Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Brooks
Quote:
Originally Posted by garion333
It's super interesting to me because Matrix has finally begun to give in and put their games on Steam, joining in on the merry little holiday sales extravaganzas. Has that worked for them? Has it brought on the support nightmares they were trying to avoid? Don't know.
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You know, we tried Steam with several titles that were priced $25.00 and below. We sold more copies on our website than Steam sold, unless the game was put in a bundle (4 or 5 games for $5.00 or so). Steam is nothing but an impulse buy site and the games need to be priced as such. They don't advertise individual titles, and the don't offer support. We learned pretty quickly their answer to support was "here is your money back." Some people wanted the game to work and not their money back and came to us for support. But you can't support games that sell for $1.00.
I wonder if Matrix is having different results... |
I don't understand how you can claim Steam is "nothing but an impulse buy site". That's like saying "Target is nothing but an impulse buy site" and I simply can't agree with that. Sure, a metric ton of sales of games priced under $10 probably come through Steam sales extravaganzas, but I find it hard to believe that all game sales are "impulse" buys.
Also, they don't sell many bundles, those generally come from Humble Bundle and the other sites of that ilk. I would definitely agree that bundle sites are generally impulse purchasing. There you have a game or two people are interested in and only have to pay $4 to get, but come with all these other games too. It's the enticement of pay what you want coupled with the quantity of games you get. Quality matters to a much less extent. However, quality still matters because bundles with more sought after games make more money. (That statement is one I don't have data for outside of anecdotal data.) Humble Bundle compared to a site like Bundle Stars tends to have higher quality bundles.
As far as support, yeah, you're on your own. That's what I meant when I reference Matrix's fears.
Anyway, I think you'll find Jason Rohrer's post (linked in previous post, the Castle Doctrine blog) to be in line with your thinking. I'm not the type to think Steam is the end all be all to PC gaming, but the question still begs to be answered: Why is Approaching Infinity $40 while something like Tome is $7?