Maybe true for the "new" job... But in the old days I got tons of good Indies i'd never have known existed otherwise.
Many real Indies needed the exposure
I missed the first bundles and bought previously bundled games because I heard of them from being bundled and I wasn't being stupid with "bundled once months ago likely never in again therefore worthless forever" like you mentioned
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Maybe true for the "new" hib... But in the old days I got tons of good Indies i'd never have known existed otherwise.
Many real Indies needed the exposure
I missed the first bundles and bought previously bundled games because I heard of them from being bundled and I wasn't being stupid with "bundled once months ago likely never in again therefore worthless forever" like you mentioned
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I'd describe DayZ as the Counter-Strike of zombie survival shooters. If you want a zombie survival simulator, consider DayZ as, at the very least, what the next great zombie survival shooter will remind you of.
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Star Forge went down to 50% off, and is still in early access. I agree with your point, there's absolutely no reason to expect an alpha game to go on sale, especially DayZ, but it does happen occasionally.
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A few do. Which says a lot about how little confidence the developers have in the final quality. Best to get the money while they can say that any bugs will be fixed for release day. Which may never come.
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Early access games go on sale all the time. But not often within a week unless there was a discount in place already.
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Not everyone is a Day Z or a Minecraft. Some games just have ridiculous sales potential with or without discounts. Most games can't pull that off though. Just because Day Z is at the top of the charts doesn't mean that every good game can do the same without sales or bundles.
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And what's that lesson for developers?
If you make one successful game, announce sequel and then delay it for a year, so people will be so overhyped they'll throw all kind of money in monitor?
If I were Bohemia/Valve, as an experiment I would release Day Z for a hour with $300 price tag and then say "sorry, software mistake" - how many people would buy it anyway?
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Why would they put it on sale if they are selling copies like hot cakes :P Same thing happened with starbound. You only put a game on sale when you want to sell more copies or just be nice
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Many developers nowadays give away free keys or bundle their Greenlight games BEFORE selling the first copy at Steam.
They should have at least given their games a chance and observed the real initial response.
The truth is that previously bundled games cannot stay on the top 100 sellers chart for more than a few days even during their first month.
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Honestly like 90% of the games coming out of greenlight are either crap or never would have sold a lot in the first place.
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I mean they should have given their games at least half a year of observation. Meanwhile, they should try to maintain the price and use various marketing methods to boost the sales. Doing it this way, they can see the real market value of their products.
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But.. Dayz HAS been observed :P people had a taste of their game already in the form of a mod and obviously that was enough for a large number of people to want to buy their standalone. I am just saying: why put your game on sale or give out free keys if you know people will buy it anyways.
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Lessons actually learned: (These lessons were already being learned/believed, but DayZ standalone acts as more supporting evidence.)
1) Those MMO zombie games really do sell tons! Let's rush ours out and grab our part of the cash too!
2) Forget selling games that need day one patches and are released weeks or months from being finished, we can sell games that are years from completion. We just have to call it "Early Access" or "Closed Beta" or something, and people will pay full price or even higher just to get a chance to play!
EDIT: It is worth remembering that WarZ also sold extremely not only during release, but continued to sell even after people and sites calling it deceptive, broken, and a likely cash grab scam. People even bought it after it returned to Steam under a different name.
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Add Steam Trading Cards. Every game with cards sells well.
Also, how about 1 USD for early access, and that early access gives you a 25% discount if you buy the game when it launches?
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Steam trading cards are so magical :P They increase the sales of games that use them and make it so a buyer doesn't feel too ripped off if he buys a crappy game. I love how much they have helped indie developers.
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No it does not. And in this very case - the supply of a genre. Demand for open world survival multiplayer games is way higher then it's supply... at this very moment there's not even one game of this genre done... all are in their alpha and beta stages of development and people are still buying them like bananas, ergo - big price, no discounts
And you can call it greed, economics, capitalism, monetism or whatever you want... that's how the world works now.
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If we would be talking about digital games, then my point would be valid. But you didn't say a specific genre in the first place. It is true that there really isn't anything in that category, Stalker would be the closest one but it is getting old and people want something else to play.
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And next time - before you try to be condescending smartmouth - maybe study economics a little. Supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a certain market, it doesn't mean quantity of supplies necessarily... Supply is still a factor even when the surplus or shortage is not an element any more (case of DD)...
And the supply in this case is not DayZ and it's digital copies, but genre of open world survival games - which is very low and demand is very high.
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I wonder if the fact that it is outperforming the sale titles (even very good flash and dailies) says more about Steam's overall sales volume than it does about DayZ blowing doors off. Steam doesn't have to release their sales figures, so we will never know.
I don't think that necessarily hurts the assertion in the OP, but I tend to think that the other digital distributors are continuing to erode Steam's share of the market and overall volume.
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When other retailers sell Steam keys, I don't know, but I think Steam will get their share as well.
In the business world, there is no volunteer work. Every party involved will take their shares. There is no way Steam provide all the bandwidth and service (if there is any) if they don't get anything in return from GMG, Gamersgate, Nuuvem and similar sites.
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Puts on tinfoil hat. We don't even know if the top seller list is even real! I mean seriously, none of the "top" 3 games right now (DayZ, Starbound, Rust) have discounts. Maybe Steam just puts the games on the top that gives Steam more money. Like 50/50 split between Steam and developer or something. Or maybe the devs pay Steam to display on the front page! You never know! Or maybe... gaben is an alien and trying to take over the world!
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'if your game is worth its price'
DayZ is not worth 30$ in my opinion, considering the bad performance it has.
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If there was a situation that told people that price matters it would be either Gone Home or Planetary Annihilation.
Both are massively overpriced and so under preformed in the store, even though PA is just early access, they wanted to treat early access like it was the exact same as kickstarter and their justification for launching at nearly 100 USD was that that was the highest kickstarter level and so it would not be fair to everyone else unless everyone paid that.
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I have no idea why people are throwing their money at an early access title that will remain in alpha stage for at least one year. It's going to be a very long time until the final game gets released. So long, that it will definitely drop in price and ultimately screw over the loyal customers who bought it day 1.
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As of 23 Dec 2013, DayZ Alpha Access has remained on the top of the top sellers list at Steam. Considering that it is only in its alpha stage, was actually a free mod, asks for 29.99 and ridiculously offers no discount at all during Holiday Sale, it is fair to say that its sales performance is a very strange phenomenon in the post-humblebundle gaming society.
So the message for developers is very clear now: if your game is worth its price, people will pay for it and there is no need to give 75% off discount two months after release or even bundle it with five other games for a dollar before its 1st birthday. Many developers who are not very good at marketing superstitiously believe in bundle strategy and sharp discount, unknowingly hurting their early buyers and loyal fans while at the same time building up a cheapass fan base who are not willing to pay more than one buck for five games. The result is that their potential profits are hurt as people simply regard previously bundled games as worthless, as clearly demonstrated at SG.
As a consumer, of course I welcome bundles and discounts over 75% off. I love my money more than the gaming industry. But any sensible people should understand that the bundle business model is not sustainable, especially for indie developers who just have one or two products. Bundles work for old games or games with a lot of potential DLCs. For games that rely heavily on one-time purchase, bundling is equal to suicide.
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