"Do Steam Sales and Indie Bundles Devalue Games?"

[kane_magus]

Um hmm. I knew that it was only a matter of time before this started becoming a Thing™ (and, of course, it's no surprise at all to me that this article was written by industry brown-noser Chris Pereira). First it was piracy. Then it was used games. Now it's going to be Steam sales and the like. In fact, this is indeed yet another of the things that owsf2000 accurately predicted would be the case years ago (most recently here).

Comments

[hikarugenji.livejournal.com]

My "favorite" part is where discounted games encourage people to spend too much money on games.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

*snips rant* ^^;;;

I'll just say instead I'm tired of being right. So easy to freaking well predict this industry it's fucking hilarious. -_-

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

I think my prediction for what will happen next, once they bring used games and Steam sales down to a "manageable" level, is that they will start trying to phase out the whole "you actually get to download the game to your computer" thing altogether and have all digital distribution go the OnLive route, where you have to stream everything from their servers and don't get to keep jack shit. Maybe even do it on a pay-per-play or pay-per-hour/minute basis, rather than via subscription as it is now. Can't remember if you already made that particular prediction yourself in the past, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

That's end-game goals there however. It's the kind of thing the movie industry wanted when it was looking around at home entertainment formats. They were basically turning down format after format because 1. They had no way to know how often the movie was going to be played, and 2. Had no way to determine how many people were watching each time. Essentially they wanted home movies to essentially mini-theaters - anything else would threaten and destroy their lucrative theater revenue.

Game publishers would have a nonstop orgasm if/when they manage to make it all end up as Onlive - only making you pay full price ($60+) per game you stream, plus full price for all the DLC, then a surcharge every time you actually play it. (Odds are they'll be "Generous" after people try to bitch about the pay-per-play and they'll suffer the loss of revenue and only charge every time you want to save your game... at first.