238 replies to this topic

[Ironstrom]

The thing that has steered several mmo's away from steam is not only do they take a on average 30% cut on sales for games, but for f2p style mmo's they take a similar cut of all profits made, for a game marketing on f2p and having no minimal profit to lose a chunk of f2p profit sales is painful. Steam for mmo's is where you go to expand your player base but do you really want more of " ooh what's this game I've never heard of , oh my its f2p lets dl it" or the word of mouth spread to people profoundly interested in the series.

[Oy of MidWorld]

Riin Suul, on 06 July 2012 - 05:41 AM, said:

I don't believe that anyone who thinks that steam sucks has used it in... 5+ years.
steam is probably 80% of what is keeping PC gaming alive today, keeps all your games 100% up to date, and offers AMAZING sales regularly.

EDIT: I own 228 games on steam, and have never had a major issue with it.

I have been using Steam from the very beginning. It decides on a regular basis, what's the course of action for me. And that sucks!
Want to not upgrade Skyrim, because the new upgrade sucks and kills your mods? Want to use an online Steam game at the same time? Forget it. Steam won't let you. You can disable auto-updates, but Steam will just ignore you!

It is not so much an issue for online games, yet i still hope MWO will not use steam, so i can keep steam nice and offline for Skyrims Sake



*rant off*

[Pernumbra]

I am guessing that there is probably a cost in a game being offered on Steam.

But, as long as MWO does not require Steam to be present/active in order to play MWO then I do not see a problem with MWO being offered on Steam - greater audience and all that.

Afterall, there are plenty of F2P games already on Steam, as well as other software that, although they can be purchased/installed through Steam, do not require Steam to be active to play.

[Bluey]

No steam

[Broceratops]

its a great way to market the game

[Adm Awesome]

I don't see what's wrong with the 30%. First of all, I wouldn't for the life of me be able to understand how you got that number, Valve NEVER released sales figures or marketing information, I even tried to look up what percent of the digital market they own and couldn't find that, only someone who estimated it at 70%. Even so, ok, say it's 30%. Well that's 70% of profits that they wouldn't get if it wasn't on steam anyway. You don't have to let steam own your soul, they'll still keep everyone here right now if they were on steam, they would just add a significant amount of others, which is just more money in the companies profit, even if it's only 70% of what it normally would be.

Edited by Adm Awesome, 06 July 2012 - 06:52 AM.

[Threat Doc]

Those of you who use Steam, check your frame rates and your registry. You'll find a fall off in the former, and you'll find a completed screwed up mess in the latter. DO NOT USE STEAM, it is evil, it's just as bad as Norton, it puts its tendrils throughout your computer and takes control of it. A friend of mine has had to replace his computer -fortunately, it was under warranty each time- three times, now, because of Steam; the ***** won't quit using it, so I've stopped caring what happens to his machine, so it may be more than that, by now. We loaded Steam up on my desktop, and my son's desktop, about six months ago for some TF2 action, and had to reload the computers about three months later, right after vacation. Not thinking it had anything to do with Steam, since that's "just a game service", the boys loaded up Steam, again, and now we're looking at reloading the systems, almost on time, five months after loading it on.

As well, if PGI uses Steam to launch F2P, it has to be an exclusive deal and they can't go anywhere else. I dare say they will lose two-thirds of their customers if they go to that piece of garbage service. I wanted to play New Vegas and Skyrim, and those morons at Bethesda/Zenimax took their games to Steam; I had already heard bad things about this highly intrusive service -you may only need a username and password, but they get all of your information through background programs you don't know load onto the system- before, so when that friend who uses Steam and has had to replace his computer so many times GAVE me a copy of New Vegas, I toyed with the idea for several months before giving it back to him. Now, my fears about Steam have been fully realized, and as soon as we reload these computers, I will never touch the service, again.

Anyone with half-a-brain will learn to leave it be, as well. Let it die, find a new way to organize your friends and communicate with them, there are other means out there, but get away from this God-forsaken program. If MWO is put on Steam, I will demand my Founder's money back, and I will scuttle my mercenary unit, and I am not bull-******** about this.

[Namikaze]

Deploying tinfoil helmet.

[Nikohki]

Adm Awesome, on 06 July 2012 - 06:52 AM, said:

I don't see what's wrong with the 30%. First of all, I wouldn't for the life of me be able to understand how you got that number, Valve NEVER released sales figures or marketing information, I even tried to look up what percent of the digital market they own and couldn't find that, only someone who estimated it at 70%. Even so, ok, say it's 30%. Well that's 70% of profits that they wouldn't get if it wasn't on steam anyway. You don't have to let steam own your soul, they'll still keep everyone here right now if they were on steam, they would just add a significant amount of others, which is just more money in the companies profit, even if it's only 70% of what it normally would be.

Agreed. Need sauce on that 30% or gtfo. As an ex-mad scientist, I need citations.

Edited by Nikohki, 06 July 2012 - 07:06 AM.

[Canary]

The problem is, Steam will cut PGI's revenue by up to half, sure itll bring in lots of players, but it'll also cost PGI lots of money. In my opinion, if they are going to go the steam route, wait until MWO's playerbase is going down and they are no longer bringing in as much money. Then put it on steam to generate buzz and raise the number of players again. This could net them more profit.

[Butane9000]

I personally enjoy Steam. I am sure that after release the developers will look to Steam as a way to increase the marketing potential of the game. Similar to Tribes: Ascend. However I don't think that would be for awhile. Also Tribes has run into some issues on steam, most notably the Steam store.

Do I look forward to the day MWO might be on Steam? Yes.

Is it required? No.

[Name48928]

Pernumbra, on 06 July 2012 - 06:45 AM, said:

I am guessing that there is probably a cost in a game being offered on Steam.

The devs did say that using Steam would cut into their profits. It's not a free service for developers to use. But it would be excellent for marketing and distribution. So, from a business point-of-view, it's a trade-off. And PGI will have to decide if going with Steam is worth it to them or not.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Steam is good. I purchase almost every PC game on Steam. Now Origin...that name gives me the shivers.

[Thatamos]

I don't understand all the hatred for steam. It's a free platform, probably the leading example of what "iTunes for Video Games" should look like, and it costs very little to advertise with them. As many have speculated, you have to give a portion of all proceedes to Steam in order to be hosted. For F2P games like this, it'd make little sense at first, but remember-- Spiral Knights is a F2P game on Steam, and it's killing in sales still with micro-transactions. That's the nature of F2P games. In MWO's case, it looks like all in-game real-money purchases will be vanity items that are aesthetically based. There's probably also going to be the standard "Spend $5, get 20,000 Credits" or something like that, but the devs have already stated that you can't simply buy stuff and expect to be good.

Essentially, MWO has all the necessary ingredients to be on Steam. Do they need it? Absolutely not, the fanbase is so big that no extra marketing is necessary. Should they do it? Absolutely. Every business venture, be it a beautiful game being made by loving gamers to sate the drooling desires and dreams of other gamers, or a soulless company pumping out another Madden, exists for one purpose; to make money. Doesn't sound romantic or awesome, but don't get **** twisted-- these guys need to eat food too, and for the amount of work they're putting in, I'm sure they'd like some really effing awesome food. So if that's what they want, it'd be wise to advertise with Steam. You gotta remember that many of the newer generations' gamers don't really know what MechWarrior is, or why it's so cool, or what good games are. This will be an immediate way to show them that not only does MW:O exist, but it appeals to demographics outside of its own fanbase.

I daresay it'd be foolish not to roll with Steam, from a business perspective.

[vettie]

Thorn Hallis, on 06 July 2012 - 05:37 AM, said:

'Mechs are powered by fusion reactors, so steam is out of the picture.

LOL
I suspect that STEAM will be present should the mech get really hot and move into water or under a waterfall (maybe even some hard rain).
Overall, I think steam will be minimal in the game...

[Teirdome]

Hasn't Brian Ekman already stated that they won't be using steam? I can't remember where he stated it, but at launch they're not looking to have steam support.

The estimates are that Valve takes 20 to 30 percent of purchases. What it seems like a lot of companies do is release their F2P game without steam to get a good influx of cash. Then when they have a moderate player size and have been able to purchase hardware to support the influx of steam players they'll add it to steam.

Another thing to consider is that the most successful F2P game is League of Legends, which is no longer available on steam because Riot didn't want to give Valve the cut of their revenue.

[KaOTiK911]

It will probably be in PGI's best interest to go with Steam after the initial launch is done and the number of players is not growing quickly anymore. Steam just gives your game so much exposure to people that you can't ignore it most the time. Also, getting in on events they run to get people to do an achievement for your game can net you even more players that normally wouldn't have played the game to start with if it wasn't for the event. Last, there are a lot of people who don't bother playing a game if it isn't on Steam. Say what you want about it, but Steam is the center of PC gaming now, sure it has issues like anything else, but considering the alternatives nowadays? I'll take Steam, thank you.

[MetaTron7]

Russ Comments on this here:

http://mwomercs.com/...__1#entry499599

[Arbalister]

Thorn Hallis, on 06 July 2012 - 05:37 AM, said:

'Mechs are powered by fusion reactors, so steam is out of the picture.

Not so! PPCs, Flamers and Lasers all generate heat, firing them into water should cause billows of steam. Not to mention wading a hot 'Mech into a lake. At the very least steam should play a role in reducing visibility. What a great tactic - boil up the lake, dive into the steam cloud for cover...

[Valorcalls]

Oy of MidWorld, on 06 July 2012 - 06:44 AM, said:

I have been using Steam from the very beginning. It decides on a regular basis, what's the course of action for me. And that sucks!
Want to not upgrade Skyrim, because the new upgrade sucks and kills your mods? Want to use an online Steam game at the same time? Forget it. Steam won't let you. You can disable auto-updates, but Steam will just ignore you!

It is not so much an issue for online games, yet i still hope MWO will not use steam, so i can keep steam nice and offline for Skyrims Sake



*rant off*

There is a setting to turn off the auto updating... if you learned more about steam and the setting you would have known this. My Skyrim is set to notify me for updates, but to not auto update. While I have STO (another F2P MMO) set to automatically launch and update when an update is released. Not to mention Nuclear Dawn (which i have a gift copy I still haven't used), which like most 1st person shooters requires the latest update to play online. So try steam again, and actually pay attention to the settings.