Why does Steam not competitvely price some of their products?

Case in point:

$50 - Steam price

http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=sub&SubId=460&cc=US

$30 - Everywhere else

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8791202&st=total+war&lp=2&type=product&cp=1&id=1205537513728

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8086854

http://www.ebgames.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=66830

Is that a load of crap or what? Are they just being sleazy and hoping people don't comparison shop? Does it have to do with MSRP agreements or what is the deal here?

Oh yeah, the retail version I would assume includes the manuals and all so naturally it costs...40% less?

And what does the game without the expansion cost on Steam?...Yep, thirty bucks.

Well, with 15m+ subscribers, Steam has either a monolopy on the DD market, or is at the high end of an oligopoly. They don't really need to price more competitively. If they did need to, basic economics (the only kind I understand!!!) would dictate that those prices would be altered.fatshodan

Well, look at it this way. There is one reason I won't buy it on there, and that reason is the price. I'm sure I'm far from the only one.

For one thing, Steam's subscriber numbers don't say much, since you have to register with them in order to install certain store-bought games. The question is whether or not they are making more money from the higher price than what they are losing from lost sales from people like myself who will simply go to a store and get it. Apparently they figure they do then.

Still, I wonder if it has to do with pricing agreements, because I know that these companies using digital distribution methods generally will not sell for under the retail price, because they don't want to piss off retailers and have them stop selling their games. Being on store shelves is still important to game sales.

You do know that if you buy a game else where that you can still register it on Steam? You either register the game on Steam or the traditional way, but you can not do both.roulettethedog

Yes, I knew you could do that with some games. I don't think you can with all of them though. Actually, like I said, some of them you have to register with Steam I think.

For the record, I also think is a load of crap and I seriously hope someone files a class action lawsuit against them for it. I'm pretty sure the boxes to most of the games in question do not say you need an internet connection to play them.

[QUOTE="roulettethedog"]You do know that if you buy a game else where that you can still register it on Steam? You either register the game on Steam or the traditional way, but you can not do both.SpaceMoose

Yes, I knew you could do that with some games. I don't think you can with all of them though. Actually, like I said, some of them you have to register with Steam I think.

For the record, I also think is a load of crap and I seriously hope someone files a class action lawsuit against them for it. I'm pretty sure the boxes to most of the games in question do not say you need an internet connection to play them.

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure that all the games that require steam to play do mention it on the box. And about this whole argument, if you don't want to pay that for it, then don't buy it through steam. They could charge $100 for it if they wanted and that wouldn't effect me at all. For the game in question, I'd probably still buy it through steam because of the convenience and the assurance that I would never lose the game through lost or damaged cd's or anything like that. Steam is a very valuable asset to most gamers, and many of them, such as myself, are willing to pay a little extra for the convenience and knowledge that our games are secure and always will be. Like fatshodan said, if Steam wasn't thriving, I highly doubt they would price like this, regardless of whether or not their 15 million+ users are active or not.

[QUOTE="roulettethedog"]You do know that if you buy a game else where that you can still register it on Steam? You either register the game on Steam or the traditional way, but you can not do both.SpaceMoose

Yes, I knew you could do that with some games. I don't think you can with all of them though. Actually, like I said, some of them you have to register with Steam I think.

For the record, I also think is a load of crap and I seriously hope someone files a class action lawsuit against them for it. I'm pretty sure the boxes to most of the games in question do not say you need an internet connection to play them.

Please, no more lawsuits. That sounds worse than the EU and United States anti-trust BS bananzas that were levelled against Microsoft. Either get competitive, or get the **** out; pansies have no place in business. The only time anti-monoploy/anti-trust suits should be filed against a company is when they get lazy and start churning out crappy products, and even then, they should be brought to bear by the CONSUMERS.

On the bright side, I don't own any games that require me to register via Steam. :) Happy gaming. :D

Please, no more lawsuits. That sounds worse than the EU and United States anti-trust BS bananzas that were levelled against Microsoft. Either get competitive, or get the **** out; pansies have no place in business. The only time anti-monoploy/anti-trust suits should be filed against a company is when they get lazy and start churning out crappy products, and even then, they should be brought to bear by the CONSUMERS.

On the bright side, I don't own any games that require me to register via Steam. :) Happy gaming. :D

aeatyes

Well, seeing as how one cannot return opened software, I expect to be able to put the damn thing in and use it. I don't buy a movie or music and have to register it with the goddamned studios in order to use it (although I'm sure some of them would like that).

Maybe I don't have internet service? I know that is pretty uncommon these days, but what if someone doesn't? It's bullcrap to buy a product and then get it home and then not be able to use it until you get the company's permission, and on top of that, in order to get that permission, you have to have a particular service (internet) which has nothing to do with actually playing the game. Meanwhile the people who are pirating the stuff find ways around it anyway.

It has nothing to do with being competitive. It has to do with buying something and then not being able to use it without doing some b.s. that is not specified on the packaging and then not being able to return it because nobody will let you return opened software. CD keys are one thing, but this required online registration to even play a game is just crossing a line. Not only that, it almost defeats the idea of even buying a retail copy.

Also, Steam usually offers the same prices on their games as they are listed in retail. Steam also has the weekend sales which can be ridiculously generous. I bought the Painkiller gold pack a year ago for $5.00, and just got Bioshock for $15, they are always having sales events. This concept is great to look out for to get incredible deals on titles that will remain the same price in retail for months or more without seeing a drop in price.chesterocks7

The fact remains that I find little reason to pay $50 instead of $30. That's quite a percentage gap. I can go to a store. I'm really not that impatient.

[QUOTE="chesterocks7"]Also, Steam usually offers the same prices on their games as they are listed in retail. Steam also has the weekend sales which can be ridiculously generous. I bought the Painkiller gold pack a year ago for $5.00, and just got Bioshock for $15, they are always having sales events. This concept is great to look out for to get incredible deals on titles that will remain the same price in retail for months or more without seeing a drop in price.SpaceMoose

The fact remains that I find little reason to pay $50 instead of $30. That's quite a percentage gap. I can go to a store. I'm really not that impatient.

Not a matter of being impatient but having it to downoad instantly on top of the security that you will never lose it or break it. Because if that did happen in the near future, you would have to dish out the $30 again. If you don't want to pay it that's fine and you have the right to choose that, but don't **** about other people who are willing to pay that or the company that asks for it. They both have just as much a right to do that as you do to refuse it.

Not a matter of being impatient but having it to downoad instantly on top of the security that you will never lose it or break it. Because if that did happen in the near future, you would have to dish out the $30 again. If you don't want to pay it that's fine and you have the right to choose that, but don't **** about other people who are willing to pay that or the company that asks for it. They both have just as much a right to do that as you do to refuse it.

chesterocks7

I also have a right to point out that they do it. Also, I don't think I've ever lost a PC game. The only time I've ever lost games was from letting people borrow them.

Anyway, if that is their logic, then shouldn't Orange Box have been $70 on Steam when it came out?

[QUOTE="chesterocks7"]

Not a matter of being impatient but having it to downoad instantly on top of the security that you will never lose it or break it. Because if that did happen in the near future, you would have to dish out the $30 again. If you don't want to pay it that's fine and you have the right to choose that, but don't **** about other people who are willing to pay that or the company that asks for it. They both have just as much a right to do that as you do to refuse it.

SpaceMoose

I also have a right to point out that they do it. Also, I don't think I've ever lost a PC game. The only time I've ever lost games was from letting people borrow them.

Anyway, if that is their logic, then shouldn't Orange Box have been $70 on Steam when it came out?

I never claimed that's their logic. I merely stated thats my logic in buying their games. And considering Valve made The Orange Box, it's highly unlikely they would price it differently through Steam than in retail stores.

It's probably because Steam just hasn't bothered checking the prices.GodLovesDead

[QUOTE="GodLovesDead"]It's probably because Steam just hasn't bothered checking the prices.Nibroc420

That too.

Retailers and wholesalers have protection laws which protect them from manufactures that sells their product for a much lower price than the retailers price. For example apple sells Ipod touch for RRP price but isn't allow to sell under because of the protection laws. So you will find cheaper Ipod touch from somewhere else than buying it from apple.

In other words retailers will always be able to buy the product for a much cheaper price then the normal price.

It's up to the publishers not steam for pricing. All of Valves games are competitively priced with the retail versions. Don't nagg at Valve because Sega doesn't give a crap about being fair to gamers who want a choice.EndersAres

Reposed for effect because gamerguy obviously didn't see it.

The reason is simple and this has been discussed many times before. Publishers can not allow their games to be sold cheaper digitally than can be offered at retail or the retailers will refuse to stock their product. It is a contractual obligation.

Carey

It's up to the publishers not steam for pricing. All of Valves games are competitively priced with the retail versions. Don't nagg at Valve because Sega doesn't give a crap about being fair to gamers who want a choice.EndersAres

This ^

Not to mention some of the benefits of buying a product on STEAM...but whatever...

And oh noes! What's this?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7817044&st=ghost+recon&lp=6&type=product&cp=1&id=1142294018798

http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=app&AppId=13640&cc=US

You can buy this game for literally half the price on STEAM!

The reason is simple and this has been discussed many times before. Publishers can not allow their games to be sold cheaper digitally than can be offered at retail or the retailers will refuse to stock their product. It is a contractual obligation.

Carey

careyletendre

It's up to the publishers not steam for pricing. All of Valves games are competitively priced with the retail versions. Don't nagg at Valve because Sega doesn't give a crap about being fair to gamers who want a choice.EndersAres

It has nothing to do with being competitive. It has to do with buying something and then not being able to use it without doing some b.s. that is not specified on the packaging and then not being able to return it because nobody will let you return opened software. CD keys are one thing, but this required online registration to even play a game is just crossing a line. Not only that, it almost defeats the idea of even buying a retail copy.

It has everything to do with being competitive. If Steam wasn't selling these games at the price they specify then they would change them. Simple economics as Fatshodan says is really the only kind I also understand. If no one will buy your product you go out of business. They are competing with all the other sources of games for games. Seems to me sense they are thriving they are competitive.

As to your other point: I have the original HL2, Orange Box, Bioshock and, Mass Effect and on all their boxes it says an Internet conection is required. What game or games are you referring to that do not do this?

I also don't mind activating my games online. But if you noticed I have all the above game boxes so I bought them at a retail outlet. Let the buyer beware and if you pay more then you should for a game it's not Steams fault but yours.

It has everything to do with being competitive. If Steam wasn't selling these games at the price they specify then they would change them. Simple economics as Fatshodan says is really the only kind I also understand. If no one will buy your product you go out of business. They are competing with all the other sources of games for games. Seems to me sense they are thriving they are competitive.

As to your other point: I have the original HL2, Orange Box, Bioshock and, Mass Effect and on all their boxes it says an Internet conection is required. What game or games are you referring to that do not do this?

I also don't mind activating my games online. But if you noticed I have all the above game boxes so I bought them at a retail outlet. Let the buyer beware and if you pay more then you should for a game it's not Steams fault but yours.

Rickylee

A class action lawsuit about having to regsiter the games online has nothing to do with being competitive. Regardless of whether you agree with that or not, I did not say that I hope there is one because of their prices. Your comment about them being competitve was in response to my comment about the class action lawsuit, and while my initial post was about competition, that one was not.

***

SpaceMoose

I love your sig!

dun dun dun. Valve doesnt set the prices on non-valve games. Their respective publishers/developers do. dun dun dunTeamR

dun dun dun

Okay, so the question then becomes, "Why would the publisher charge more for it on Steam then retailers do?" I can understand them not charging less, but charging way more just seems really strange to me, in the case where virtually every other place that sells the game sells it for less.

dun dun dun

[QUOTE="careyletendre"]

The reason is simple and this has been discussed many times before. Publishers can not allow their games to be sold cheaper digitally than can be offered at retail or the retailers will refuse to stock their product. It is a contractual obligation.

Carey

fethehl

It's up to the publishers not steam for pricing. All of Valves games are competitively priced with the retail versions. Don't nagg at Valve because Sega doesn't give a crap about being fair to gamers who want a choice.EndersAres

That's exactly what i'm saying.

:roll:

Case in point:

$50 - Steam price

http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=sub&SubId=460&cc=US

$30 - Everywhere else

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8791202&st=total+war&lp=2&type=product&cp=1&id=1205537513728

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8086854

http://www.ebgames.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=66830

Is that a load of crap or what? Are they just being sleazy and hoping people don't comparison shop? Does it have to do with MSRP agreements or what is the deal here?

Oh yeah, the retail version I would assume includes the manuals and all so naturally it costs...40% less?

And what does the game without the expansion cost on Steam?...Yep, thirty bucks.

SpaceMoose

Valve only sets the prices on the games they publish. They do not publish Medieval 2. That would be Sega, Sega sets the prices for their games as part of the distribution agreement, so I'd suggest you aim your ire at them. It's the same thing as complaining that Valve won't sell Ubisoft games in Europe... Ubisoft made that call, Valve didn't.

Edit:

Damn, I should have read further down, I'd have seen this point was already made.

[QUOTE="TeamR"]dun dun dun. Valve doesnt set the prices on non-valve games. Their respective publishers/developers do. dun dun dunSpaceMoose

dun dun dun

Okay, so the question then becomes, "Why would the publisher charge more for it on Steam then retailers do?" I can understand them not charging less, but charging way more just seems really strange to me, in the case where virtually every other place that sells the game sells it for less.

dun dun dun

Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware the publishers were making you buy your games on steam...

[QUOTE="TeamR"]dun dun dun. Valve doesnt set the prices on non-valve games. Their respective publishers/developers do. dun dun dunSpaceMoose

dun dun dun

Okay, so the question then becomes, "Why would the publisher charge more for it on Steam then retailers do?" I can understand them not charging less, but charging way more just seems really strange to me, in the case where virtually every other place that sells the game sells it for less.

dun dun dun

dun dun dun

Some publishers, especially the big ones, have longstandign agreements with the brick&mortar stores. In other words, you can't go around undercutting the people selling your boxed copies when you have multi-million dollar agreements with them. Imagine if sega sold Medieval 2 for $20 on steam ($10 cheaper than retail). Bestbuy, walmart, etc would give sega flack and could even threaten to not carry anymore sega software. Sega still does most of it's business with those retailers, so they can't bite the hand that feeds them.

Another example is the famous Valve vs Vivendi legal battle. When valve released hl2 over steam, they were sued by vivendi, who was their retail distributor, for circumventing their retail plans and effectively limiting their share of the profits.

Steam is faster, easier and cheaper, but there are alot of politics involved that keep it from reaching it's full potential, pricing wise. In big business, things are never as simple as we'd like them to be.

The smart buyer knows you only buy Steam games when they are the best price or you want to pay and play now. Is everyone a smart buyer? No, and that's where Steam makes the big money.

I agree Steam is competitive on many things, better on some things (especially weekend deals, woot), and worse on others.

dun dun dun

Some publishers, especially the big ones, have longstandign agreements with the brick&mortar stores. In other words, you can't go around undercutting the people selling your boxed copies when you have multi-million dollar agreements with them. Imagine if sega sold Medieval 2 for $20 on steam ($10 cheaper than retail). Bestbuy, walmart, etc would give sega flack and could even threaten to not carry anymore sega software. Sega still does most of it's business with those retailers, so they can't bite the hand that feeds them.TeamR

That's interesting. I didn't know about that. If games aren't selling that well in stores, can the publishers give Steam the OK to sell their games at a cheaper price? I guess it would depend on the agreement the publishers have with the big stores. I really don't know much about it.

Because Valve only sets the price for there games, But they do not set the price for 3rd party games on steam.

Maby you should have a period at them in stead at Valve witch sell there games at $19.99 (TF2 at around £10/half price) or (Orange Box includeing Half Life 2, HL2:EP1, HL2:EP2 HL2:LC, Peggel Extream, Portal and Team Fortress 2.) at $39.99/£20 i almost had an Ben's Special Time to look after MR Nudge, shineing the one eyed monster at that price)

What you haft to remember is the 3rd party Dev's set the price for each countrry on setam it could be a lot of $ but after there exchainge it will be half in £ or doulbe in Aus $ its up to them (3rd Party). so maby you should have a moan at them in stead of Valve because they try and keep a fair price but they cant or the wont get the game on Steam, and that would be bad for steam but you just throu it in there face for trying to help you.

I have a better idear why dont the 3rd part Dev's start chargeing you 2 to 3 times more because its a new technology OR better yet sent a E-Mail to the 3rd party Dev to show that you see what is happening and at least say no i will not buy your games at this price on Digital Dis on Steam (top of the calss i may add IMO ,You many see it diffrently.)

At the end of the day they will charge you what ever they want, wether it be on CD, DVD or Digital Dis they want your money and unless you stand up and say NO ITS NOT WORKIN THAT WAY, YOU WANT MY MONEY SO YOU WORK BY MY PRICES AND YOU MAKE GAMES TO THE QUALITY I SAY AND BEG AND BOW BEFORE ME TO MAKE ME BUY YOUR GAME AND GIVE YOU MY MONEY. thay will rape you till they have every penny in the would, but just remember Valve isnt mostly like that and its the 3rd Pratys, PLEASE think of that and take the general jist in please.

Valve games at least in the UK is about half price maby its not in your country but you should be talkin to you Gov if Valve games in store are cheaper then on Steam its because of you local TAX or the game 3RD dev in your region.

Later Lad's and Ladies.

P.S. Im sorry for the spelling been in the special spelling clases for all my school life but they new **** all.

Why all the hate for Steam? Whoever's giving that f***ing stupid excuse that "But an internet connection is required to play Steam games!" Get the **** over it. Who hasn't got an internet connection nowadays? This may seem ignorant but hell, I think that just about everyone in this day and age should at least have an ISP. So cut that crap out. Oh, and another thing, whenever I'm downloading anything off Steam, I'm getting 470kb/s minimum, which I'm delighted with (I live in UK).

Edit: Gamespot fecking up, again.

Angurvadal_88

Yeah steam download servers will not bottle neck your connection. Only your internet with. For example I was on a 4meg I think download and I got similar speeds to you, now however I've upgraded and get about 1/1.1mb/s download speeds. So steam servers must have a high bottleneck.

Because the publishers have greater control over steam. Remember, when a store puts a product on the shelf, it has already purchased that product to sell. So the publisher has no say in it anymore when that said store lowers the price to move stock. Steam on the otherhand has an unlimited stock, controlled completely by the publisher.Cdscottie

I think you're missing my point though. Are you going to pay $50 for a game just so you don't have to wait when you can go to any major retailer and get it for $30? I'm sure not, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Okay, I worded my post wrong; Valve does not set the price of the game. Regardless of who decided the price, it's still pretty odd.