And yet there's plenty of dev's who have made positive comments about the way Steam does sales.

In fact, not just the sale numbers go up, even after a game has gone on sale, there's often still a period of cooldown where the hype surrounding the game actually causes the game to be sold for non sale prices for a while as well.

And despite everything there's clearly a large number of people who still buy the game around release. Heck, I've been big on sales for years, but I've pretty much gotten to the point where I have most the sales I wanted already, and that has moved my buying point closer to release or even early access games. (easier to get drawn into the hype now)

There's also the incentives of course like preorder bonuses, Steam cards etc.

I find that hilarious. When Steam started these 75% off sales, everyone was going crazy. But now, we've seen it so much that 75% off is now very "meh".

It'll be interesting to see how this affects annual seasonal sales. It'll also be pretty amusing to see when a certain game goes on a discount, whether any lesser known copycat games have deeper discounts. Honestly though, I see a spammage of 10-20% off and not much else.

Let's not forget that the publishers/devs are in on this too. Digital distributors (afaik) can't just sell their games for whatever price they want.

In other words, it's not like Valve is taking the whole industry down the tubes because they've unilaterally enacted deep discounts with their Steam sales. The publishers/devs, the ones that have the rights to this stuff, are playing a part in this as well.

My appraisal is that they (publishers, rights holders, DD) are selling a high volume # of games and making a nice little profit doing it at the end of the day, and we the gamers are getting nice prices for them.

Just because people wont buy something unless it is on sale doesn't mean they're a cheapass though. For example, I have 243 games in my GOG game shelf, and I've got 184 games on my Steam shelf. I've got around 100 games on CD/DVD, and various others that are random downloads from bundles or other sites. I haven't even installed 1/4 of them yet let alone had a chance to play them all. It's quite literally impossible to play all of them anytime soon. What incentive does someone like me have to ever purchase any game ever again? I probably have enough games now that I can go forever and be entertained without buying any more games ever. I'm not obligated to the industry to buy any more games, nor are they obligated to make them and sell the to me.

So since I know I have a tonne of games I could never get bored of collectively - what is it that makes me actually want to buy another one? There has to be some incentive. One is that I really like a trailer or whatever and think a game would be fun to play or even that I really really want to play it. Ok, so lets assume some game has fulfilled the desire element for me - now that's enough to make me put it on my wishlist, but what is it that actually makes me want to buy it and crack my wallet open tomorrow for it? Well, I'm quite satiated by the collection I have already even if I am actually highly interested in some new game or what have you, so I don't have money burning a hole in my wallet ready to jump out and buy everything I'd like to have right away. Everyone knows the price of things like games goes down over time and that sooner or later a game will go on sale. So if I'm not anxiously wanting to play a game right this second and I have patience enough, I'm much more likely to just leave it on my wishlist until it shows up on one of the inevitable sales that come up, and then contemplate whether or not to get it the same way.

Perhaps at the sale price I'm still not motivated to get it. For example, ArmA III is out and looks awesome. I'm super interested in the entire ArmA series and know with absolute certainty I'll buy it some day. I dunno the current price but lets say it is $39.99 regular - no way will I pay that. I've got the rest of the ArmA games (from GOG) and haven't even played them all yet, so I'll be playing them all through before I even think of buying ArmA III, unless some super crazy deal happens that I just can't pass up. :) But, if they put it on sale deep discount of 75% off, that brings the game to $10 which isn't a bad price really - but if I'm not going to play it now anyway, and I know in 6 months it'll be $29.99 and that 75% off will be $7.50... and in another 6 months it'll be $19.99 and the 75% off will be $4.99 ... etc. I'm still not inclined to buy it unless I am anxious to actually play it /right away/, which despite my huge interest in the game - I'm in no hurry to play it immediately as I have several hundred others already unplayed so far.

So if the industry wants me to keep buying games on a regular basis and I don't even need those games, they have to do something to give me incentive to buy them. It's just a negotiation in the end and the person who has the least to lose has the more flexible arrangement in the deal. I can name my own price essentially even if I can't name the date and time when the purchase will happen. ;) If I say "I will buy ArmA 3 for $3.99 or less", then I wont own the game until it shows up somewhere at that price essentially. Not because I'm cheap, but because I have no motivation to spend more than that per se. The Witcher 3 however, that has me quite a bit more excited. I am eager to buy it at whatever the price is when I'm ready to play it. I wont likely buy it before I finish the first two games mind you, but if I finish them before it comes out I will probably pay the GOG price at the time for it on sale or not. That is one exception for me though. For the majority of other games, the most I'm likely to pay generally speaking is about $3.99 for one game and more often than not I end up with a bundle or collection of games which work out to $2.99 or less each thanks to the multitude of sales going on as well as bundles.

It's a great time to be a gamer really.

Having said this though, even if one were to be able to justifiably call me a cheapass - that would be mitigated by the fact that I've bought literally hundreds of games I would have never ever bought in a million years before but I did buy just whimsically because the price was so cheap I didn't even care about the money. So in a sense, the industry and the sale prices and bundles offered right now are responsible for me having 500+ games to get around to playing sometime and also have a general maximum of $3.99 I'll pay for any particular game unless a game is truly remarkable to me and something I'm tripping over myself to buy the soonest I can get my hands on it. But then, there are so many amazing games out there too, that even that argument isn't so strong anymore either, and it takes a game that stands that much more above the others in one or more ways for me to even consider it. Only 2 future games have me that excited at the moment, and coincidentally they're both CD Projekt RED games. :oP

Oddly enough, while I wont buy Witcher 3 until I finish the first two, a part of me hopes that I will actually finish them before it comes out so I can rush out and buy it on release day and throw money and caution into the wind for once, which I never do. Hehehe. ;)

Which is why every big publisher boycotts the sales, right? Please, digital prices are artificially inflated as hell - those 75% off sales tend to be the actual cost of the product. Also, for every 'Big discounts are bad!', you get about 10 studios which love them.

Oh, yeah, you're right.

Just look at all these stores with regional prices. Clearly none of them affected GOG.

What other stores do are their own business. Its the publishers who want the regional pricing. There is no way to judge how it affects GOG aside from a few vocal forumites who are unhappy and want to bail and go to the darkside...aka Steam.

It would surprise me if publishers and developers of anything other than AAA games don't budget their games to be sold at least in part at the prices we see in sales now anyway, as the vast majority of sales are made during discounted periods. That being said, this could very well set off a 'race to the bottom', which could prove disastrous. However, I'm sure Steam would step in prior to this happening as that would affect its revenues too.

As for this announcement's relevance to GOG, depending on the discounting available, it could force them to start offering similar prices in sales. Particularly given the recent introduction of new games to GOG, even with the DRM free mantra of the site, Steam has to be seen as a competitor. I can guarantee that Steam will be keeping a much more active eye on GOG given that GOG has entered the AAA games market. As such Steam will be looking at, and treating, GOG as a competitor now. Whether this news plays any part in this dynamic remains to be seen.

I doubt there'll be much forcing there. From what it sounded like prices/regional prices are pretty much going to be up to the developer, which will most likely mean that the GOG games will share the same prices as Steam games.

"race to the bottom" ------- > that will be interesting seeing what happens.
Seen it a few times. Certain games go on sale on GOG, then suddenly same game 'happens' to go on sale on Steam at the same time. Id say Steam keeps the odd eye on GOG than other way around.

I doubt that's Steam in particular to be honest. Their sales are generally planned quite a while in advance. It's more likely to be the publisher having done that. It's not uncommon to see a game go on sale on several different storefronts within one week or two sometimes. Even at the same time.

I agree, I think it's all driven by publishers. I'd be Valve itself determines when a game goes on sale or not based on what other digital distributors are doing. There are plenty of examples of sales going on where Steam does not have a sale. In fact even during the summer/winter sales, there are plenty of games that are on sale in other places that are cheaper than the Steam sale (happens on amazon a lot). Being the big boy on the block means while you may watch what other stores are doing it doesn't mean you are making sales decisions based off them.