does Steam ever have sales on new games?

polonyc2

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like the title says, I know Steam is well known for having huge sales on older games but do they ever have such sales on relatively newer games (released within the past 3 months or so)?...Amazon and Newegg seem to discount newer games much quicker...is Steam contracted to only sell new games at retail?
 
Pre-orders on Steam are often discounted. But, yes, Steam will have sales on new games, probably depending on deals with the game publishers.
 
Not on AAA titles. EA, Ubisoft, Activision are notoriously for not having sales and competitive prices on steam. They can't get it through their THICK F*ING HEADS that we know they aren't paying shit for digital distribution and want us to believe we should pay retail prices for DD.

Most other publishers have gotten the message though. Capcom even discounts and has sales regularly.

So generally yeah you can expect new games to go on sale in a couple months after release, butif it's any of the publishers above don't hold your breath.
 
Not on AAA titles. EA, Ubisoft, Activision are notoriously for not having sales and competitive prices on steam. They can't get it through their THICK F*ING HEADS that we know they aren't paying shit for digital distribution and want us to believe we should pay retail prices for DD.

Most other publishers have gotten the message though. Capcom even discounts and has sales regularly.

So generally yeah you can expect new games to go on sale in a couple months after release, butif it's any of the publishers above don't hold your breath.

We got a Metro 2033 sale fairly quickly, IIRC.

But who needs the big AAA titles at full price when we get the holiday sales on the other 95% of games? One Xmas sale alone should create enough of a back log to last you until those AAA titles do go on sale.
 
*MW2, sir, would you please step out of the full-price-bus? You've been riding on your one-hour ticket for the whole week... And take your map-pack children with you, they're vomiting money all over the place"
 
We got a Metro 2033 sale fairly quickly, IIRC.

But who needs the big AAA titles at full price when we get the holiday sales on the other 95% of games? One Xmas sale alone should create enough of a back log to last you until those AAA titles do go on sale.

Last year we had Batman in a pack of a dozen or so games for $50. I had almost none of the games, so it was a great bargain.

But Batman, Mini Ninjas, Hitman series, Tombraider series, Battlestations series, Just Cause, Kane & Lynch.

For $50. These are arguably AAA titles, and they averaged somewhere around the $4 mark each in the Eidos pack.

This year, I am sure it will be back, and it will include JC2, SC2, KL2 and another TR game.

The holiday sales include the major releases. But some of these packs are only available once or twice a year for a very limited time.
 
Last year we had Batman in a pack of a dozen or so games for $50. I had almost none of the games, so it was a great bargain.

But Batman, Mini Ninjas, Hitman series, Tombraider series, Battlestations series, Just Cause, Kane & Lynch.

For $50. These are arguably AAA titles, and they averaged somewhere around the $4 mark each in the Eidos pack.

This year, I am sure it will be back, and it will include JC2, SC2, KL2 and another TR game.

The holiday sales include the major releases. But some of these packs are only available once or twice a year for a very limited time.

It'll be part of the Square-Enix pack this time. They had it on sale earlier this year. The Eidos pack no longer exists because Eidos no longer exists.
 
Last year we had Batman in a pack of a dozen or so games for $50. I had almost none of the games, so it was a great bargain.

But Batman, Mini Ninjas, Hitman series, Tombraider series, Battlestations series, Just Cause, Kane & Lynch.

For $50. These are arguably AAA titles, and they averaged somewhere around the $4 mark each in the Eidos pack.

This year, I am sure it will be back, and it will include JC2, SC2, KL2 and another TR game.

The holiday sales include the major releases. But some of these packs are only available once or twice a year for a very limited time.

Exactly.

Some of the games that get put on sale are all-time, great games. Take Deus Ex for example. That is as AAA as it gets, age aside. And then there are the merely good games. And then there are some that don't deserve to be bought, despite being on sale.

The point being that damn near every single one of them will go on sale. If not now, in 3 or 6 months.

Except for the brand new yearly release of Call of Duty or a few select others. And if you "have to play it right now," then the price of impatience is about $60.
 
Drawing a blank on metro 2033 I think I got it for $10? Ah nvm thats THQ. Yeah they have sales regulary which is a little annoying but thankfully I paid what I wanted for each game and did not get suckered into the $50 pack. It's a good deal but they add a game to the pack every so often and you always feel ripped off because you got the $50 before it was added.
 
I got titanquest gold for 5 dollars, and batman for 13.. And a long time ago I was able to get Metro for 12.50.

Is anyone else really looking forward to the xmas sales?
 
LOL @ the thought of people thinking steam doesnt have good prices.


Why do people think steam should be so much cheaper then retail stores? Retail should be cheaper, you get less...

Who pays for the bandwidth to let people download games anytime they want? Store game settings et cetera
Who pays for the servers to server out all that content to millions of users?
Who pays for the development of things like updates being automatically installed?

List goes on...
 
LOL @ the thought of people thinking steam doesnt have good prices.


Why do people think steam should be so much cheaper then retail stores? Retail should be cheaper, you get less...

Who pays for the bandwidth to let people download games anytime they want? Store game settings et cetera
Who pays for the servers to server out all that content to millions of users?
Who pays for the development of things like updates being automatically installed?

List goes on...

Exactly. Steam has excellent prices. Too many people feel they are entitled to a cheap price for every game.
 
Getting a sale on a title that has been released for less than 3 months is rare, but it does happen. Usually for the smaller/indie games but once in a while, the bigger games get discounts too. For example, SF4 was half off 2 months after release and Dirt 2 was half off 6 weeks after release.
 
For example, SF4 was half off 2 months after release and Dirt 2 was half off 6 weeks after release.

I think those titles being bundled with new video cards hurt their sales, driving them to reduce prices to try and increase sales.
 
LOL @ the thought of people thinking steam doesnt have good prices.


Why do people think steam should be so much cheaper then retail stores? Retail should be cheaper, you get less...

Who pays for the bandwidth to let people download games anytime they want? Store game settings et cetera
Who pays for the servers to server out all that content to millions of users?
Who pays for the development of things like updates being automatically installed?

List goes on...

doesn't really apply to my question...a lot of games nowadays require Steam to be installed (Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, New Vegas etc) so the fact that the retail version is cheaper then the Steam version makes no sense as they will ALL be using the Steam platform...so why can retail outlets charge a lower price?

a good example of this is Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2 which just came out...Steam is still charging the retail price of $39.99...Amazon started out at $39.99 but after the first week lowered the price to $29.99...why can't Steam lower their price now?...yes they will eventually drop their price to even lower then Amazon but why does it take 1 year to get that sort of sale?
 
Yes, and three months is about right.

At 3 months you're looking at 50 percent off. If you're not absolutely bonkers about gaming, like many of us here are, then you have a genuine reason not to buy any title on day one. Personally, I could never do it.

At six months we're talking 75 percent off.

The Christmas sale will see many truly great games selling for five dollars. That said, every now and then you have to wait quite a while for a game to go on sale. I still have not seen Risen on sale, for example.
 
yes they will eventually drop their price to even lower then Amazon but why does it take 1 year to get that sort of sale?

I can almost guarantee you it will be $20 or less on Steam during a sale by Jan 8th...
 
doesn't really apply to my question...a lot of games nowadays require Steam to be installed (Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, New Vegas etc) so the fact that the retail version is cheaper then the Steam version makes no sense as they will ALL be using the Steam platform...so why can retail outlets charge a lower price?

a good example of this is Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2 which just came out...Steam is still charging the retail price of $39.99...Amazon started out at $39.99 but after the first week lowered the price to $29.99...why can't Steam lower their price now?...yes they will eventually drop their price to even lower then Amazon but why does it take 1 year to get that sort of sale?

Because Steam(Valve) doesn't control Steam prices

BioWare sells 50,000 copies of SW:FU2 for $28 each to Amazon lets pretend, and sets the MSRP at $39.99, because its a retail copy and uses steam, there is most likely a small "licencing fee" included in the $28 cost that goes to Steam

Amazon makes a profit on anything ABOVE the cost they bought it at, and Amazon CONTROLS its own prices.

Steam on the otherhand handles no inventory, steam does not "buy" games from BioWare or EA, or THQ, or etc, rather BioWare sells the game DIRECTLY to you, and Steam takes a cut of the sale price(to cover their costs of hosting the game and make a bit of a profit).

Now thats not to say Steam(Valve) doesn't have SOME say in the pricing, as told most of the sales that Steam(valve) hold, ARE orgnized by steam, however despite the fact that they are orgnized by steam and steam can tell BioWare "we think you should sell the game for this much", ultimately BioWare has the final say,

Steam Store = Publisher sets pricing
Amazon/Retail = Store sets pricing

See the diffrence? It doesn't matter that the game might be a Steam game or not, because Steam does not have an inventory, steam does NOT RESALE GAMES, they do not buy inventory, thus they do not control their own prices.
 
Because Steam(Valve) doesn't control Steam prices

BioWare sells 50,000 copies of SW:FU2 for $28 each to Amazon lets pretend, and sets the MSRP at $39.99, because its a retail copy and uses steam, there is most likely a small "licencing fee" included in the $28 cost that goes to Steam

Amazon makes a profit on anything ABOVE the cost they bought it at, and Amazon CONTROLS its own prices.

Steam on the otherhand handles no inventory, steam does not "buy" games from BioWare or EA, or THQ, or etc, rather BioWare sells the game DIRECTLY to you, and Steam takes a cut of the sale price(to cover their costs of hosting the game and make a bit of a profit).

Now thats not to say Steam(Valve) doesn't have SOME say in the pricing, as told most of the sales that Steam(valve) hold, ARE orgnized by steam, however despite the fact that they are orgnized by steam and steam can tell BioWare "we think you should sell the game for this much", ultimately BioWare has the final say,

Steam Store = Publisher sets pricing
Amazon/Retail = Store sets pricing

See the diffrence? It doesn't matter that the game might be a Steam game or not, because Steam does not have an inventory, steam does NOT RESALE GAMES, they do not buy inventory, thus they do not control their own prices.

Aside from the obvious fact that Bioware has nothing to do with TFU, there is one problem with your post. Bioware is a developer, not a publisher.

Aside from that its a correct, if a bit simplistic way of looking at one reason prices are as they are.

Should also mention that Valve likely takes as much, or more, of a percentage of the sales as a retail store. At $30 Amazon is probably pretty close to selling at cost.

And, of course the reason stores can charge less than MSRP is because they pay for the games upfront and Valve pays the publisher per copy sold, so while theoretically they could charge under MSRP, they're still paying the publisher the same amount even if they charge less than what they pay.
 
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The idea that valve have no control over the pricing is total horseshit. They own the service and can dictate prices as they see fit, the chose to let developers pick their own price to sell at, if they were unhappy with prices, for example the large price difference between the US and EU/UK in games, then they could strong arm publishers into lower prices.

The fact is that steam handles a lot of sales and publishers cannot ignore these sales anymore, if Valve chose to they could simply deny developers access to publish games through steam if they refuse to use "fair" prices.

I like steam and use it as my primary source for buying games, but frequently it's cheaper to get launch day games elesewhere and while that remains the case I will by launch day games elsewhere. Steam have some amazing deals on older games. Most AAA games don't go into sales in the first 3 months though, the best you can hope for is either

A preorder discount
Some kind of bonus such as a free copy of some other gam
Package discount with a series of games such as orange box
4 packs on the occasional game
 
LOL @ the thought of people thinking steam doesnt have good prices.


Why do people think steam should be so much cheaper then retail stores? Retail should be cheaper, you get less...

Who pays for the bandwidth to let people download games anytime they want? Store game settings et cetera
Who pays for the servers to server out all that content to millions of users?
Who pays for the development of things like updates being automatically installed?

List goes on...

How about you put numbers next to your list so it actually has some meaning? Personally I still find it hard to believe digital distribution has the overhead of retail stores.

Who pays to stamp the disks.
Who pays to print all the manuals and covers.
Who pays to organise the products into pellets.
Who pays the transport in ships and trucks to get to the shop.
Who pays the rent of the shopfront. (maybe $30-100k a year in Australia, dunno about US prices)
Who pays the markup from the manufacturer to the retailer.
Who pays the shop keeper behind the counter to sell you the games. (maybe 30k per staff member per year).
 
I find it hard to believe that retail games work out cheaper that ones distributed digitally.

Bandwidth is fairly cheap if you buy in bulk, I also notice that a lot of steams servers are offset with advertising, at least it used to be, "this download was brought to you by X"
 
How about you put numbers next to your list so it actually has some meaning? Personally I still find it hard to believe digital distribution has the overhead of retail stores.

Who pays to stamp the disks.
Who pays to print all the manuals and covers.
Who pays to organise the products into pellets.
Who pays the transport in ships and trucks to get to the shop.
Who pays the rent of the shopfront. (maybe $30-100k a year in Australia, dunno about US prices)
Who pays the markup from the manufacturer to the retailer.
Who pays the shop keeper behind the counter to sell you the games. (maybe 30k per staff member per year).

Who pays to lease content servers?
Who pays for the other services aside from just games on Steam such as the forums and Steam Community and the bandwidth and servers for hosting those?
Who pays the developers, coders, and support staff for Steam?
Who pays the devs to repackage games and patches for Steam?

There is a lot more than that but I can't think of most of it probably. Just because the games are just 0s and 1s when they come thought Steam doesn't mean there aren't costs associated with redistributing the games through Steam and running Steam as a service.
 
Who pays to lease content servers?
Who pays for the other services aside from just games on Steam such as the forums and Steam Community and the bandwidth and servers for hosting those?
Who pays the developers, coders, and support staff for Steam?
Who pays the devs to repackage games and patches for Steam?

There is a lot more than that but I can't think of most of it probably. Just because the games are just 0s and 1s when they come thought Steam doesn't mean there aren't costs associated with redistributing the games through Steam and running Steam as a service.

Hence why I asked for *numbers*. Its fine to say you have to pay for servers and bandwidth and crap, but I find it hard to believe digital distribution could compete with the costs of keeping a handful of shop fronts running.

Who pays the coders and support staff of steam? Well I think all of steam could be run by a few people, which is probably true given the fact it takes them fucking forever to fix simple bugs (like why the fuck did BFBC2 just start downloading an update when I started steam when I've previously told it not to download updates).
 
what the heck is this thread about? you guys should realize that games = survival for a company. its up to them to determine how to market and sell the games. retail channels are different from electronic. in retail the game gets bought in bulk, tens of thousands of copies. Publisher gets paid based on this. Retailers can then do sales, promotions and mark downs as they wish. Electronic marketing is different. There is no up front block of sales. So from this perspective it does not make sense for a publisher to eat a loss while sales are still strong. Now tapering off sales, yeah, they can discount it then, or go with special steam sales weeks. Once sales have pretty much dried up then they can offer it as an incentive to buy other products. But all said the two channels are very different.
 
I am pretty sure the cost of running a digital distribution service is cheaper than running a brick and mortar retail store...
 
No, impulse buys on new games is where their highest profit margin is.
 
Who pays to lease content servers?
Who pays for the other services aside from just games on Steam such as the forums and Steam Community and the bandwidth and servers for hosting those?
Who pays the developers, coders, and support staff for Steam?
Who pays the devs to repackage games and patches for Steam?

There is a lot more than that but I can't think of most of it probably. Just because the games are just 0s and 1s when they come thought Steam doesn't mean there aren't costs associated with redistributing the games through Steam and running Steam as a service.

Running steam, such as support, are part of valves running costs and their profit is simply offset against that. The bandwidth is sponsored more often than not, valve also probably make a lot of money from people advertising their games on steam, that alone probably offsets most of their running costs.

IMO games should be cheaper on steam, sure you could technically download the same game over and over and rack up huge bandwidth bills but like broadband it's a subsidised service across the entire user base. Some people use it a lot for some games and other people may never download some of their games, I've not downloaded about 25% of my games ever!

Printing the discs and the manuals, packaging the goods together, shipping and then all the expenses involved with having them sit in a physical shop is a big cost to bare, I'd take an educated guess it's more expensive than digital distribution.
 
The idea that valve have no control over the pricing is total horseshit. They own the service and can dictate prices as they see fit, the chose to let developers pick their own price to sell at, if they were unhappy with prices, for example the large price difference between the US and EU/UK in games, then they could strong arm publishers into lower prices.
Valve has control, yes. They do not exercise it. It's hard to fault Valve for not attempting to "strong arm" publishers when their main goals are to successfully process payment, perform digital delivery and provide a mechanism for updates.
 
It's in valves best interest to promote their platform as much as possible, if publishers are selling games at £40 on steam and you can get them in stores at £25 that's a problem for valve because justifying that markup as a gamer is very hard.

One of the biggest reasons this has not been addressed yet because there is no good competition for valve (in terms of other digital distribution platforms), that's just a matter of time, then we'll see publishers take things like price and release dates a bit more seriously, especially as they start doing exclusive for certain platforms, just like what happens with certain B&M stores.
 
if publishers are selling games at £40 on steam and you can get them in stores at £25 that's a problem for valve because justifying that markup as a gamer is very hard.

exactly

every time a new game is released I always shop around to see who has the best price (usually between Amazon, Newegg and Walmart)...Steam ALWAYS seems to charge the retail price at launch so I almost never buy from them as I prefer to save a few bucks, buy retail and then attach it to my Steam account...so after the initial installation I always use Steam

that is a major issue that needs to be addressed by Valve as is that something they want most of their user base doing?...is the fact that Steam is the 'final' part of the chain all that matters to them and to hell with where the consumer initially buys the game from?

I would love to buy my games from Steam but they have to be able to charge a more competitive price at launch...the convenience factor alone is not enough for me
 
I rarely buy new release games anyway but when I do it's on Steam. It's worth the few extra dollars to keep a single game library that I can access from anywhere with automatic patching.
 
How about you put numbers next to your list so it actually has some meaning? Personally I still find it hard to believe digital distribution has the overhead of retail stores.

Who pays to stamp the disks.
Who pays to print all the manuals and covers.
Who pays to organise the products into pellets.
Who pays the transport in ships and trucks to get to the shop.
Who pays the rent of the shopfront. (maybe $30-100k a year in Australia, dunno about US prices)
Who pays the markup from the manufacturer to the retailer.
Who pays the shop keeper behind the counter to sell you the games. (maybe 30k per staff member per year).

The cost to stamp a game, put it in a package, and get to a store likely comes out to only around a couple dollars per disc. Its not a huge difference. So what you people are asking for is essentially $2-3 off per game. Not a hell of a lot of difference. And stores don't take as much profit from games as most people think. Movies, games, and music have a pretty shitty markup. A lot of electronics do actually.
 
Steam ALWAYS seems to charge the retail price at launch so I almost never buy from them as I prefer to save a few bucks, buy retail and then attach it to my Steam account...so after the initial installation I always use Steam
Perhaps that's exactly what publishers want. For what possible reason I can't say.
 
The first time I was shocked at how quickly a title went on sale at Steam was when they put Arkham Asylum on sale for, I think it was 33 percent off.

It was about one month after the title had been released. I just sat there blinking at the monitor.
 
It cost pennies in bandwidth to download the games. As for the servers ... that's not my problem. I'm not going to pay extra to build a store, I'm not going to pay extra for servers. There is also no box, no shipping, no employee's at the store. I understand Steam has employee's and servers and such, but at the very least it doesn't make sense that online services would cost more than retail. Plus, the game is essentially infinity duplicatable, which is a huge benefit over retail and all of the related cost I mentioned above. That's all savings that should be applied towards the cost. It's an investment and it means the store may go without making profit for many years to pay for building up the infrastructure (servers/employee's).

I expect online game purchases to be noticeably cheaper than retail. It is for everything else. I will refuse to pay full price or close to it for a game that I can't resell.
 
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It cost pennies in bandwidth to download the games. As for the servers ... that's not my problem. I'm not going to pay extra to build a store, I'm not going to pay extra for servers. There is also no box, no shipping, no employee's at the store. I understand Steam has employee's and servers and such, but at the very least it doesn't make sense that online services would cost more than retail. Plus, the game is essentially infinity duplicatable, which is a huge benefit over retail and all of the related cost I mentioned above. That's all savings that should be applied towards the cost. It's an investment and it means the store may go without making profit for many years to pay for building up the infrastructure (servers/employee's).

I expect online game purchases to be noticeably cheaper than retail. It is for everything else. I will refuse to pay full price or close to it for a game that I can't resell.

I hate repeating myself, but I will: You are essentially asking for $2-3 off per game because that is all the pressing, packing, and shipping is likely to add up to per disc and since Steam is effectively a retail store (e-tail if you want to be more precise) they are quite likely taking as much or more of a percentage as retail. You make it sound like there is some huge mark-up on games, there isn't.
 
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