Steam, Origin, Epic, Twitch, Good*, *Games Sales [2007-2021]

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i got 15% code for Origin discount, anyone want?

i cant redeem it because i dont have credit card so i cant buy game from origin, so anyone who want to get it feel free to ask me.
 
I'm thinking of picking up L.A. Noire for 12,49€. Any DRM problems?

So I finally bought this one a week or two ago...and then finally got around to installing it and...it won't run. Nevermind the error, the point of this post is that Rockstar has a fix for me!

Completely uninstall all anti-virus software!!

So tell me, is this Rockstar's trip down Sony DRM lane? I realize that AV software isn't as important as it used to be, but sheesh!
 
Hmm I kinda thought about that game, good to know I should skip it. Steam is DRM, why do we need more piled on?
 
Off Topic:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/edit...e-computers-rewarding-players-and-whether-w/2

Gabe said:
We tend to try to avoid being super dictatorial to either customers or partners. Recently I was in a meeting and there’s a company that had a third party DRM solution and we showed them look, this is what happens, at this point in your life cycle your DRM got hacked, right? Now let’s look at the data, did your sales change at all? No, your sales didn’t change one bit. Right? So here’s before and after, here’s where you have DRM that annoys your customers and causing huge numbers of support calls and in theory you would think that you would see a huge drop off in sales after that got hacked, and instead there was absolutely no difference in sales before or after. You know, and then we tell them you actually probably lost a whole bunch of sales as near as we can tell, here’s how much money you lost by bundling that with your product.

I like Gabe.
 
I'm not particular sure he has much of a point there? Considering that some games are released by non-"scene" groups prior to release date by cracking Steam Pre-Load games, he has a bit of a vested interest in downplaying the effects of piracy. And for games without Steam Pre-Load most are cracked on launch day or shortly thereafter. And then you have the online only games and games with cleverer anti-piracy measure (Serious Sam: BFE with the invincible monster for example) which may either take a while or never get cracked.

But either way there's not a lot of pre-DRM/post-DRM data to go by. As any game which goes a significant amount of time without a crack is in the minority. He'd have had a better argument by stating that DRM doesn't do much to deter determined pirates since it is inevitably cracked (in most cases). Hence, even for the games that take a while to get a crack, determined pirates will just wait. So in essence it really only deters casual pirating. And since determined pirates will wait for the crack anyway, it isn't going to influence pre/post DRM sales numbers significantly.

Of course, since Valve has no money invested (they release 1 game a year or so?) and hence no need to recoup developement costs for virtually all games sold on Steam, piracy won't impact them. It's not a case of potentially losing money and going out of business or potentially making money and making another game. For Valve as a software reseller, it's only the difference between X dollars and X+Y dollars.

And if you look at companies attempting to avoid DRM (CD Projekt Red Studio for example), you'll notice they are still trying to find a way to deal with the very real problem of piracy, even going to some rather drastic and potentially even more customer alienating measures in order to try to reduce it's impact. Although once the mob with pitchforks and torches appeared on their forums they backed off on that one line of anti-piracy measures.

And at the end of the day. What most PC companies are figuring out is that if you want to reduce the effects of piracy in order to make a decent profit you have to stop being PC only. Hence all major PC developers who aren't on console yet, are scrambling to get onto consoles.

Regards,
SB
 
some games are released by non-"scene" groups prior to release date by cracking Steam Pre-Load games
Could be a stupid question but has that actually ever happened?
And at the end of the day. What most PC companies are figuring out is that if you want to reduce the effects of piracy in order to make a decent profit you have to stop being PC only.
... or they could start asking decent price for their games, especially if it's in DD form. There is absolutely no reason why a retail game should cost as much as DD when the latter has nearly zero cost for production and distribution.
 
Could be a stupid question but has that actually ever happened?

Yes, just recently a working copy of Kingdoms of Amalur was released by a non-"scene" group days before release date using the Steam Preload. It couldn't have been from a physical copy attained prior to release as all physical copies are registered via Origin and not Steam.

There is absolutely no reason why a retail game should cost as much as DD when the latter has nearly zero cost for production and distribution.

One word, Retail. As long as publishers still sell physical copies of games at retail then they have to sell DD copies at a similar MSRP.

Regards,
SB
 
Yes, just recently a working copy of Kingdoms of Amalur was released by a non-"scene" group days before release date using the Steam Preload. It couldn't have been from a physical copy attained prior to release as all physical copies are registered via Origin and not Steam.
Interesting. I would have thought Steam uses some half-decent encryption algorithms making it impossible. If I were to guess I'd say it's possible that someone just leaked the game data internally. That has definitely happened before. Though this is just a guess with absolutely no solid proof obviously.
One word, Retail. As long as publishers still sell physical copies of games at retail then they have to sell DD copies at a similar MSRP.
Yes, I know why they do it. I'm just saying this reason it's utterly stupid and only costs the developer/publisher lost sales and ultimately higher profits :)
 
Interesting. I would have thought Steam uses some half-decent encryption algorithms making it impossible. If I were to guess I'd say it's possible that someone just leaked the game data internally. That has definitely happened before. Though this is just a guess with absolutely no solid proof obviously.

That's that's entirely likely. Either that or the keys used for encrypting pre-loads have been leaked to some people who are keeping it mum so they can get bragging rights for being the first to crack a game.

Yes, I know why they do it. I'm just saying this reason it's utterly stupid and only costs the developer/publisher lost sales and ultimately higher profits :)

Yeah, I agree. But until physical sales are no longer relevant it's an unfortunate situation we have to live with. On the plus side, the added revenue of DD sales should help offset the effects of things like piracy and those lost sales during intial launch of people who don't want to pay 50-60 USD.

I'd love it if physical sales just mostly died. Heck with Steam you can already use Steam to backup game files, then give those to a friend. He can buy the game via Steam, restore those backups and avoid having to download the game. That helps significantly with people who have data caps or slow internet speeds.

Regards,
SB
 
I am not entirely convinced if retail went away that we'd see prices drop. They still sell bazillions of copies at $60 via DDL and I think it's likely easy to condition the masses to a certain price point for the big games. Game companies have actually managed to indirectly increase the price of games with DLC stuff.
 
Yeah, I agree. But until physical sales are no longer relevant it's an unfortunate situation we have to live with.

Oh, you poor naive soul, I remember just before dd became a reality saying the same thing to people who were saying "since there are no duplicating and manufacturing costs games would be cheaper"
 
Oh, you poor naive soul, I remember just before dd became a reality saying the same thing to people who were saying "since there are no duplicating and manufacturing costs games would be cheaper"
When was the last time a relatively big-named game retailed at <$30? Quite a few have done that on DD.


Also, isn't it so that compared to DD only a tiny fraction of the end-user paid price reaches publishers-developers? They'd likely get higher margins from a DD at half the price vs retail.
 
When was the last time a relatively big-named game retailed at <$30? Quite a few have done that on DD.
On the other hand, Skyrim was $10 more than Oblivion (which had no DDL option). EA has most of their PC games at $60 now. Dead Space 1 was $40 at retail, Dead Space 2 was $60 DDL.

I can remember a few of the new-ish 10% off launch "sales", but I'm not sure that games are becoming cheaper overall. PC retail barely exists anymore but prices are being determined by the console retail prices instead of DDL cost reduction. The smaller publishers and the self-publishers do seem willing to experiment with lower pricing. The giant publishers probably have studied their pricing and believe that they aren't losing sales - people will pay for their game brands.
 
I recently started buying retail again instead of digital. Not because I like a hard medium, just because the launch prices in retail channels over here can vary from 10 to 20 EUR cheaper than any digital medium. And that's quite steep.
 
Another problem with Steam's DD is that Steam uses the US price for Taiwan market, and that means it's much more expensive than normal retail price here.

For example, Skyrim is US$59.95 on Steam at release. At the same time, the street price for a physical media version (Windows version, console versions are generally more expensive) is about US$45 here, and that's a US$15 difference.

EA's Origin does have a local store selling at local price, so there shouldn't be a price difference. However, physical retail channels often sell a little cheaper than MSRP, so DD is still a little more expensive.
 
Physical product is often cheaper that DD
This highly depends on where you buy the physical product.

Steam does have some regions with half-decent prices. For example I know that stuff in Russia costs a TON less than everywhere else and according to their own words Russia is now one of their biggest markets in Europe.
 
its a global store open to everyone
"hello how much is skyrim"
"it depends where do you live"
"england"
"that will be $50"
"oops did i say england, I meant taiwan"
"oh, in that case its $45"
"no not taiwan i mean ethiopia"
"$20"
 
its a global store open to everyone
"hello how much is skyrim"
"it depends where do you live"
"england"
"that will be $50"
"oops did i say england, I meant taiwan"
"oh, in that case its $45"
"no not taiwan i mean ethiopia"
"$20"

Yes that sounds a lot like "Depends... How much money you got ?"
That's illegal in my country BTW, why should it be legal on Earth ?
Whomever you are, wherever you are, virtual goods should cost the same price.
 
Only if it's that simple. For example, many countries have different tax laws. VAT in Europe is generally much higher than other places, and that certainly going to make a difference in price. Processing fees can also be different in different countries. Other than VAT and processing fees, there are also different laws need to comply. Some countries require every game to be filed for examination (for age rating, for example), while some don't. Should you amortize the cost or not?

Cost problems aside, the basic economy rule is: you set the price to get maximum profit, not according to your cost or something. There's no rule saying because something is cheaper to make it should be sold cheaper.

I don't really care if Steam wants to continue its "the same price everywhere" policy (and apparently they do have a different price for some larger markets). As long as I can buy games from physical retail channels cheaper I'll continue to do that. It's, as I said, Steam's problem, not mine.
 
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