Hate to encourage: Release via steam » Forum Post by zampolit

kyogre12

Join Date 07/2008

+100

This is a topic that has been brought up a lot in the past, and I can promise you it won't happen. For one thing, 70% of the digital distribution market is not the same as 70% of the overall distribution market. IIRC, retail sales are still a much, much larger portion of overall sales, although DD is growing.

Plus Steam is Impulse's largest direct competitor, and it would be unwise to do something that would help them out, especially considering Brad (Stardock CEO) doesn't agree with some of Valve's business practices.

And finally, you don't see any Valve games on Impulse. If they don't put Half-Life 2 or Portal or whatever on Impulse, why would Stardock put their games on Steam?

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never

steam is for nubs who play cs and cod

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Wintersong

Join Date 07/2006

+235

Quoting ,

quoting post

*ducks from flying objects*

But, seriously...steam (as per Stardock CEO) has 70% of the digital distribution market. That's a lot of players. There is also a LOT of steam-only people out there. So by not publishing, even to a rival, means potential loss of a lot of players.

I'll even volunteer to run the Elemental official group and assist moderate the forums. I just would like as many people as possible for multiplayer games.

But put aside the fact that developer = publisher/distributor. To make the most $ you need the most distribution you can. And well, Steam even with its flaws has a huge playerbase.

Plus, Sins of a Solar Empire would rule there since they don't have anything comparable yet. (well, there really isn't anyway...)

Just a thought to make this more successful...

Go monopoly, go!

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Quoting Pantasd,

reply 2

never

steam is for nubs who play cs and cod

I disagree. I am a steam-aholic. I have 50+ games that I purchased from there. Interesting enough, I got Sins as soon as it came out and never knew about impulse until Entrenchement came out. I loaded it for the first time and that's all I've used it for.

This game will be the 2nd time.

Yes, they may be competition...but if you can sell it there(while may be for less of a profit than via impulse) its greater ability for visibility and mass sales may balance out that % of gross margin

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The point is correct that Elemental would see more total sales if released on Steam, but as is pointed out above, with Stardock's interest in Impulse it's not helpful to them to put Steam on more computers.

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Quoting kyogre12,

reply 1

This is a topic that has been brought up a lot in the past, and I can promise you it won't happen. For one thing, 70% of the digital distribution market is not the same as 70% of the overall distribution market. IIRC, retail sales are still a much, much larger portion of overall sales, although DD is growing.

Plus Steam is Impulse's largest direct competitor, and it would be unwise to do something that would help them out, especially considering Brad (Stardock CEO) doesn't agree with some of Valve's business practices.

And finally, you don't see any Valve games on Impulse. If they don't put Half-Life 2 or Portal or whatever on Impulse, why would Stardock put their games on Steam?

Exactly. Stardock doesn't put any of their stuff on Steam because they would need to divide profits WITH VALVE. This makes it harder to compete with Valve.

Quoting Pantasd,

reply 2

never

steam is for nubs who play cs and cod

I'll agree with the "Elemental will never be on Steam" part. But not "Steam is for nubs who play Counter-Strike and Call of Duty".

I happen to own Portal and DoWII+Chaos Rising on Steam, and I also like Steam pretty well. It's a fairly solid service that works pretty well. It isn't the best, but it's certainly not the worst.

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Quoting kyogre12,

reply 1

And finally, you don't see any Valve games on Impulse. If they don't put Half-Life 2 or Portal or whatever on Impulse, why would Stardock put their games on Steam?

If they don't put Elemental on Steam, why would Valve put their games on Impulse ?

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Quoting lokideath,

reply 7

Quoting kyogre12,
reply 1

And finally, you don't see any Valve games on Impulse. If they don't put Half-Life 2 or Portal or whatever on Impulse, why would Stardock put their games on Steam?

If they don't put Elemental on Steam, why would Valve put their games on Impulse ?

Valve wouldn't put their games on Impulse in the first place because they control significantly more DD market share.

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the cs and cod part was a joke

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Quoting Whiskey144,

reply 8

Valve wouldn't put their games on Impulse in the first place because they control significantly more DD market share.

Exactly, nothing wrong with being #2. And I am sure steam is confortable with its lead. So why wouldn't they want to sell a soon-to-be-great game and make some $ off that? Its still good business without risk of losing market share. Steam-ers will remain steam-ers...BUT this could make impulse a bit more visible.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+454

but if you can sell it there(while may be for less of a profit than via impulse)

It's extremely unlikely that the additional sales (many of which might come at the cost of direct sales) would be enough to outweigh losing a huge cut of the revenue to Valve. And as Brad has said, we will not support the creation or growth of a monopoly in the DD market.

The only winner in such an arrangement would be Steam.

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Sareln

Join Date 05/2007

+19

Unilateral surrender gets you killed, surprisingly enough.

Why give up without even trying? If Stardock thinks they have a winner in Reactor/Impulse, they stand to gain much more by competing with steam for DD share. That and the dystopian view Frogboy has put forward about one-system dominance on the PC.

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Quoting Whiskey144,

reply 8

Valve wouldn't put their games on Impulse in the first place because they control significantly more DD market share.

Yep, exactly. So no one will move.

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Quoting Pantasd,

reply 9

the cs and cod part was a joke

It seemed like you were deriding people who use Steam, and I use Steam, so I defended myself/other Steam users. Though it is very joke-ish looking back.

Quoting zampolit,

reply 10

Quoting Whiskey144,
reply 8

Valve wouldn't put their games on Impulse in the first place because they control significantly more DD market share.

Exactly, nothing wrong with being #2. And I am sure steam is confortable with its lead. So why wouldn't they want to sell a soon-to-be-great game and make some $ off that? Its still good business without risk of losing market share. Steam-ers will remain steam-ers...BUT this could make impulse a bit more visible.

Quoting kryo,

reply 11

but if you can sell it there(while may be for less of a profit than via impulse)

It's extremely unlikely that the additional sales (many of which might come at the cost of direct sales) would be enough to outweigh losing a huge cut of the revenue to Valve. And as Brad has said, we will not support the creation or growth of a monopoly in the DD market.

And that is why Stardock isn't going to put their stuff on Steam. Because it would encourage the growth of a monopoly in the DD market.

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Guess this just comes to the philosophy...which is more important? Winning a battle or the war?

If it was any other developer, it would be on both DD sites. However, its on one. So does this product contribute more to $ by getting more distribution...or contribute more by keeping it in-house?

Two thoughts: both.

My perspective

1) I didn't know impulse existed until Sins Entrentchment. Since I was a steam player first, I buy 99% of my games that way. I did use d2d for awhile since I was a fileplanet aholic...but it became too cumbersome. So impulse is still an enigma to me.

2) I didn't know Elemental even existed until THIS LAST WEEKEND because I went through and played "Master of Magic" and started to surf the web to find a way to fix my vdmsound issue in that combat-sound have a 2sec delay on my soundblaster. Somehow, I ran into an article calling this the spiritual successor. Low and behold I came, I read, I fell in love.

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Quoting lokideath,

reply 13

Quoting Whiskey144,
reply 8

Valve wouldn't put their games on Impulse in the first place because they control significantly more DD market share.

Yep, exactly. So no one will move.

My point is that because Steam controls so much more of the DD market than Impulse does, Valve would gain too little profit from offering games on Impulse than not. Indeed, they may even lose money because they also have to split revenue with Stardock for those purchases made on Impulse.

As has already been stated, Stardock isn't going to offer games on Steam because they 1) don't want to make Steam into a monopoly on DD and 2) believe that competition fosters better business.

Stardock keeping Elemental an Impulse exclusive means that Impulse gets more press, Stardock reaps the benefits of that with the revenue of Elemental and any additional profits from new Impulse users making purchases with their service after deciding they like it as a result of Elemental.

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the cod part wasnt a joke

the cs was

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Wintersong

Join Date 07/2006

+235

Quoting Whiskey144,

reply 8

Valve wouldn't put their games on Impulse in the first place because they control significantly more DD market share.

Which is silly, they only control the 70% so they should try to maximize their exposure by selling those games in other plat... er... Yeah, right.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+454

If it was any other developer, it would be on both DD sites.

Most "any other developers" don't have their own major DD outlet where they don't have to pay a cut to a reseller.

While Steam fans tend to say that they buy everything there and don't know anyone who doesn't do the same, traditional retail still outsells DD by a huge margin. The war's just starting and it'd be plain silly to start handing Valve our money at this point when it'd be a losing prospect at best.

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Quoting kryo,

reply 19

If it was any other developer, it would be on both DD sites.

Most "any other developers" don't have their own major DD outlet where they don't have to pay a cut to a reseller.

While Steam fans tend to say that they buy everything there and don't know anyone who doesn't do the same, traditional retail still outsells DD by a huge margin. The war's just starting and it'd be plain silly to start handing Valve our money at this point when it'd be a losing prospect at best.

I just hope Bobby Kotick dies first.

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I use steam, but I regret purchasing a number of Indie titles on it because I have to wait several extra weeks after patch releases to get it on steam versions of the game. Steam has become fat and bloated, which makes Impulse look better and better.

Still waiting on the latest Sword of the Stars patch on Steam...

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Stardock keeping Elemental an Impulse exclusive means that Impulse gets more press, Stardock reaps the benefits of that with the revenue of Elemental and any additional profits from new Impulse users making purchases with their service after deciding they like it as a result of Elemental.

I would really hate to see this game on steam because of that exact reason, i do think it would help the overall sales count(number not profit) for stardock on Elemental, just at the expense of the impulse platform.

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The only way I can ever imagine this happening is if somehow Stardock got a deal going with Valve to distribute it's games on Impulse as well. This arrangement is known by its more common title; Never happening.

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Quoting kryo,

reply 11

..... And as Brad has said, we will not support the creation or growth of a monopoly in the DD market.

.....

What will Stardock do to prevent that? Does GOO receive any audience from publishers? I would say that lately Impulse is losing out to Steam.

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Steam and Impulse are DIRECT COMPETITORS. Elemental will Never be released on Steam. Period. Stardock would rather have people download and install Impulse so they can buy Elemental. Not further along the success of their competition.

Elemental on Steam? Not gonna happen......Ever. Unless of course Impulse fails and Stardock closes it's doors. Then "maybe" you might see Stardock Games selling on other services. Maybe.

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