Why publishers like 1C love Steam

Earlier this month there was a story going around about 2 UK retailers throwing their toys out of the pram over steamworks being included in games. This is a response by Darryl Still, international publishing director for PC publisher 1C on why they like to do business with steam :-

What is more surprising is the reaction of retail now. I have read it described as the reaction of a small child who threw his toy away because he no longer wanted it, but started screaming as soon as another child picked it up to play with. The metaphor works perfectly, especially in the light of the excuse I heard on numerous occasions.

'There is no demand' went the mantra. But is this really true? Not in our experience.Darryl Still

Steam is selling decent numbers of our titles. They are really cool to work with, have a refreshing, knowledgeable developer mentality, and never bully or threaten their suppliers.Darryl Still

I remember fondly the meeting in my office with a red-faced publisher who was explaining why their initial order from a major retailer for one of our new releases was just 30 units. At the time I had my browser open on the Steam product data page, which updates sales numbers every few minutes.

"They have taken one unit for each of their top 30 stores" he told me. "There is just no demand from their customers".

I glanced at my screen, hit refresh and advised him: "In the time it's taken you to tell me that there is no demand, Steam has sold 45 units".Darryl Still

As a generalisation, retail would pay these guys a maximum of 40 per cent of what they made. So on a £29.99 game the publisher would receive about £12 (and on a sub-licensed deal, we would then only get about £4.25 of that) – minus return, write down and consignment cost.

Compare that to the digital model. On a £29.99 sale, the digital partner will pay the publisher – or in many cases direct to the developer – between 60 and 70 per cent, by the end of the month following the sale.

Wow. To recap: on a sale over the counter today, we can have our £3 by the end of March, or on a digital sale, we can have £20 by Christmas.

Remind me why we should choose to go with retail and decline to let Steam sell the game?Darryl Still

http://www.mcvuk.com/features/808/OPINION-Retail-vs-Steam

I can certainly see the reasons why publishers/developers want to do business with steam, I personally don't have a problem with steam, it is just nice to see a positivie opinion piece on the PC marketplace and I thought others might like to read it.

Wow interesting! Steam is awesome its made buying and playing games easier.I just hope more games/publishers join their already large catalog of games.

Legitimately informative. I can now point at this article now as to why i scoff at companies that do not count digital sales. Those companies should have gotten on that like 3 years ago man >_>.

Very good article!

I'm still very much a brick-and-mortar person when it comes to my games (I don't need a backup that way), and I have no problem with Steam for buying games, though I'm not very fond of Steamworks forcing me to verify my title online.

Steam has changed the way I purchase games; full stop.

I am happy in the knowledge that my account is secure, my game media will never break; for example if my three year old decides to use my New Vegas disc as a frisbee and breaks it, it doesn't matter because there is a virtual copy available for me at any time. My games will be updated automatically, there is a great customer service dept, they have brilliant sales and it's easy for a dad of two small children to buy online from his desk than it is to drive to the local shoddy GS to get what I want. I can usually try before I buy too by d/l'ing a demo.

I have been with Steam from day 1 and I've nothing but good things to say about my experience. Steam FTW.

I love Steam and enjoyed reading that publishers like working with it but Steam still has the problem of 1$=1euro. Generally steam it does nothing to take into account different countries in Europe, which is why for example in Poland I can buy games at a regular store for half the price steam wants, unless its on some Christmas sale.

This is pretty much as I expected, but still nice to see it. I had always assumed it was the case where devs are getting a lot more return by using a digital distribution service like Steam especially with the ridiculous lack of PC boxes at GameStop. Indi devs are flocking to Steam to sell their games since they have a much higher return and don't have to pay ANY production costs for media/boxes/manuals/etc...

I loved seeing him stick it in the craw of the game retailers who are ****ing that there is no demand while he is watching the transactions rack up online. Priceless :)

I'm I the only one who thinks the behavior and attitudes of publishers are quite disturbing the last couple of years (activision, ubisoft, fixed reviews, those f'ing retailers, ...)

How i long for those days the game industry existed out of nerds and freaks