🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 25 Jun 2017 06:22:51 -0400, Xocyll <Xoc...@gmx.com> wrote:

>rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Ross Ridge) looked up from reading the
>entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
>say:
>
>>I think this is going to be model for at least the near term.  My guess is
>>that Valve determined the flash sales and activities and things weren't
>>really working. 
>
>Not working or simply not making maximized profit to fund Gabe's
>Cheeseburger addiction?

They weren't working for the publishers. The flash sales got them more
purchases, but with less profit from each. Crunching the numbers, they
realized that they regular price or smaller discounts - while
garnering fewer sales - resulted in (slightly) more dosh. So they
petitioned Steam and, well, no more flash sales.

The flash sales were probably far more beneficial to Valve, if only
because it attracted more attention to their storefront. Now that
everybody and his dog buys from Steam, there's little need to offer
such steep financial incentive to potential customers; they're coming
regardless if the discount is 5% or 95%. 

Then again, Steam's competitors are fast becoming viable alternatives
- I buy a lot more from key-resellers (BundleStars, HumbleBundle, et
al) or other storefronts (GOG, Origin) than I do from Steam these
days. I use the Steam client for its functionality - game launcher,
social media, quick way to get reviews on potential purchases - but
rarely spend money through Valve's storefront.  While I may at the
moment be in the minority, I have little doubt that the number of
people looking to cheaper games will grow, and that Valve will
eventually start offering sharper discounts again in hopes of luring
back lost customers.

Personally I also think that the initial assumptions on the benefits
(or lack thereof) of flash sales to the publisher were also short
sighted. Yes, the sale itself didn't drag vastly enrich their coffers
for that game, but the sale did enable more people to buy the
product... which meant more people were talking about it, which
prompted other people to buy even when the game wasn't at a
substantial discount. A Flash sale of game "A" probably also spurred
purchases of related games "B","C", and "D", though those too might
not have been on significant discount (e.g., "Well, while I'm grabbing
GTA5 at a huge mark-down, I might as well pick up GTA3,VC,SA and GTA4
just to round out my collection.") It's also an easy to way for a
publisher to generate good will from his customer base. Unfortunately,
these sorts of benefits are really hard to graph on a spreadsheet.