Publishers are setting the prices for digital sales. I don’t think it’s anything like retail stores.
Publisher or developer has a game. They sell the game to the store. Store sells the game to customers.
Store takes 30% for itself from the sale price.
To attract customers, store decides to take only 5%, and make the game cheaper for customers. Thefore, Metro can cost 48 euros instead of 60.
With EGS exclusivity, Metro costs 60 euros and no other store can compete.
So, really, there is no competition on the price of individual games. If a game is set to 40 dollars in 2019, they might allow a sale to bring it down to 25 dollars, but ultimately, it’s up to publisher, not the individual stores.
I can see having multiple stores might lead to multiple sales, and sales events, but that does mean that the actual sale price will be less. Just that you will have it more frequently.
So, I guess the question I have, whether the game is on 10 stores or only on one, if the publisher isn’t going to compete with themselves, does it make a difference. On price?
I don’t think that is the case. Publishers get to decide the value of their game, not the store.
Nesrie
5621
So what exactly are you asking if you say you already know the answer.
They decide that when they sell the game to the store. How exactly do you think GreenmanGaming and many other stores offer those 20% discounts to customers on new games? By forfeiting part of their own cut. That is how it works.
I don’t know for sure. I mean, @Paul_cze brought up an interesting point, but I don’t think that happens.
Here is an interesting article on pricing but it’s dated.
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-weird-ecomomics-behind-steam-prices-around-the-world/
Anyway, I am trying to figure out of ‘exclusives’ actually impact a games prices.
Now the argument that @Paul_cze makes is that vendors can take off their cut to drive a sale. But if you are selling a key from the Steam store, you still have to deal with the favored nation status that is Steam.
Anyway, the wider point is that games are pretty elastic.
I gave you a literal specific example and described how it works. I don’t know what else you want.
I would love citations and how companies get around the favored nation status of Steam. We have talked about it before. It’s in the agreement. And most of the sales that are deeper cuts are basically key resellers.
Also, I would note that publishers still need to sell their games cheaper because they compete with each other. Age of Wonders Planetfall seems like a cool game, but it competes for my dollars for Fantasy General 2 or even Age of Empires 2 DE.
So, I don’t think it’s logical that a game sold on multiple stores would drive the price down if the same publisher decides the prices for all of them.
I think its more likely having multiple publishers competing for our dollars that drives the prices down.
Nesrie
5626
This kind of crap drives me nuts. You actually lecture people about “loaded language” and then you use it yourself.
Then you pretend like you don’t know or don’t understand something and ask questions and seconds later, seconds, turn around and tell people all about it like you do know when they start trying discuss it with you. If there is only one person you will accept an answer from or you have already decided the answer ahead of time, just say so.
jsnell
5627
“Most favoured nation” is not loaded language. It’s the established technical term for the concept for contacts that disallow one party from giving better terms to a third party.
“Bribe” is loaded language since this is clearly not a bribe, but a normal business arrangement. For EU companies bribery is illegal and the board of the bringing company is personally liable. It is not a word to be thrown around lightly.
Grifman
5628
Are you sure about that? I bought Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for 20% off on GMG while it was full price on Steam and Ubisoft. Someone didn’t get the memo :)
Nesrie
5629
You mean contracts? This contract has come up before, and I am wholly against Steam requiring something like this. My apologies @legowarrior then. I did not know that was what he was referring to.
As for the bribe, I didn’t call it a bribe. I won’t speak for the person who did.
I don’t know that it is especially savory to go after someone like a day after they announce for Steam though or take from crowdfunding as they do. but I don’t see how it is actually illegal.
I do know you can find these games at different prices… all the time though.
Grifman
5630
What do you mean it doesn’t happen? GMG offers discounts all the time.
I guarantee exclusives affect prices. I can get most games that I am interested at GMG for discounts of between 15% and 20% off at various points in time. However, I could not do this for Metro Exodus because GMG could not offer the game due to EGS exclusivity.
So? You’re moving the goal posts. The question is whether exclusives impact pricing, not whether I still have to deal with Steam or not…
But is the discount offered by GMG equal to the initial price of Metro Exodus?
It was 49.99 on Epic, but wasn’t sold at 59.99 on steam? So, that is a pretty sharp discount, isn’t it?
As for moving the goal post, I hope not. I am trying to argue that it isn’t stores that lead to discount, but the number of publishers. Stores might have individual sales, but those won’t be discounted greater then the publisher wants initially without pressuring from other publishers reducing their prices.
It’s just a theory, mind you.
But I do wonder how the favor nation clause works. Is it just ignored?
Malkael
5632
Bless those fortunate to live in America and actually see 10 dollars off the usual RRP. Doesn’t mean a thing to those of us who live in other territories outside of North America where there hasn’t ever been any difference in pricing. So far EGS has been a big fat negative for me when it comes to getting a good deal, I know Australia is used to getting the short end of the stick but geez I can’t even shop around to get the best deal now. Might improve once Humble Bundle and other third-party stores can start selling EGS exclusives, but until then EGS exclusives are indeed impacting pricing for me.
If what @Paul_cze says is true though, that’s still being sold to Green Man Gaming at the publisher regulated price. aka, the publisher is controlling the price, and then the Green Man Gaming site is deciding to take a loss on that game to drive a sale.
They’re a true middleman like, say, a local game retailer who buys and resells from a distributor. Steam and the Epic Games Store (or Ubistore, Origin, etc.) are not like Green Man Gaming. They are something entirely different. Key resellers are operating in a different environment, and one that publishers probably are ok with to a point… as long as the price that the publisher gets isn’t changed no matter where the key was sold.
This digital market is very different from retail.
Malkael
5635
Might need to wait for the addition of more third-party stores, as far as buying pre-orders and release day games goes currently EGS and HB are pretty samey for me compared to if it were GMG or elsewhere. Be interesting to see what HB’s sales events are like though, but EGS might have them beat on that one for a bit if they keep up the price discounting tactics of their last sales event.
Totally understandable and I’m sorry for your regional pricing headaches. My main point was to just ensure awareness that the EGStore and Humble Bundle were already collaborating.
