238 replies to this topic

[Freyar]

I love that people are using the price points for RETAIL sales over recurring currency sales.

[Hollister]

TLBFestus, on 06 July 2012 - 05:26 PM, said:

Who said it's 30% of PROFITS? I highly doubt that, as STEAM would be waiting til you "declared" your profits. What they probably do is take 30% off the top, off whatever you collect because that's much simple and easier to manage.

As a business owner myself, that means that STEAM is taking 30% of your GROSS billings. That means, unless your business is running at lower than 70% overhead you are losing money after STEAM takes its cut. Sure there are lots of businesses that run at a lower over head, but still...

Lets say tht PGIs overhead to provide this game is 50% (which is probably low, at least for the foreseeable future), So that means for every $100 they collect, they use $50 to pay costs, and they keep $50 in profit. Throw STEAM in the mix and suddenly instead of collecting 50% profit they are paying another 30% to STEAM, thus only collecting 20% profit.

That is a 60% DECREASE in income. That is HUGE. That HURTS.

Finaly someone who understands cost and control for making profits.

They are also paying a 20% to 15% royalty to all sales for the cryengine.

[Torus]

Very many online games benefit from going steam optional, such as

EVE: still one of the most popular MMO's ever.

STO: Population increased after being introduced to steam

MWO: Guess we'll have to find out, Steam is merely another distribution device, it's like saying yeah let's publish our game on newpaper but we'll be damned if we ever decide to advertise on TV.

So for all the steam haters, keep on hating steam. The topic of this forum is what role Steam will play. According to many responses apparently it's a bad idea to be open to all forms of game distribution, despite the fact the best way to get a game out is being open to all forms of game distribution.


This is a Massively Multiplayer Online experience, it's not just for you.

[Ranek Blackstone]

Torus, on 06 July 2012 - 06:06 PM, said:

Very many online games benefit from going steam optional, such as

EVE: still one of the most popular MMO's ever.

STO: Population increased after being introduced to steam

MWO: Guess we'll have to find out, Steam is merely another distribution device, it's like saying yeah let's publish our game on newpaper but we'll be damned if we ever decide to advertise on TV.

So for all the steam haters, keep on hating steam. The topic of this forum is what role Steam will play. According to many responses apparently it's a bad idea to be open to all forms of game distribution, despite the fact the best way to get a game out is being open to all forms of game distribution.


This is a Massively Multiplayer Online experience, it's not just for you.

The except steam is going to want a massive cut out of the revenue stream, and that is going to cut into development budget. On a title like say Crysis where EA is footing the bill, thats not so bad. EA's marketing department is very good at their job, and they'll offset the costs through increased sales.

But 30% off the top is going to hurt. And then there are lisencing fees for the engine, and you have a a lot less money flowing into the devs pockets.

So, to recap, it's not that we all hate steam, it's that steam is not the best fit for MWO at this moment in time. Maybe when the player base is larger, but not at lauch.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Steam would eat a sizable chunk of Piranha's revenue in order to give them a listing and advertisement they don't need. This is why only "desperate" games are on Steam or end up on Steam. A multiplayer game that can actually self sustain effectively by itself is never on Steam.(You don't see WoW on there do you?) This game is already heavily advertised and as soon as the NDA drops it will be EVERYWHERE. They do not need to feed Steam. I bet their servers will be overloaded already when this game hits release just from the demand and they will likely stay loaded for a really long time if the game is good. This is the "1" MechWarrior Online game. It won't need Steam. If worst comes to worst, it will still have its MechWarrior fans.(Just like Old Republic is still alive due to being the only decent Star Wars MMO. It is carried by its genre's fans. This game will be the same.)

[Valorcalls]

Bluten, on 06 July 2012 - 06:56 PM, said:

Steam would eat a sizable chunk of Piranha's revenue in order to give them a listing and advertisement they don't need. This is why only "desperate" games are on Steam or end up on Steam. A multiplayer game that can actually self sustain effectively by itself is never on Steam.(You don't see WoW on there do you?) This game is already heavily advertised and as soon as the NDA drops it will be EVERYWHERE. They do not need to feed Steam. I bet their servers will be overloaded already when this game hits release just from the demand and they will likely stay loaded for a really long time if the game is good. This is the "1" MechWarrior Online game. It won't need Steam. If worst comes to worst, it will still have its MechWarrior fans.(Just like Old Republic is still alive due to being the only decent Star Wars MMO. It is carried by its genre's fans. This game will be the same.)

You don't see WoW on there because blizzard are a bunch of stingy lazy ********. Also factor in that WoW costs MONEY per month, in addition to the crap you can buy from the blizzard store. IT IS NOT FREE TO PLAY. Steam is not just for 'desperate' games. If you had looked at some of the game titles on steam recently (Skyrim, CoD MW3 to name two) , not to mention the ones up and coming (Aliens: Colonial Marines, Company of Heroes 2, Prototype 2, Assassin's Creed 3, CoD Black Ops 2, etc etc) you wouldn't be able to call those games desperate.

[KaOTiK911]

Lol desperate games are not the ones that end up on Steam. Lord of the Rings Online, probably the most successful F2P MMO that has a very healthy and growing player base recently joined Steam. WoW didn't simply because Blizzard has Battle.net and don't sell their games digitally anywhere else. Eve Online, the only MMO that has increased its subscriber base year after year since its launch has been on Steam for a couple of years now.

I'm not saying go Steam or not for MWO, but some are looking at it a bit narrow too and just looking at how much of a cut Steam would get. You seem to forget the amount of people that it would draw in. Sure profit from each player would be less, but you would make up for it in quantity (sorta like how they do those 75+% off sales for games on Steam). Plus advertising. Lets face it, if you don't visit game sites and forums at a fairly regular degree, chances are people don't even know MWO even exist. I was talking to a friend who is a gamer, but checks a website here and there for whats new and just keeps up with new releases due to logging into Steam each day and when I told him how I am looking forward to this game, he had no clue what it was and he loves mech stuff. I'm sure he will be buying a founders pack now, but that is just an example of people not even knowing about this game (granted it is in beta, but still, if it wasn't for the founders pack stuff I still wouldn't be paying attention to it either to be honest).

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Valorcalls, on 06 July 2012 - 08:00 PM, said:

You don't see WoW on there because blizzard are a bunch of stingy lazy ********. Also factor in that WoW costs MONEY per month, in addition to the crap you can buy from the blizzard store. IT IS NOT FREE TO PLAY. Steam is not just for 'desperate' games. If you had looked at some of the game titles on steam recently (Skyrim, CoD MW3 to name two) , not to mention the ones up and coming (Aliens: Colonial Marines, Company of Heroes 2, Prototype 2, Assassin's Creed 3, CoD Black Ops 2, etc etc) you wouldn't be able to call those games desperate.

It isn't on there simply because Blizzard doesn't need to put their games on there. Neither does Piranha. Monthly fee has nothing to do with it.(Star Wars is on there and it has a monthly fyi)

Actually LotR was a failing MMO and went F2P on Steam in order to save it. It worked because they're making more money off this than they were before.

Edited by Bluten, 06 July 2012 - 08:17 PM.

[Quintos Gidieon]

I think getting on Steam would definitely boost player base and it would help to the get word out to possibly more BT fans that don't know about MWO yet. I just found out about this games development in an article on Tom's Hardware a couple of months ago myself... Tom's Hardware article about the Founder's Packages going on sale was the only way I even found out that MWO was this far along in development...

[Freyar]

Anyone? Anyone at all? 30% for recurring sales on Free-to-Play currency? Where's the evidence of that one? Anyone? Hello~~~~ Burden of proof is on you guys.

(Star Wars: The Old Republic is not on Steam.)

Edited by Freyar, 06 July 2012 - 08:24 PM.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

I think I would like it on Steam just for the merged friend's list thing that is becoming popular these days. But is it worth Piranha losing a chunk of their profit, which would be used on game design/content? I got to question that.

[MetaTron7]

OP, Russ already addressed this and you probably know this if you have been following your thread.

I think the best way we can utilize steam from a player perspective is if we tell ALL the people on our Steam Friends list about this game. Talk it up with your friends and talk about MWO while in game - Sell it. We can increase the fan base for PGI plus we would be doing ourselves a big favor in the process.

Edited by MetaTron7, 06 July 2012 - 08:29 PM.

[KaOTiK911]

Bluten, on 06 July 2012 - 08:17 PM, said:

Actually LotR was a failing MMO and went F2P on Steam in order to save it. It worked because they're making more money off this than they were before.

Actually LotR was already F2P for like a year before it went to Steam. When LotR went F2P is became much more popular and starting growing more because of it and has been since. It just recently (like a month) went on Steam.

[SpecTRe X]

KaOTiK911, on 06 July 2012 - 03:06 PM, said:

Not meaning to single you out, as others might have stated the same thing (I just happened to see it in this post) so no offense, but Steam does not data mine and sell your info. Steam will have a pop up come up asking you if you wish to take part in their hardware/software survey. First it is totally random who gets selected by this (can happen more then once) and second, it is totally optional, you can say no and nothing is given to Valve. They also do not sell the data they do collect but use it for their own benefit (such as basic hardware/software requirements for a game for example)

The rest of the post I wont touch(some I agree with some I don't) as it is a matter of opinion

No worries . I was thinking of the game recomendations that it makes for you too, itunes has the same feature for music and I have that off just on principle. I don't want a company, any company, to tell me what I might like I want to find that on my own and I don't want them using info on what I use to help themselves make more money off of me. They have this on cell phones too for 'targeted' advertising and I hate it and disable it when ever possible. Beyond that I don't trust them or put weight in their word, in all reality what is really stopping them from gathering info without you knowing it? I'm not saying they're doing it but I'm not saying they aren't either.

Freyar, on 06 July 2012 - 05:25 PM, said:

Blacklight: Retribution has a problem, and that is that Perfect World Entertainment and Zombie Studios wasn't prepared for the influx. It is important to note that this is not Steam's fault, but that of PWE/Zombie for failure to plan for such an increase.

Data Mining doesn't exist beyond what you explicitly allow such as the hardware survey. (Again, this is optional and it is anonymous.) MWO being on Steam wouldn't require Steam for distribution to begin with. It's an option, an avenue to get more exposure and more players. I frankly believe that Steam would be a significant benefit when it comes to establishing a strong player base.

The negative behaviors of players incoming is very common in any multiplayer game getting a large influx of players.Blaming the "Steam Community" is petty, trying to label a particular entity as the cause "of all the problems" when in reality it's the public at large that is an issue.

Granted but the way I see it that should have been considered and/or asked/tested before hand. If steam is great and wants to do good by its users wouldn't this of been a prudent action to take before going through with any kind of deal or contract. So the way I see it steam is just as much to blame as pwe/zs in that regard.

Read above.

Here. I never said the steam community was the root of all problems, what I said was that there is a part of it that isn't worth the additional player base. Further I don't see how it's petty, I'm hoping that MWo is a rather complicated game that won't appeal to the majority of the younger childish audience that most other games attract. I'd like a game that has a player base made of mostly mature people and players who don't act like 2 year olds and whine about every last little thing in a round. Players who don't spam the chat with useless drivel and words like ***** and **** (recent insight from the BL:r chat box) for 30 minutes at a time.

Maybe I'm asking or expecting too much, I'm not saying don't have fun but have fun in a way that isn't trolling or acting like a doof, have some respect for yourself and the other players and treat people the way you want to be treated. In the end what I'm hoping for are younger players like myself and older players who have been playing MW and BT games that have and expect a decent level of maturity and who are through behaving like infants and toddlers. Wouldn't we all like a few games like that? free of players that act like toddlers, I know I do.

[KaOTiK911]

SpecTRe X, on 06 July 2012 - 09:40 PM, said:

No worries . I was thinking of the game recomendations that it makes for you too, itunes has the same feature for music and I have that off just on principle. I don't want a company, any company, to tell me what I might like I want to find that on my own and I don't want them using info on what I use to help themselves make more money off of me. They have this on cell phones too for 'targeted' advertising and I hate it and disable it when ever possible. Beyond that I don't trust them or put weight in their word, in all reality what is really stopping them from gathering info without you knowing it? I'm not saying they're doing it but I'm not saying they aren't either.

Fair enough. Though I have no proof (as I never paid attention to it honestly), I think the game recommendation just looks at what games you do own and recommends similar genre types of games as well (hard to say, I have nearly 500 games on my Steam account lol). I hate advertisements as well and feel you on that. You are correct, they could gather such info without anyone being the wiser possibly, but if they were and got busted I'm sure they will be in a lot of trouble (or so I'd hope if the laws are totally screwed up in that area). I personally rather give Steam and Valve the benefit of the doubt since they are privately owned company not having to answer to shareholders and Gabe does care about his costumers and their concerns and privacy (got to meet and speak with him a few years back when I worked in the game industry).

[Dhimmi]

Ranek Blackstone, on 06 July 2012 - 06:29 PM, said:

The except steam is going to want a massive cut out of the revenue stream, and that is going to cut into development budget. On a title like say Crysis where EA is footing the bill, thats not so bad. EA's marketing department is very good at their job, and they'll offset the costs through increased sales.

But 30% off the top is going to hurt. And then there are lisencing fees for the engine, and you have a a lot less money flowing into the devs pockets.

So, to recap, it's not that we all hate steam, it's that steam is not the best fit for MWO at this moment in time. Maybe when the player base is larger, but not at lauch.

again the 30%? i would really like to see some backing on that figure, yes steam takes a cut ( logical) but if the cut was so "massive" as claimed it wouldnt be the most succesfull distribution platform around... so i doubt the costs outweighs the gains for 3rd party developers on steam

[SnakePliskin]

i do like steam, good idea.

[Tavarish]

This thread raises some questions.

People keep throwing around percents like 30% etc. Where these come from? How these said people has come up with these said percents? Some actual proof like links and documents would be nice. Otherwise it's safe to assume that numbers are made up and has no any standing in arguments.

Russ Bullock stated following about Steam; "We cant answer this at this point. Obviously steam's community and reach is amazing. However it also comes at extreme expense on the games revenue stream." I'm now curious to know more about this "extreme expense" or is Piranha bound by NDA? It's a fact that Steam takes a cut, any retail business does, but how extreme it's then? Please, no made up numbers. In Steam is games like "Legend of Grimrock" that has really small and niche audience and made my small and rather poor Indie studios yet they made a deal with Steam and are benefiting from it.

There is games like Tribes: Ascend that are F2P and new to the Steam and are doing rather well as far I know. Game doesn't have huge audience because not easiest FPS game out there and requires some time to be good in it. Yet they took "leap of faith", made deal with Steam and are benefiting from it. How MWO is different from that? Lack of confidence in theirs product hence wont take that said leap and trust that investment pays off?

Visibility is only good thing. Argument can be made that Steam can ruin community of MWO because of "a lot ppl that don't understand what MWO is all about or care about universe and will just cry and whine thus making community bad". I still think that more visibility for MWO, even in its current Closed Beta -phase, would be only good thing to have. Currently MWO has almost 0 visibility. Couple of my friends loved MW 3 and 4, but had never heard anything about MWO. I learned about MWO by pure accident and only thing I was able to think was, "***? Since when something like this has been in development?" Piranha intentionally keeps MWO rather well hidden during Closed Beta -phase and will ramp marketing up closer to Open Beta or what is with non-existing visibility?

Then argument can be made that Steam is bad for MWO and Piranha if they can't afford upping server capacity for increased amount of players that would come through utilizing Steam. Like stated before Blacklight had this problem when they hit to the Steam, no enough extra servers to compensate for huge increase in amount of players which can lead into lost players and sales.

P.S. Legend of Grimrock is old school dungeon crawler made by Almost Human Games, Finnish indie studio.

[Freyar]

SpecTRe X, on 06 July 2012 - 09:40 PM, said:

Granted but the way I see it that should have been considered and/or asked/tested before hand. If steam is great and wants to do good by its users wouldn't this of been a prudent action to take before going through with any kind of deal or contract. So the way I see it steam is just as much to blame as pwe/zs in that regard.

What do you mean asked or tested before hand? Steam's responsibility is not that of running BLR, that is entirely PWE/ZS's responsibility. Would you tell a retailer like Walmart to ensure there is sufficient server capacity for say.. Aion at it's launch (7 hour queues anyone?) Steam is just a vendor with neat little things to make it nice to use. They are not in the position of a publisher, nor should they for third party games.

Quote

Read above. [Re: Data-mining]

You can turn off advertising, but really the most it does is track your time (as a social option), track your purchases as it manages your licenses, and tracks what DLC offers might be available for you. The hardware survey doesn't happen without your permission, it doesn't even SCAN the system till you give it the go-ahead.

Quote

I never said the steam community was the root of all problems, what I said was that there is a part of it that isn't worth the additional player base. Further I don't see how it's petty, I'm hoping that MWo is a rather complicated game that won't appeal to the majority of the younger childish audience that most other games attract. I'd like a game that has a player base made of mostly mature people and players who don't act like 2 year olds and whine about every last little thing in a round. Players who don't spam the chat with useless drivel and words like ***** and **** (recent insight from the BL:r chat box) for 30 minutes at a time.

Maybe I'm asking or expecting too much, I'm not saying don't have fun but have fun in a way that isn't trolling or acting like a doof, have some respect for yourself and the other players and treat people the way you want to be treated. In the end what I'm hoping for are younger players like myself and older players who have been playing MW and BT games that have and expect a decent level of maturity and who are through behaving like infants and toddlers. Wouldn't we all like a few games like that? free of players that act like toddlers, I know I do.

You're expecting too much. BLR is a free-to-play game. Put any free-to-play game in combination with easily created accounts and a channel that reaches ALL or a majority of players and you'll get the same behavior. Throwing out the possibility of drawing in players from Steam because of behavior is petty when this isn't an issue about where the players come from, but the accessibility and ease of joining the game. Battlefield 3, Call of Duty, EvE Online, World of Warcraft all have their trolls, hackers, teamkillers, swindlers, cyber...ers, and racist morons. MWO and BLR are no different with the exception that it will be MORE visible due to the nature of Free-to-Play.

[Teirdome]

Freyar, on 06 July 2012 - 08:23 PM, said:

Anyone? Anyone at all? 30% for recurring sales on Free-to-Play currency? Where's the evidence of that one? Anyone? Hello~~~~ Burden of proof is on you guys.

(Star Wars: The Old Republic is not on Steam.)

Steam's NDA is so stinking tight around their sales division that no official numbers have ever been released. However, you can compare it to other marketplaces to come up with a good estimate. Apple takes a flat 30% from their store (well known). Microsoft takes 30% from XBLIG (James Silva's quote on Gamasutra). We can keep going down the list of distributors and their rates are about the same.

When 30% is a well established rate among digital distribution channels, why would Valve change it? Because they're nice? Throwing EA games off of their platform because they dared to sell directly to their customers (the exact thing Valve does with games that require Steam) shows that they aren't so kind.

The next question is why would they charge the same amount for F2P titles. I believe they would. What they're doing with normal titles is taking a percentage of the revenue stream. Why would they change it?

In summary, these are figures based upon well established norms in the gaming industry extrapolated to a very tight-lipped service. I believe the burden on proof is on you as to why it would be different.

Edited by Teirdome, 07 July 2012 - 06:05 AM.