I don’t like the DRM on Steam, but it’s not really bothering me Used games act as pricing pressure by allowing customers to go elsewhere. If you don’t like the price then you can’t go down the street and buy one cheaper. In my experience, it’s easier to find out about indie games, and it’s easier to buy them.īecause there is only one distributor. In the end I might have spent the same amount of money, as I would spend in a regular shop, but I end up with more games.Īnother thing that I like about Steam, is that they make indie games more accessible. For sure a better deal than in regular shops. However, I think that probably 90% of my Steam games was bought at 75% or 50% off. The standard price on Steam is similar as the price in regular shops.
I don’t like the DRM on Steam, but it’s not really bothering me, because Steam just works and I think it’s really easy and handy.Īside from that, they have regular sales on games, and if you can live with waiting a bit before getting the newest games, you can get big discounts on games. Why would a business model like Steam result in a market with less pricing pressure? Oh and thanks a lot Steam fans for cheering on a business model that results in a market with less pricing pressure. They won’t care and will laugh in your face when you ask where the retailer’s cut went. Black Ops 5 will be $75 everywhere and not transferable or worth any material value after purchase. We’re heading towards a future where Steam, Microsoft and Sony will have no reason to discount games. Steam has shown what I predicted would happen which is that they still sell digital games like Black Ops 2 for $60 and keep the difference. It would completely make sense that digital versions of games cost significantly less. Nowadays, digital publishing allows for much cheaper distribution and Steam has shown that this is a success. Retailers add to developer profits by advertising and distributing games. Games are expensive because of development costs, production and distribution are a minor factor. People are going to continue paying a lot for games whether they buy a physical or digital copy because how the game is delivered is the smallest piece of the puzzle. For albums where the digital version actually is cheaper, it isn’t by much - typically a couple bucks at most. Is an mp3 album significantly less than buying the physical cd? NO, and often times the digital version is more expensive. That is simply not where the bulk of the cost comes in so no, digital versions aren’t and won’t be significantly less.Īgain, retail packaging and distribution is not where the majority of cost comes from. You’re greatly over-estimating the cost of physical distribution. Couple that with MAP pricing and there you have your $59.99 retail price. Some cost an insane amount to make, some not so much.
Manufacturing full retail-ready packages is dirt cheap - literally a buck and some change. In any case, I think Valve is going the right way with Piston and I’m sure that model will be the doom of Sony and Microsoft. Until this changes, games will be expensive and people will have to resort to purchasing second hand goods. While the balance is shifting towards digital distribution, retail still accounts for the larger part of the income of Publishers. They boycotted the PSPGO for this reason, and would have happily boycotted Apple except for the fact they have their own retail stores. The problem is that retailers have made very clear that they won’t sell physical goods if a digital version is available for less than the retail cost.
Add to that the fact that retailers will take a cut.
Games are expensive because they have to be printed on media, packaged and distributed.