Valve hits back at EA over claim that Steam sales “cheapen intellectual property”
By Tim Colwill on July 12, 2012 at 5:32 pm
Back in June, EA’s David DeMartini claimed that Steam’s deep-discount sales “cheapen intellectual property”, and that Origin wouldn’t be having a bar of it. Valve’s business development chief Jason Holtman, however, says that the opposite is actually true, and that Valve wouldn’t slash 75% off their own titles if they felt it cheapened them.
“If we thought having a 75 per cent sale on Portal 2 would cheapen Portal 2, we wouldn’t do it. We know there are all kinds of ways customers consume things, get value, come back, build franchises. We think lots of those things strengthen it.”
DeMartini also claimed that deep discounts hurt long-term sales, another claim that Holtman refuted. “If we were somehow on a cycle where you could see (a negative impact), you wouldn’t see us repeating it. We wouldn’t repeat it with our own games. We wouldn’t repeat it with partner games. Partners wouldn’t want to repeat it.” With Steam’s summer sale rumoured to be just around the corner, consumers will no doubt be eagerly awaiting a chance to cheapen some more intellectual property.
Source: Eurogamer
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A ‘cheap game’ allows many more users than usual to experience it – handy if you have a catalog of games (portals/half-lifes/TFs), not so handy if its a once off like The Secret World.
There are always two sides to pricing, sell less units but charge more for each one, or sell more units at a cheaper price.
But honestly, i own about 200 games on steam now, exactly 0 of which i bought when they were full price.
Oh my god people buy things when they are on sale? oh the horror!
Round 2,
FIGHT
Round the corner hopefully being tomorrow :D
darthlondar,
This article has gotten my hopes up. Hopefully you’re right!
Anno 2070 is over priced, i hope this IP makes the “secret” summer sale ;)
Only in a big pack if the leaked roadmap is to be believed…
darthlondar,
YOU WERE RIGHT! LEGEND!
if i feel a game is too expensive i wont risk the purchase. so when they have a sale, and i do buy that game, steam and their partners made more money off me than had they not reduced the price. Just like lordezekiel ive almost reached 200 games too now on steam. the vast majority were purchased as specials.
I don’t see why it would cheapen IP. People who really want the game will pick it up at full price, and the way some of these games are promoted will increase that amount. Then they put it on sale later, a whole boatload more people will buy it who didn’t the first time around. Then if it’s just a promotional sale, the price goes back up but now you’ve got a lot more people who can now promote how wonderful the game is and tell their friends they should get it. If they don’t get it at the sale price they might still purchase at full price. Everybody wins!
Hmm I only glossed over the titles but it seems a little disappointing this time around. (bought most of those on previous sales) Good thing I’m already flat-out broke anyhow… :(
funnily enough a few days after the EA guy made his comment’s the uk origin store a 50% off sale http://www.1up.com/news/origin-sale-hypocrisy
Sell fewer units, charge more.
Sell more units, by charging less.
The first option in my opinion is what’s wrong with big businesses. They’re too narrow minded.
Sell more units…. more players… more reviews… more feedback… larger communities.. more active forums… more mods…. more fan-pages…. and on and on.
Steam is popular not just because of the way it’s packaged it’s games and updates, but because of it’s fantastic sales. It hasn’t just made Steam popular, it’s made buying on-line PC games in general popular.
It’s like Apple with their iTunes store. People become addicted to buying lots of cheap items. They put less thought into spending $5 several times a month compared to a single large purchase of $50.
Too many shoddy games in the past have eroded gamer’s confidence in the old system of fully priced products. Fewer and fewer of us go out and buy a $90 product, after being burned several times in the past by over-hyped games. We want cheaper games now, and we’ll be less forgiving when we’re disappointed.
Maybe cheaper prices does cheapen intellectual property, but it also increases buyer confidence… which has suffered because of over-priced products in the past.
Steam Summer Sale has started!
Cheapened IP for all!
Love that EA have their games up with the sales tags on them… Head is saying ‘cheapen IP’ but their wallet is saying ‘more money’.