to avoid steam dependence. Even if steam was putting its own DRM on games for which it wasn't otherwise required by publishers, it would be trivial for publishers to set up their own channels for the sale of games. With no need to pay themselves a 30% cut, they would have a fighting chance of undercutting steam prices. Or they could simply charge the exact price charged by steam and make more money.

 

[tuluse]

In return, I'll link you to this article about the sale points. http://blog.tsai.co/2012/07/analysis-of-economics-behind-valve.html - And here's a snapshot of the sales of Garry's Mod over a period of six years, also from the same site. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E9-Zv1CM-G0/T_916VEjsYI/AAAAAAAAAn8/RVtbFaDb8pI/s1600/steamsales1.png

This article is a great example of why no one should pay attention to economists.

"real life doesn't match my model, they should change real life"

 

[Angelo85]

Like other bros said ITT already, this has been discussed at length several times in the past already and nothing really new has surfaced in the meantime.

Though I will leave you with two figures pulled from Wikipedia:

In early 2011, Forbes reported that Steam sales constituted 50-70% of the $4 billion market for downloaded PC games and that Steam offered game producers gross margins of 70% of purchase price, compared with 30% at retail.[117]
In November 2011, it was revealed by the developer of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings that Steam was responsible for 200,000 of the 250,000 (80%) total online sales of the game.[121]

If GabeN says jump, the next words out of a Developers and/or Publishers mouth better be "how high" or they will miss out on much potential income.

In return, I'll link you to this article about the sale points. http://blog.tsai.co/2012/07/analysis-of-economics-behind-valve.html - And here's a snapshot of the sales of Garry's Mod over a period of six years, also from the same site. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E9-Zv1CM-G0/T_916VEjsYI/AAAAAAAAAn8/RVtbFaDb8pI/s1600/steamsales1.png

What you said about about the sales may be true, but you overlooked something: How much those versions sold for. The best Steam sales can be predicted down to the day, and are broadcast ahead of time. Knowing that, how do you know those units sold at the full $40 they do right now, or the discounted prices of $20 or even less? And you're also talking about online sales only. What makes physical sales not worth commenting on in the same stroke?

Anyway, the heavy discounts through Steam are only good if you intend for your product to be a loss leader. To intentionally lose you money to get more buyers. And I doubt CDProjeck Red is thinking that way about The Witcher 2. Unlike Valve can do with TF2 and DOTA.

Dear Agent Blowjob,

You must either be trolling in order to try to get us help you with writing for your MBA paper on Marketing, posting under the influence or you belong into Prosper's Funhouse.


What you said about about the sales [...]
I didn't say anything about the sales, I just quoted Wikipedia.


How do you know those units sold at the full $40 they do right now, or the discounted prices of $20 or even less?
I don't. As a matter of fact - I am speculating here, but stick with me on this one - my opinion is that a certain percentage of the units sold, have actually been sold during a Steam sale for less than $40. As sure as the remaining 50k units sold by other Digital Distribution Services probably are also stemming in part from discounted sales.


What makes physical sales not worth commenting on in the same stroke?
This Thread. It's about your question if Steam the Digital Distribution Service is approaching monopoly status. At least it was the last time I checked the Thread title. Physical and digital sales are quite different in many respects. What brings me to your next insight:


Anyway, the heavy discounts through Steam are only good if you intend for your product to be a loss leader.
You seem to be under the assumption that selling a game beneath the initial price is automatically always a loss. That might be partly true for the non-digital market, but in the digital market almost every sale of a unit is profit. Because the costs for getting a game on a virtual shelf in a virtual store are far less in comparison to the costs associated with the traditional distribution model. Getting the physical copy of a game onto the shelf in a real life store is in fact a big factor in the distribution costs.


To intentionally lose you money to get more buyers.
Distribution of physical copies and Marketing costs, I get that this is the angle where you are coming from, looking through the non-digital lense. But in the digital world a discount sale is actually not solely meant to lure customers into the virtual store to purchase other products. It's intended to "get the word out there" and actually sell the discounted title for a profit as well. Attracting more customers to the store in general in the process. This MO does not equal loosing money on every sale of the discounted product in this new Digital Market. On the contraty in fact, it's actually beneficial both ways. You receive more market recognition for your store, the products AND you don't loose out on money / make a loss in the process.

I could write more about the Marketing aspects and Digital Distribution Services or if it's profitable for a Publisher/Developer to have his game on sale in a digital store. For instance if the number of new buyers attracted to the discounted product are outweighing the number of buyers that would have paid fullprice but were inclined to wait for a sale instead.
But frankly, Agent Blowjob, I feel like you don't deserve my time for the reason stated at the beginning of this post. Also you should put some of your own effort into your homework :p

I don't want to insult your intelligence - so I assume this is not what you were getting at - but just in case someone is thinking everyone that doesn't pay full price and "snatches" a game while being discounted would have bought the game for the full price to begin with:
This assumption is questionable, debatable at best. What about the people that are not willing and/or not able to afford to shell out 40 bucks for any game, no matter how much they want it? Or the people that might be interested in the game but don't want to spend 40$ just to find out whether they indeed like the game or not? (A Demo is not enough for everyone). Then you got impulse buyers who see that shiny X% off tag and just can't resist but to make a purchase, even if they have never heard about the game before in their life. I know this sounds crazy but it's true. Just ask our resident bros Multi-headed cow or Bruticis


TL;DR: What applies to the physical market does not necessarily apply to the digital market. OP is troll, lazy dumbfuck or mentally challenged.

 

[Angelo85]

Jesus christ I just noticed I didn't copy and paste Agent Blowjob's last sentence, would have recognized the troll immediately

To intentionally lose you money to get more buyers. And I doubt CDProjeck Red is thinking that way about The Witcher 2. Unlike Valve can do with TF2 and DOTA.

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/1649...e_Team_Fortress_2_freetoplay.php#.UQdVg2enlZo

In June of 2011, Valve Software took its four-year-old online first-person shooter Team Fortress 2 and made it completely free-to-play - and ended up increasing revenues by a factor of twelve as a result.

With DotA Valve is going F2P right out of the bat, hoping to equal or surpass League of Legends in Usernumbers, generating profits with microtransaction from cosmetic items just like LoL does. If you don't know, LoL is a massive financial success.

 

[RK47]

*adds Angelo85 to his BROlist*

Luckily Bioware has a solution, as well as the good folks of EA - Origins is on the way to challenge Steam.
This would make a truly competitive digital distribution environment. I heard the latest SimCity didn't require Steam, how's that working out

- o wait.

 

[Metro]

Angelo is right: Only a troll or moron would argue Valve is 'taking a loss' on TF2 and DOTA2 by making them F2P. Complete misuse of the term. Harg is also right in that if publishers didn't use Steam they would probably just use some other form of DRM. Deep Silver use to use Tages. Hell, some even use DRM in addition to Steam.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

*adds Angelo85 to his BROlist*

Luckily Bioware has a solution, as well as the good folks of EA - Origins is on the way to challenge Steam.
This would make a truly competitive digital distribution environment. I heard the latest SimCity didn't require Steam, how's that working out

- o wait.

How about GoG then? Did anyone have such problems with their games?

 

[RK47]

Nonewhatsoever.
Gog sells game and you buy it and download it.
I love the extra stuff they gave away, Planescape OST for example.
But you gotta admit they suffer from lack of exposure - nobody camps Gog.com daily and browse for deals, for example.

I know I'm not the only guy being logged on Steam even when I'm not playing their games. Simply because it's easy to chat, share screenshot etc with the Steam client. Gog.com doesn't provide any of those community features that doesn't involve opening an extra browser tab.

Gog is good. They can get better. But the catch up game with Steam seems like a gargantuan task. The gap is too huge.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Nonewhatsoever.
Gog sells game and you buy it and download it.
I love the extra stuff they gave away, Planescape OST for example.

So, it speaks very badly of both Steam and Origin as game download services, doesn't it?

 

[RK47]

Nope.Steam doesn't succeed by selling game n just slapping DRM.
If that's all it takes then other online retailers would've overtaken them long time ago

 

[Destroid]

If you use steamworks DRM stuff do you get a better royalty rate from valve?

 

[Spectacle]

I really wonder what EA was thinking with Origin. If they really want to compete with Steam they need to make a service that's better than Steam in some way, not one that is even more annoying to use.

 

[AgentBJ09]

With DotA Valve is going F2P right out of the bat, hoping to equal or surpass League of Legends in Usernumbers, generating profits with microtransaction from cosmetic items just like LoL does. If you don't know, LoL is a massive financial success.

True, but the thing to keep in mind is LoL is the game which truly kicked off the free to play/supported by microtransaction trend. And they've built their loyalty over years of good service.

As for Valve on the other hand, you'll need Steam to run DOTA 2, and it won't cost anything to play. In direct sales terms, they are losing money by maintaining them, but it isn't just the microtransactions they can support the games with. It's also the Steam cash flow. And what does having the Steam client so close encourage you to do?

That's what I meant. They're both easy hooks into Steam, so despite costing money to maintain, just by existing the way they are, they'll provide profits to Valve. Not a bad system, although I can't imagine another company doing the same things and keeping afloat beyond a few years, unless that free to play game wasn't the only one to their name.

Angelo is right: Only a troll or moron would argue Valve is 'taking a loss' on TF2 and DOTA2 by making them F2P. Complete misuse of the term. Harg is also right in that if publishers didn't use Steam they would probably just use some other form of DRM. Deep Silver use to use Tages. Hell, some even use DRM in addition to Steam.

Misuse, maybe, but if you're depending on the DOTA/TF2 set-up to keep a game afloat, which is free content, patches, good matchmaking and micro-transactions, I have my doubts that another company aside from the LoL folks, could achieve the same ends that Valve does with just that game to their name.

They couldn't afford to do it. Those updates/hats/ect have to come from folks on the team who need to be paid, after all. In LoL's case though, they started the trend and earned their loyalty that way.

On your second point, there are Steam games that still have third party DRM, even to this day. Borderlands does, as does Postal 3 and a number of others. So, even though these companies are distributing with Steam, they're still adding an extra layer of DRM. Why, I don't know.

 

[tuluse]

So, it speaks very badly of both Steam and Origin as game download services, doesn't it?

Many Amazon downloads are the same, but as RK said, it's more than just a portal and DRM.

I really wonder what EA was thinking with Origin. If they really want to compete with Steam they need to make a service that's better than Steam in some way, not one that is even more annoying to use.

They were thinking "why give Valve 30% when we can have it for ourselves."

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Many Amazon downloads are the same, but as RK said, it's more than just a portal and DRM.

I don't know. I don't use Steam and Amazon downloads and Itunes and stuff like that.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Those updates/hats/ect have to come from folks on the team who need to be paid, after all.

Actually most new content added to TF2 now (And DotA2, apart from heroes of course. Talking hats and cosmetics (Hats aren't cosmetics (They are serious))) is player made and popular on Steam Workshop. Valve then gets in contact with the modeler, has them sign a contract, then takes something like 30%-60% of the money the item makes and sends the rest off to the person who made it.

 

[AgentBJ09]

Those updates/hats/ect have to come from folks on the team who need to be paid, after all.

Actually most new content added to TF2 now (And DotA2, apart from heroes of course. Talking hats and cosmetics (Hats aren't cosmetics (They are serious))) is player made and popular on Steam Workshop. Valve then gets in contact with the modeler, has them sign a contract, then takes something like 30%-60% of the money the item makes and sends the rest off to the person who made it.

I've seen that system in action. It's an interesting one, and I believe Blizzard is doing the same with HotS.

Although, Valve is one of those companies who can afford to do things like this. It's almost Omerta-like in a way. Control enough revenue streams and you can pretty much expand everywhere.

 

[Zewp]

I always find it curious when people complain that they have to use Steam to play certain games and I follow a policy where I prefer not to buy something unless it's on Steam. Steam just makes everything so, so much easier. I don't need to lug anything with me to play games. If I'm visiting someone and I get tired of inane babbling I simply load up Steam on my laptop, download a game and then I'm golden. Usually if you have an issue with Steam it's also pretty likely someone on the internet has already found a solution.

Steam is leaps and bounds ahead of competition in most aspects. The only thing that pisses me off is their shit offline mode. Jesus, it's been broken for years now and they still haven't bothered doing anything about it. Even Origin and uPlay have fully functional offline modes, yet Steam refuses to go into offline mode when there isn't an internet connection available.

 

[Infinitron]

AgentBJ09: "Valve is good? It's only because they're evil enough to be good!!"

Obvious shitposter is obvious, folks.

 

[AgentBJ09]

I always find it curious when people complain that they have to use Steam to play certain games and I follow a policy where I prefer not to buy something unless it's on Steam. Steam just makes everything so, so much easier. I don't need to lug anything with me to play games. If I'm visiting someone and I get tired of inane babbling I simply load up Steam on my laptop, download a game and then I'm golden. Usually if you have an issue with Steam it's also pretty likely someone on the internet has already found a solution.

Steam is leaps and bounds ahead of competition in most aspects. The only thing that pisses me off is their shit offline mode. Jesus, it's been broken for years now and they still haven't bothered doing anything about it. Even Origin and uPlay have fully functional offline modes, yet Steam refuses to go into offline mode when there isn't an internet connection available.

Here's the thing to keep in mind: As I've said already, that's making the assumption that Steam is a voluntary service. I.E., that you can elect to use or not to use it, or register an account with it, and still play most modern triple-A titles. Without the use of things like cracks, I should point out. You're assuming buyers have a choice in the matter beyond 'use it and stop complaining', or 'just don't buy these games.'

The fact that we're losing the right to do so as each year passes is why I've stopped using Steam, and started asking if Valve has a distribution monopoly with this service. Of course, games are unessential products anyway, so I can live with GOG and the occasional GamersGate Steam-free Paradox game. Even though I really want to support companies like Arkane who do make good stuff.

 

[RK47]