STEAM - Overlord Games 75% ($7.50)| Crysis 50% ($15)

[Faille]

I know it was already mentioned in the left4dead thread, but figured I would make it visible for people who don't read it and were thinking of buying.

[meStevo]

Interesting article about Valve's approach to piracy and some insight on how big of a bump they see in sales when the put items on sale:

Valve Exec Explains How To Compete With Piracy | Techdirt

[Caliane]

"The sales over the weekend were more than when the game launched. "

wow.

[Blank]

Originally Posted by Caliane

"The sales over the weekend were more than when the game launched. "

wow.

not entirely surprising IMO. The game seemed to get a lot of word of mouth after release (even shown on the 360 version) so when the sale comes along, it's basically a no brainer purchase at that point. Talk of a free update probably helped too.

[Caliane]

but over launch? at this point?
Its not even the first sale they've had on L4D.

That's still very impressive. And just awesome. L4D showing good games, PC games, low prices, etc sell well should turn alot of heads. And that's really good for gamers.
Crysis tanking, and L4D owning house is perfect.

[Galgor]

Originally Posted by http://www.edge-online.com

Games may be too expensive.

That is the message Valve Software President Gabe Newell gave the assembled developers at the annual DICE Summit on Wednesday. While the topic of his keynote was the game industry's transition from retail industry to service industry, he revealed sales data from Steam that suggests games are too expensive.

The reason why few have arrived at this conclusion is because you cannot easily experiment with pricing at retail, says Newell. But you can with Steam, Valve's burgeoning digital distribution platform.

On the PC-only Steam service, a wide range of prices are attached to games, and attractive weekend deals throw more pricing variability into the mix. Although Valve was initially afraid that volatility or variability in pricing would confuse or anger its customers--or even cannibalize retail sales--Newell says that was not all the case.

In fact, it dramatically increased sales. Illustrating his point, Newell showed the results of a Left 4 Dead promotion Valve ran last weekend, which cut the price of the game in half to $25. The discount (and promise of new content for the game) rocketed sales of the game on Steam by 3,000 percent.

"We sold more in revenue this last weekend than we did when we launched the product," says Newell. "We were driving a huge uptick in revenue and attracting new customers." And while people believe that we're "screwing" retail, Newell showed that brick-and-mortar sales were unaffected by the online discount.

This phenomenon is not limited to Valve games. Over the holidays, Steam discounted third-party titles. Sales increased 300 percent and units-sold increased by 600 percent.

Still skeptical? Newell said that a weekend sale of one third-party title drove that game's sales up by 18,000 percent and units-sold increased 36,000 percent. It energized the user base, says Newell. When the sale ended, baseline sales were double what they were prior to the weekend discount.

Discounting games does not only increase unit sales--it increases actual revenues. During the 16-day sale window over the holidays, third-parties were given a choice as to how severely they would discount their games. Those that discounted their games by 10 percent saw a 35% uptick in sales--that's dollars, not units. A 25 percent discount meant a 245 percent increase in sales. Dropping the price by 50 percent meant a sales increase of 320 percent. And a 75 percent decrease in the price point generated a 1,470 percent increase in sales.

The conclusion: The games industry is not pricing its products correctly. It's only through the experimentation that such services as Steam allows will the industry be able to find the golden ratio of price and sales. As Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences President Joseph Olin concluded Wednesday night, this is going to generate a lot of controversy about pricing.

Impressive data. I'm glad they're releasing this stuff. Maybe dev's will start to see the light.

[Hatorade]

I would buy a ton more games if they were all priced at 20bucks or so that is for sure. Pretty sure I have bought every indie game I have pirated because they are only 10-25bucks.

[meStevo]

Originally Posted by Galgor

Impressive data. I'm glad they're releasing this stuff. Maybe dev's will start to see the light.

And some execs at MS and other places with similar services are wondering 'why isnt Live Arcade for Windows up yet?'

[Darus Grey]

Publishers and Developers have known that $10-$20 games are more profitable for nearly two decades. The fact that the market hasn't brought this reality to bear means Publishers see it in their best interest to keep margins low and game prices artificially high...why I don't know.

My guess is it limits the number of publishers to compete against by requiring such high resources to be competitive.

[Malakie Torsade]

I'm so glad a big developer came out with this. Other developers constantly blaming piracy for their poor sales is getting really old. Obviously pirating does hurt sales but it's usually grossly overblown. For example, the developers of World of Goo said that the game experienced a 90% piracy rate. Really? How do you figure that? No, looking at demonoid and counting seeds/leechers doesn't mean shit. I highly, highly doubt that those guys are hurting at all.

Anyone with a clue realizes that DRM is not the answer. I agree with the Valve exec in that it not only doesn't increase sales, it decreases them. I've specifically not purchased software that went overboard with it (hi2u Spore.) Pirate groups will ALWAYS find a way around it barring specific cases (MMO's, etc.) Why piss off paying customers for no positive end?

Unfortunately, nothing will change. Companies will continue to churn out mediocre games and poorly done console ports. They'll load them up with bloated, ineffective DRM nonsense, refuse to adequately support them with patches and SDKs, then wag their finger at those terrible pirates.

[Hatorade]

I actually bought World of Goo twice(online and hardcopy for a friend) to show the support for the awesome game.

[Genjiro]

Yep I got it finally with the price drop, and it has been worth the money. Bravo.

[Faille]

bump for the new offer, 75% off Lost Planet.

[XadionDarkborn]

is lost planet...any good? I remeber thinking its trailer was quite cool

[Blank]

Originally Posted by XadionDarkborn

is lost planet...any good? I remeber thinking its trailer was quite cool

I didn't like it. Mech parts were very hit or miss IMO. Knock down was also extremely obnoxious... wasn't uncommon (for me anyway) to get knocked down -> slow getting up animation (you're invincible) -> knock down again.

Last mission was very silly. They basically give you an entirely new mech/control scheme... I hate when games do that. Multiplayer is worthless.