I'm worried games might be getting too inexpensive

[gorfias]

I do a lot of PC gaming. I'm getting some good deals on PS3 but PC has gotten ridiculous. Maybe a little too ridiculous.

I'm mostly worried about Steam going out of business. I have more games than I can fit on my hard drive. I hear if Steam does go out of business, they's allow you to download something that will allow you to play your games anyway: but you probably need to have them downloaded to begin with!
Anyone know how well they're doing?

While I'm at it, I'd just as soon not see many of the games I've gotten in bundles displayed. Anyway to hide things I'm not playing in a Steam list? My other idea is to just open a new account so I'm seeing different games based upon how I'm logged in.

 

[tippy2k2]

That's a new one

Anyway, in a weird, round-about sort of way, I partially agree. I am currently very strapped for cash and I haven't bought a brand new title in months (the newest one will be XCOM tomorrow and that's because I had Reward Zone points, making almost free, from Best Buy). It's a double edged sword though...

On one hand, I get great games for dirt cheap (Tomb Raider, Bioshock: Infinite, and Dishonored have all peaked their heads out at $20 or less). On the other hand, that CAN'T be good for the gaming industry or it's ability to support itself when I wait to get games that long.

However, ultimately, they've got a business to run and I've got my own life to look after. I'm a console gamer so Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo biting the dust wouldn't affect me the same way Valve biting the dust would affect PC gamers but that's something for them to figure out how to balance, not me.

As to your question, they're either doing really really well since they're working on releasing their own console or their doing really really poorly since they're getting so desperate that they want to get in on the console race My guess would be the former, though it will become very interesting in a few decades when Gabe Newell eventually steps down...

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Valve's doing well enough that now they feel comfortable getting into hardware business. They even reward the modding community every once in a while for their efforts. They're not going out of business.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

On one hand, I get great games for dirt cheap (Tomb Raider, Bioshock: Infinite, and Dishonored have all peaked their heads out at $20 or less). On the other hand, that CAN'T be good for the gaming industry or it's ability to support itself when I wait to get games that long.

See, I don't know about that. You mentioned Tomb Raider dropping to $20 - which is the price that I paid for it on Steam during one of the sales. That's $20 that they got out of me for a game that I otherwise would not have bought. Period.

Not because it was a bad game or anything like that (it was actually pretty good, I thought), but because I just don't see most modern games as being worth their $60 price tags. I remember a day when I never paid more than $40 for a brand new PC game, and typically got 20+ hours out of nearly all of them on the first playthrough. These days I find paying $60 for a 6-hour game to be insulting to me as a consumer. So I either wait for the price to drop like I did with Tomb Raider, or I just don't buy them at all.

I'm sure they'd rather have my $20 in their pockets at the end of the day than nothing. And I have a feeling I'm one of a very large segment of the community that looks at it this way.

And if this segment of the community is causing them such severe problems that bankruptcy looks like a credible threat, then maybe they should spend some time trying to find ways to reduce the frankly obscene developing and marketing costs on AAA games so that they can bring the price tags down to something more reasonable.

 

[Racecarlock]

I'm sorry I don't have an infinity of cash to just spend on a whim, but games getting more expensive right now is the LAST thing I need. Developers love to put on this "Starving artist" facade, but I honestly think that they should take that up with the publishers if low pay is the problem. It's not my responsibility to feed their families.

 

[gorfias]

There's a crack for all of them anyway

Yeah, but you still need to have them downloaded. I'll likley pull the trigger ASAP and buy a 2 T drive. Then I have to rebuild the whole bloody thing. Unless I can steer steam into loading the games onto the 2T set up as just a storage device.

Just create a separate custom category for them

I tried that. Didn't seem to work. I'll try again, thanks.

I am currently very strapped for cash and I haven't bought a brand new title in months (the newest one will be XCOM tomorrow and that's because I had Reward Zone points, making almost free, from Best Buy). It's a double edged sword though...

On one hand, I get great games for dirt cheap (Tomb Raider, Bioshock: Infinite, and Dishonored have all peaked their heads out at $20 or less). On the other hand, that CAN'T be good for the gaming industry or it's ability to support itself when I wait to get games that long.

However, ultimately, they've got a business to run and I've got my own life to look after. I'm a console gamer so Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo biting the dust wouldn't affect me the same way Valve biting the dust would affect PC gamers but that's something for them to figure out how to balance, not me.

As to your question, they're either doing really really well since they're working on releasing their own console or their doing really really poorly since they're getting so desperate that they want to get in on the console race My guess would be the former, though it will become very interesting in a few decades when Gabe Newell eventually steps down...

Good point about them building hardware. Console games radically outsell PC titles. But you speak of $20 games. I'm even more worried. This website got me into something called Humblebundle.com when Origin had a huge sale. Escapist did a few stories on it. I've picked up about 50 games of varying quality over the past few months for about $30 total. That's enough to scare me on behalf of the developers.

I hope you enjoy XCOM. I hear it is great.

Valve's doing well enough that now they feel comfortable getting into hardware business. They even reward the modding community every once in a while for their efforts. They're not going out of business.

Yeah, tippy2k2 notes their entrance into hardware too. That is comforting, thank you. (And I care about Steam as, most of the HumbleBundle games I own are on Steam).

I am interested in their console. I love PC gaming in my office, but I love to go to my family room and game in a comfy chair on a big TV too. I'll have to look into finding out a prospective release date.

I'm sorry I don't have an infinity of cash to just spend on a whim, but games getting more expensive right now is the LAST thing I need. Developers love to put on this "Starving artist" facade, but I honestly think that they should take that up with the publishers if low pay is the problem. It's not my responsibility to feed their families.

I hear you. But between Steam sales, Origin Sales and now Humble Bundle, I do have to worry about these people making there money. I just saw an article about Microsoft losing money on the Xbox annually. Hard to believe.

Now I'm sometimes getting downloadable game for as little as twenty cents. Some of that goes to charity.

I do think I'm going to have to get a larger hard drive.

 

[shrekfan246]

While I'm at it, I'd just as soon not see many of the games I've gotten in bundles displayed. Anyway to hide things I'm not playing in a Steam list? My other idea is to just open a new account so I'm seeing different games based upon how I'm logged in.

In the Library tab you should be able to organize your games list to just list the ones you currently have installed, at least. Beyond what the other guy suggested with custom categories I don't really know of any way, though.

Anyway, I've had the same concerns, but I don't think Steam is going to go anywhere any time soon unless something massive shakes up the industry. The sales are what prompt me to actually spend money in the first place, there are very few games these days I want to pay full price for.

 

[gorfias]

While I'm at it, I'd just as soon not see many of the games I've gotten in bundles displayed. Anyway to hide things I'm not playing in a Steam list? My other idea is to just open a new account so I'm seeing different games based upon how I'm logged in.

In the Library tab you should be able to organize your games list to just list the ones you currently have installed, at least. Beyond what the other guy suggested with custom categories I don't really know of any way, though.

Anyway, I've had the same concerns, but I don't think Steam is going to go anywhere any time soon unless something massive shakes up the industry. The sales are what prompt me to actually spend money in the first place, there are very few games these days I want to pay full price for.

Yeah, I grumbled a lot when my boy got me to spend $60 on GTA5. I must be getting old cuz I can't hit a thing with that shooting scheme. But I'm getting some great stuff at like a buck a game. It is enough to make me worry about the industry but as others above note, Steam is entering the console war.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I hear you. But between Steam sales, Origin Sales and now Humble Bundle, I do have to worry about these people making there money. I just saw an article about Microsoft losing money on the Xbox annually. Hard to believe.

No, it's really not hard to believe, and it has nothing to do with the price of games (on the surface anyway... you could argue that there are people out there who don't buy a given console because of the price of its games). The main reason they lose so much money is because of the cost of hardware. Consoles are typically sold at a loss from the get-go, since they'd be way too expensive for the average consumer to buy if the company charged you the actual manufacture price. The idea is that they make the money back later on down the line when the manufacture price drops due to the parts becoming outdated, peripherals, and other services.

However, if console sales fail to meet expectations that means that the company in question is going to have to eat huge losses. It took years for both the X-Box and the X-Box 360 to start turning a profit. It's not going to be any different with the XBone.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Valve make games cheap so that suckers like me will buy a bundle of $5 games and wonder where my money went. Don't worry.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I'm sure they'd rather have my $20 in their pockets at the end of the day than nothing. And I have a feeling I'm one of a very large segment of the community that looks at it this way.

You are correct. The incredibly bad thing about the PC gaming is the fact that a lot of developers and publishers still treat us like crap. When people buy a game on a console they know it will work the way it's supposed to. And if they don't like it despite it's flawless performance they can sell it. We can't do that. We don't even know what we're getting half the time. Take Ubisoft games for example. They complain about piracy but they refuse to release a demo of their game for the PC. They delay the PC version of their latest titles, and when we finally get to play it, it doesn't work despite the fact that your system requirements are fine. So many people still have severe issues with Assassin's Creed 3 on certain setups that should be more than enough to run the game on highest settings. And there's nothing they can do about it. It's no wonder these sales are so popular.

 

[Sellon88]

I'm not to worried that Valve will go out of business there just fine. What I think would be a problem would be if someone made some type of game trilogy that turns into a game form of twilight. Not the stuff in twilight exactly but the wave it made in popular culture.

 

[Chefsbrian]

Naw, the sales happen after launch for a reason, because valve has clued into what the console market still seems to struggle with, where they mark down titles months after release, to squeeze dollars out of new customers. If I didn`t buy your mediocre bro-shoot-em-up at a $60 price point at launch, I`m not going to suddenly change my mind 6 months down the road. but if you end up offering me the game for $15? Yea, maybe you have a sale now.

It really comes down to the economics of digital, that makes these 75% fire sales profitable, with the fact that the digital distribution costs are practically nil; Steam takes a hearty share for sure, but the rest is still pure profit.

Hell, my steam library is almost 150 titles, many, MANY of which are steam sale titles. My latest one was the Wargame: Airland battle. I absolutely sucked at the first one, and I still suck at the second one. But, I'm having a bit of fun all the same, and at the price I paid? Definately worth it.

Take heed, console market, if steambox brings these sales to your doorstep, its going to herald some new changes in the market. Best case result, Sony and Microsoft take the idea and run with it, and discount fire sales for everybody. Worst case, steambox stomps out the console market to resemble the PC market of today (Over a few years of course. Valve's not that good)

 

[MHR]

I see where there might be a trend with players delaying release-day purchases to get a better deal later, but the way I'm seeing it the number of overall gamers is increasing making a larger potential market for any new release.

I wouldn't worry about losing your games if Steam goes out of business. They'll undoubtedly let the players know before this happens and then everyone will know to backup all their games, even on multiple hard-drives if necessary before they're unlocked.

I think eventually there is a level of saturation. So many games being made and players can't be playing all of them at the same time, so they'll have to choose which developers get their dollars. This could mean problems for certain developers, but I think the point to remember is that this will create greater competition among developers to make even better games.

At this rate I'm worried the first world might become more like South Korea where everybody plays games all day and the GDP suffers.

 

[Drummodino]

Naw, the sales happen after launch for a reason, because valve has clued into what the console market still seems to struggle with, where they mark down titles months after release, to squeeze dollars out of new customers. If I didn`t buy your mediocre bro-shoot-em-up at a $60 price point at launch, I`m not going to suddenly change my mind 6 months down the road. but if you end up offering me the game for $15? Yea, maybe you have a sale now.

^^This is why Valve are making money hand over fist. They are certainly not going to go out of business any time soon. I have bought countless Steam and GOG games (many of which I haven't even played yet) because they were ridiculously cheap. That's money Valve, GOG and the developers wouldn't have received otherwise.

I just wish Sony would adopt a similar model. I don't know what it's like outside of Australia, but the PSN prices here are ridiculously high. It is cheaper for me to buy retail than digital for my PS3 and Vita - quite frankly that's ridiculous. What is even more ludicrous is the fact that importing games from overseas is even cheaper than retail, even with shipping costs.

 

[michael87cn]

Insanity. Game devs are pretty rich individuals. If anything, games cost way too much.

 

[Saltyk]

Doesn't Sony give incentives to publishers to offer their games on PS+? I honestly don't know it might be, but I'd imagine small amounts of money would change hands, plus their game gets played by more people which could help sequels and future productions.

From what I've heard publishers are happy with PS+. I can't imagine valve doesn't have some deals with publisher's, too.

In both cases, the games being given away are digital and thus there is no money lost in production. The games are generally about a year old, give or take, so they aren't losing out on any early sales. And people are generally buying or experiencing games which works as great advertising for them.

So, no, I don't think there is a problem.