Game prices

Chorcai

I was in HMV I think about 2 weeks ago, spotted this...



Make up ur mind, also on Steam its 49.99 or 59.99.

L4D2 HMV 25€ Steam 49.99.

Joke.

RobertFoster

Steam have always been more expensive for non-sale items. HMV tend to be pretty wonky with games too. I think it's the place only where shopping around means looking at another box or shelf.

ScumLord

I don't understand how Steam can justify charging them prices and I don't know how anyone could be fool enough to pay them.

gizmo

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't understand how Steam can justify charging them prices and I don't know how anyone could be fool enough to pay them.

Because contrary to popular belief, bandwidth isn't free.

Also, unlike larger retailers, they don't get the benefits of discounts associated with bulk orders which is another reason why you'll commonly see games selling for their RRP upon release.

death1234567

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't understand how Steam can justify charging them prices and I don't know how anyone could be fool enough to pay them.

Me either . I guess some people are too lazy and just get everything downloaded through steam

Polar101

death1234567 wrote: »

Me either . I guess some people are too lazy and just get everything downloaded through steam

I value my time and don't necessarily want to wander around in random stores to buy something that might not be there. If I can get what I want from Steam right away, I think €5 or €10 extra can be good value for that. If I'm not in a hurry to get a game, then I'll just order online where the price is good.

landsleaving

gizmo wrote: »

Because contrary to popular belief, bandwidth isn't free.

Also, unlike larger retailers, they don't get the benefits of discounts associated with bulk orders which is another reason why you'll commonly see games selling for their RRP upon release.

They do avoid the cost of packaging and store rent, so I'd say it balances out a fair bit. I'd agree with the argument that they know some people won't go to a shop, especially since they barely sell pc games anymore and you've to pay bus/train/petrol to get there anyway.

ScumLord

You can buy a retail game online and have it next day delivered.

I do like that you have the licences linked to you (sucks when you can't get access to that account anymore and they won't answer any of your emails) and you can just redownload them when you want, but the fact is someones taking the piss there. They have little to none of the overheads other businesses have so it shouldn't cost as much as it does.

Who owns steam anyway? I thought it was in league with a game maker company? I don't see why they don't get the benefit of discounts when they're owned by the people making the games.

degrassinoel

ScumLord wrote: »

Who owns steam anyway? I thought it was in league with a game maker company? I don't see why they don't get the benefit of discounts when they're owned by the people making the games.

Valve if i'm not mistaken.

gizmo

Valve operate Steam and sign distribution deals with other publishers so that their titles are also on the service. The games that are usually hilariously priced are those from the third-party publishers/developers whereas the Valve games themselves are always fantastic value for money.

The Orange Box like, 'nuff said.

chin_grin

Another thread on it here.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055831008

tman

gizmo wrote: »

Valve operate Steam and sign distribution deals with other publishers so that their titles are also on the service. The games that are usually hilariously priced are those from the third-party publishers/developers whereas the Valve games themselves are always fantastic value for money.

The Orange Box like, 'nuff said.

That's not really accurate though, even their own games are overpriced. L4D2 was quite ridiculously overpriced on steam at launch, but was £15 from Amazon (haven't even played it yet:o)

Orange box was a once off piece of unbelievable value

marco_polo

I remember reading somewhere that the margins per game for publishers are extremely high on Steam when compared to retail margins. However in fairness to Valve, as far as I know it is the third party publishers that have the final say on pricing strategies, and as somebody else has pointed out values own games tend to be reasonably enough priced.

No doubt Valve themselves would like the prices of other studios games to be lower, as then even more people would be using Steam. This is unlikely to be a pressing concern for the third party distributors though, some are even extremely reluctant to sell their games on Steam because they view it as a competitors service.

Antar Bolaeisk

The major problem I have with Steam is the fact that it's screwing us poor Euro zone people, if we were paying in Sterling then we would be getting cheaper prices. For example;





There are some descrepancies where the Euro prices are cheaper like the current indy game offer and Warhammer but for the most part Sterling generally offers a significant saving over the euro with extremities such as Alien vs Predator only being 55% of the Euro cost when priced in Sterling.

For this there should be no excuse and is the reason I always ask a friend abroad to gift me the game.

At the end of the day buying a game is just like everything else, you should shop around and spend your money where you feel you are getting the best value for it.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Steam have always and will always be a joke... I hope they go under

Chorcai

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

The major problem I have with Steam is the fact that it's screwing us poor Euro zone people, if we were paying in Sterling then we would be getting cheaper prices. For example;

There are some descrepancies where the Euro prices are cheaper like the current indy game offer and Warhammer but for the most part Sterling generally offers a significant saving over the euro with extremities such as Alien vs Predator only being 55% of the Euro cost when priced in Sterling.

Wasn't there talk about some EU action, stepping in on grounds of unfair trading/pricing or something to that effect. I remember seeing some monster thread on Steam forums about $ v € v £ but nothing much came of it.

Antar Bolaeisk

Emmett Nervous Reversal wrote: »

Steam have always and will always be a joke... I hope they go under

Steam are probably the single best thing for PC gaming at the moment, I find their service to be brilliant and am quite partial to their regular weekend and week day deals. All they really need to do is sort out their pricing and then they'll have the perfect platform. I just don't understand how you could want them to go out of business, would you rather companies like Activision leading the way instead?

Chorcai wrote: »

Wasn't there talk about some EU action, stepping in on grounds of unfair trading/pricing or something to that effect. I remember seeing some monster thread on Steam forums about $ v € v £ but nothing much came of it.

Yeah, there's a 500 page long thread in there but how anyone could actually read a single page of it without going insane is beyond me. The vast number of people on that forum seem to be well represented by the smilies in use

wayne040576

There was an article about this a few months back on one of the Stardock blogs. Brad wardell mentioned the trouble that stardock had with the pricing of some of the games Demigod in particular. They wanted the game to be the same price worldwide. He claimed they got a lot of trouble from EU retailers who wouldn't stock the game if the digital version was priced the same as the boxed version.
I've seen this excuse before but we'll never know if it's true until digital distribution becomes the only way to buy games.

Chorcai

wayne040576 wrote: »

There was an article about this a few months back on one of the Stardock blogs. Brad wardell mentioned the trouble that stardock had with the pricing of some of the games Demigod in particular. They wanted the game to be the same price worldwide. He claimed they got a lot of trouble from EU retailers who wouldn't stock the game if the digital version was priced the same as the boxed version.
I've seen this excuse before but we'll never know if it's true until digital distribution becomes the only way to buy games.

I can understand digital downloads been the same price worldwide, a bricks n mortar shop has X amount of over heads so it would cost a bit more to buy a game from there. Steam should be leading the way and reduce it's prices.

I would have got BF:BC2 via Steam but the chances are that in a shop it will be cheaper. COD4:MW & COD:WaW is still €49.99 !!

kearneybobs

The whole bogey pricing on Steam started exactly when the decided to introduce the Euro onto Steam. Games which would have costed about €35/€40 (bought in $ on Steam) before the introduction of the €, are now costing €50. Overnight most of the games jumped in price and suddenly became a ripoff. Complete and utter ripoff.

When they introduced the € on Steam in December '08, they basically just removed the $ sign from the number and slapped a € infront of it, and said there you go! They completely ignored the prices that customers had been paying for their games before, disregarded currency exchange rates and said, hope you like the new inflated price.
Prices differences across the three main regions differ greatly on Steam with the £ sometimes equalling the €/$ which is just madness. But this type of thing usually happens on Weekend Deals. It's as if the customer wont notice that they are charging £9.99/€9.99/$9.99 for a game. You can even see that there is a tiered system across Europe. See the link below to get the price comparison script.

Chorcai wrote: »

I remember seeing some monster thread on Steam forums about $ v € v £ but nothing much came of it.

Here's that thread from the Steam Forums that you have mentioned.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=770231
Contributed to it myself a couple of times. To be honest, I wouldn't bother even trying to read through any of it. A large portion of it is full of petiness, flaming and off topic. Partly because some of the mods over in the Steam Forums like to think of it as a dumping ground for any thread that pops up about the Euro pricing. They usually close that thread and dump it into the "Looks like $1 = €1 after all" thread which has 7,500 posts, 892,833 page views and not one word from Valve, a company that seems to pride themselves on knowing what the customer wants from a digital download service and apparently is giving the customer what they want.
People have been banned over that thread and still not a single Valve rep has come into the thread to help calm the situation down, put the customers mind at ease, or even try to begin to explain the outrageous pricing structure they now have on Steam in the EU.

I no longer look to Steam for buying my games on a weekly basis. It just isn't worth it. No way. Especially when I can get the games €15 cheaper online and in retail stores. Who in their right mind would pay €50 for a PC game? Let alone €60 for some. Especially when you know that the Americans are paying $50.

There is a neat little script that can be installed (with greasemonkey) that compares the prices across the EU/UK/US and outputs % difference, so you can see how much you are being ripped off by.
Here it is.
http://steamunpowered.eu/comparison-script/

Chorcai wrote: »

I would have got BF:BC2 via Steam but the chances are that in a shop it will be cheaper. COD4:MW & COD:WaW is still €49.99 !!

Got myself BF:BC2 LE on Gamersgate for £30. Of course it would have been nice to get it on Steam but at €49.99, no thanks.
I like Steam......as a platform. Not as a shop to buy games. And until the games are competitively priced, and priced sensibly I don't think that I will be buing any full price games there. Shame!

Overheal

From what I recall the EU Steam issues stem from existing Price Agreements with the Brick and Mortars, like HMV, Gamestop, GAME, etc. And even Valve doesnt set the RRP on its own titles (in Retail Stores): They're distributed by EA.

Competition laws being what they are in the EU I dont think you will see it change quickly, not at the risk of a Lawsuit a la Microsoft. All you can do is buy them in the shops and add some of the serials to Steam.

As for the Forums: no message board is really going to work well at trying to help 250 Valve employees communicate with 25+ million users. Thats 100,000 Users Per Employee. How many People we got Administrating Boards? Not including the army of Volunteer Moderators.

Its just not at all an effective platform to express your grievances with the company: Write them a letter instead where you at least might get read when you arent sandwhiched between 50 flame posts.

Chorcai

briankearon666 wrote: »

Got myself BF:BC2 LE on Gamersgate for £30. Of course it would have been nice to get it on Steam but at €49.99, no thanks.
I like Steam......as a platform. Not as a shop to buy games. And until the games are competitively priced, and priced sensibly I don't think that I will be buing any full price games there. Shame!

Went into gamestop today BFBC2 39.99. Thought I was going to get it but the girl behind the counter was like sorry come back tommrrow :mad: (release date 5th/Mar)

I think games will sooner rather than later become download only for PC's, both gamestop + HMV are stocking less and less each time I go in. I guess this is my issue with Steam and how they just changed their $ sign for a € sign and as pointed out BrianK, we are ment to be happy with it and pay it as well !

It just looks like they are shooting themselves in the foot, consoles are getting bigger each month, one would think steam which caters for PC gamers would lead the way, 25million accounts thats ALOT of buying power.

Gunmonkey

Chorcai wrote: »

I think games will sooner rather than later become download only for PC's, both gamestop + HMV are stocking less and less each time I go in. I guess this is my issue with Steam and how they just changed their $ sign for a € sign and as pointed out BrianK, we are ment to be happy with it and pay it as well !

It just looks like they are shooting themselves in the foot, consoles are getting bigger each month, one would think steam which caters for PC gamers would lead the way, 25million accounts thats ALOT of buying power.

Oh its not just PC games, was checking the Assassins Creed 2 DLC on PSN, was $6.99 on the USA I think but then €6.99 over here, which is over $10.....just nuts to be honest, there is no other wayto get it on PS3, so no competition to worry about. Just makes me wonder sometimes :rolleyes: .

Chorcai

Gunmonkey wrote: »

Oh its not just PC games, was checking the Assassins Creed 2 DLC on PSN, was $6.99 on the USA I think but then €6.99 over here, which is over $10.....just nuts to be honest, there is no other wayto get it on PS3, so no competition to worry about. Just makes me wonder sometimes :rolleyes: .

It will be interesting alright, people disposable income is either none or very very little. I went from buying maybe 2/3/4 games a month to my last game I bought was L4D2 and even at that it was out for a good while already, shop bought & on sale !

mayordenis

Valve who own Steam don't set the prices of games they sell, they might have some say in the weekly special deals and that sort of thing but it's the developers and publishers who set the prices.

to Iamxavier, maybe throw up a reasoned debate for why you "hope they go under" as they've brought a huge amount to PC gaming over the last 5 or so years,

I stop short of saying they are keeping PC gaming afloat but bar MMO's they pretty much are.

ScumLord

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

Steam are probably the single best thing for PC gaming at the moment, I find their service to be brilliant and am quite partial to their regular weekend and week day deals. All they really need to do is sort out their pricing and then they'll have the perfect platform. I just don't understand how you could want them to go out of business,

Because they ripped me off and their customer service is up there with Eircoms although I can get to speak to someone from Eircom eventually so I guess Steams is worse.

Fnz

mayordenis wrote: »

Valve who own Steam don't set the prices of games they sell, they might have some say in the weekly special deals and that sort of thing but it's the developers and publishers who set the prices.

Regardless, prices in the EU Steam stores are unconscionable, from a fairness perspective.

Overheal

ScumLord wrote: »

Because they ripped me off and their customer service is up there with Eircoms although I can get to speak to someone from Eircom eventually so I guess Steams is worse.

How did they rip you off? We're not talking about a Monopoly or anything here. And thats really the whole point I was raising above: They've done nothing to rip you off; only to shoot themselves in the foot.

You want a rip off: Live in an area with only one Servicing ISP - They'll leverage you for every red cent they think you have on The Table.

mayordenis

Fnz wrote: »

Regardless, prices in the EU Steam stores are unconscionable, from a fairness perspective.

I agree I don't shop there really anymore bar the odd massive sale.

But I would guess that the conversation went something like this

EA/Activision/Ubi etc. "Hey Valve we need to talk"
Valve "Cool wassup?"
EA/Activision/Ubi etc. "Well we're not making full retail on our games in europe, it's affecting retail in shops across europe so we need to get it inline with retail."
Valve *Bend over because we have no choice*
EA/Activision/Ubi etc. "Cool thanks, that was fun, switch the $ to a €"

It provides publishers and developers with
a. Extra money
b. No PC retail meltdown in the EU
c. Probably provides a boost:

Average punter enters game, was interested in new title but at €49.99 on Steam it seemed a little steep, but in retailer it was only €39.99 wow that seems a fantastic deal I'll definately buy, look how much I'm getting for a tenner less, a Box, a disc, some wankey plushy, a talk with the cashier and the very same CD KEY.
It sounds stupid but it's a fairly basic selling point, even in normal retail take Heavy Rain's release last week, Standard Version €49.99 Super de-duper Special Edition €49.99, this turns a prospective buyer of the normal edition into a full definite purchase of the "Special" edition, as it just seem like too good a deal to walk past.

Steam at the end of the say don't have too much a say in any of this unless they were to turn around and say "FU ACTI****" but they can't from a business perspective, they can't come across as hard to work, they can't come across as unprofessional.

There is one point I can't overly defend them on and that's their on 1st party Valve games being more expensive than retail, but knowing a bit about valve they've always had their player best interests in mind, just look at the discounted 4 packs for L4D and L4D2 - and the very excellent sale prices that crop up very few days.

mayordenis

By the way, right now on steam Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is going for the princely sum of €6.99 - I would wager a relatively new game (6 month) which was also a fairly big anticipated release will be hard to come by cheper.

Burgo

mayordenis wrote: »

By the way, right now on steam Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is going for the princely sum of €6.99 - I would wager a relatively new game (6 month) which was also a fairly big anticipated release will be hard to come by cheper.

It's only that cheap due to the fact its awful.