Does anyone even buy games full price on steam?

[Frozengale]

Every once in awhile I will buy a game full price. Last game I bought at full price was Remember Me. If it is below 20 dollars I'm more like to skip waiting for a sale and just buy the thing, but only if it is something I've really been looking forward to.

 

[Bat Vader]

Usually I buy all the games I want at full price when they are on Steam. While I do get them day one the drawbacks are that I pay full price when I could have waited and gotten them cheaper and that I have nothing to really look forward to during a Steam sale.

Only games I really buy during a Steam sale are ones that I may want but will wait until they are on sale to buy. If Red Dead Redemption came onto Steam I would buy it full price just to support Rockstar and to thank them for finally porting it.

 

[Lilani]

TL;DR: Do you buy games on steam for full price?

Only if I really want the game at or near launch, and I know I'll have time to play it immediately.

Bonus question: How do developpers make a profit if their games are mostly sold at a discount ?

Why lots of people buying them, of course. People are more likely to be adventurous and impulse buy if prices are lower--especially in a situation like the Steam Sales where they feel they might never get a chance to get it that low again. I can't find it at the moment, but I once saw a screencap of some sales Amazon.com was doing on digital books. They were some random titles I'd never heard of, but the price was lowered to like less than a dollar. And on that same screencap, it showed the rate of sale for the item. After they discounted it that low, the popularity of those books rose over 3000%. People may have been paying less than a dollar for them, but there were so many buying that not only were the books making money, but their authors were getting more notoriety as well.

So let's say you've got a game that normally goes for $24.99. In the Steam sale, it gets lowered to a paltry $8.99. While they may be making 1/3 the money, they might get five times the people buying the game than usual. On Steam it doesn't cost any money to make every unit like with physical copies, so it's all just a numbers game. As long as they can find that sweet intersection of profitability and attracting buyers, they'll make a killing.

 

[Lilani]

2) People are more likely to buy something at a reduced price not because the price is lower, but because it's "on sale". JC Penney tried to get rid of sale prices and set the regular prices to what would be their sale prices, and they failed miserably.

Actually, they were lower than the sale prices. I work at JCPenney, and associates who have been there for years told me the prices under the new system were actually lower than items even if you had a substantial amount of coupons, especially when it came to the home store items like mixers and such.

But, people felt deprived of the control over their prices, and they refused to accept that the prices were lower. It was a hard lesson in consumer psychology. Plus, they took away a brand called St. John's Bay and replaced it with their own brand (called the JCP brand) which had the same types of items as SJB but of a slightly higher quality. It was less than a dollar difference sometimes, but lots of old people liked SJB so a lot of loyal customers got mad and stopped shopping. SJB is back and has been for a while, but I'll still get old ladies who will talk to me for five minutes about how mad they were that SJB was taken away. Old ladies are cute sometimes, but other times they're stubborn and unhappy and they want you to be just as unhappy as they are.

 

[Lightknight]

My backlog is so darn crammed full of 80+ metacritic games that I'm desperately trying to catch up. Right now, the average AAA title is less than $20 when I'm finally ready to play it.

That being said, I have purchased a lot of games I wouldn't have due to these steep sales. Games I even already owned and played long ago but want to have in my library.

 

[Jmumbler]

If its a game I really want then yes. Bioshock and X-com both were bought at full price. I am having a hard time remember all the games I did though (141 games will do that to ya)

 

[Lee Quitt]

In Australia games are often cheaper retail then on steam, at least when the game is first released. So I always buy AAA games in store. Latter on ill get the AAA games I wasn't too keen on for a sale and check them out. And idie games I always wait for a sale.

 

[clippen05]

Very rarely. Recently I paid the full $60 for Company of Heroes 2 on launch. I also bought Rising Storm on launch but ironically even though I pre-ordered it I ended up saving more money than buying it later (It was 10% off during pre-order and I got an addition percentage off for owning Red Orchestra 2)

 

[Dragonbums]

Steam sales cater to three kinds of people.
Those who cannot afford all the games they really want at full price.
Those who just can't afford games at full price period.
And those want the game, but don't want it enough to pay full price for it- so they will happily wait until it's much cheaper.

There will always be first buyers of a particular game. Always. And they will always come in droves.
When the next Elder Scrolls comes out on Steam- we all know for a fact a shit ton of people WILL NOT wait for Steam sales to get that game.
They want to play it now, and then. They want to do fanart and talk about it now and then. Not 3 months later.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

I buy games at full price on Steam all the time. I bought Bioshock Infinite the week it was released, same with Mass Effect 2, Portal 2, Civ: V and any of the Dawn of War 2 expansions. There's a bunch of stuff in my library that I probably paid full price for but weren't early adopters.

I usually use Steam Sales for purchases the same way I do used games. Specifically, titles that I thouht looked interesting but wasn't fully convinced enough to pay full price.

Also DLC. I buy a shit load of DLC on Steam Sales, pretty much the only way I'll buy a Season Pass.

 

[JEBWrench]

Actually, they were lower than the sale prices. I work at JCPenney, and associates who have been there for years told me the prices under the new system were actually lower than items even if you had a substantial amount of coupons, especially when it came to the home store items like mixers and such.

But, people felt deprived of the control over their prices, and they refused to accept that the prices were lower. It was a hard lesson in consumer psychology. Plus, they took away a brand called St. John's Bay and replaced it with their own brand (called the JCP brand) which had the same types of items as SJB but of a slightly higher quality. It was less than a dollar difference sometimes, but lots of old people liked SJB so a lot of loyal customers got mad and stopped shopping. SJB is back and has been for a while, but I'll still get old ladies who will talk to me for five minutes about how mad they were that SJB was taken away. Old ladies are cute sometimes, but other times they're stubborn and unhappy and they want you to be just as unhappy as they are.

That makes it even more brilliant.

The word "sale" also helps trigger an impulse purchase, because "I don't know when the price will go down again". Making the default price be at that level means that people will hold off because they can get it any time. Going back to Steam as an example, if games were perpetually at the seasonal sale prices, would people necessarily buy them as much? I'm honestly not sure. I think the impulse buy mechanism is important. Many people have Steam libraries in the hundreds, and I'm sure a lot of them (myself included) can find more than a few of those we wouldn't have bought just because it was a couple bucks on sale.

Also, if everything were perpetually at a lower price, the choice would be overwhelming, and I think you would find there'd be a lot less items purchased that a consumer generally wouldn't buy. I don't think I'd have found Doc Clock: The Toasted Sandwich of Time if every other niche Indie physics puzzler were the same price all the time.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Okay . Here's a stupid question . But if that is true, then, wouldn't developpers/publishers technically make more money if they drop the Day1 price of their games? Instead of having games be 60$ on release , drop it to 40$? Wouldn't that have the same effect?

1) It's harder to replicate a lower price in a retail situation since you have a physical product to produce and distribute.
2) People are more likely to buy something at a reduced price not because the price is lower, but because it's "on sale". JC Penney tried to get rid of sale prices and set the regular prices to what would be their sale prices, and they failed miserably.

Just an FYI, You've misquoted me. I didn't say those things.
I do agree with the two points you made however

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Very rarely. But like that guy said on page 1, I'll buy Indies at full price.

Last game I bought for full price on Steam was Portal 2, never again.

 

[JEBWrench]

Okay . Here's a stupid question . But if that is true, then, wouldn't developpers/publishers technically make more money if they drop the Day1 price of their games? Instead of having games be 60$ on release , drop it to 40$? Wouldn't that have the same effect?

1) It's harder to replicate a lower price in a retail situation since you have a physical product to produce and distribute.
2) People are more likely to buy something at a reduced price not because the price is lower, but because it's "on sale". JC Penney tried to get rid of sale prices and set the regular prices to what would be their sale prices, and they failed miserably.

Just an FYI, You've misquoted me. I didn't say those things.
I do agree with the two points you made however

Whoops. I mess up who quoted what and when quite often. I'm gonna go edit that now.