Indie Developers Suggest Steam Summer Sale Confusion is Hurting Their Games (arstechnica.com) 52
An anonymous reader shares a report: As part of this year's annual Steam Summer Sale, Valve is hosting a new "Grand Prix" promotion that gives participants a chance at free games if they complete certain daily "quests" on the platform. But confusion over how the promotion works seems to be leading Steam users to delete some low-cost indie games from their Steam wishlists in a misguided attempt to maximize the value of their potential winnings. "We lost 1,500 wishlists in the first 24 hours of the sale," No More Robots Director Mike Rose told Ars regarding the four indie games the publisher sells on Twitter. "Usually you lose, like, 20 in a day."
No More Robots is far from alone. Mode 7 Games' Paul Kilduff-Taylor tweeted a graph showing wishlist deletions spiking to over 1,100 following the start of the sale on Tuesday. SixtyGig Games's Raymond Doerr showed a similar increase in deletions for his game at the same time, outpacing a smaller rise in additions and purchases from the wishlist. There are now enough anecdotal examples of this effect across multiple indie games, all starting on the first day of the sale, to suggest this marked increase is something more than random chance.
No More Robots is far from alone. Mode 7 Games' Paul Kilduff-Taylor tweeted a graph showing wishlist deletions spiking to over 1,100 following the start of the sale on Tuesday. SixtyGig Games's Raymond Doerr showed a similar increase in deletions for his game at the same time, outpacing a smaller rise in additions and purchases from the wishlist. There are now enough anecdotal examples of this effect across multiple indie games, all starting on the first day of the sale, to suggest this marked increase is something more than random chance.
It's not like they were confirmed sales (Score:1)
So people are removing games from their wish list and developers are complaining about losing sales they never have actually gotten. How many of these wish list items would have ever materialized into sales?
Maybe more interesting is that the game devs get access to wish list statistics.
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I haven't gone to the website of a single developer I've ever bought a game from. Can you even buy a digital download direct? If not wtf are you talking about.
I've got about 30 games on my steam wish list. If they go on huge sale I buy them. Otherwise it's a general list so I don't forget about them.
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Nah. Prior AC is right. A lot of what was said was just straight stupid. For example, OF COURSE you can buy a digital download direct from a developer.
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Lot of things I personally put on wishlist are "would be ncie to try but I am not too commited to it." These games are Specifically there so my friends know what to gift me for my birthday/xmas/whatever. So if I get a bunch of low-end indie games, I usually get a bunch of them lumped together into a ncie gift.
Likewise, when looking at a game in the shop, seeing that other friends have it on their wishlist may make me more likely to buy it. When said friends don't have it on the wishlist then it can cost
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It's not unreasonable to think that at least some of those wishlist entries would translate to sales as the users' birthdays or Christmas rolled around. However, as all these small games are removed from the wishlists, are people really going to remember to add all of them again after the sale?
Re:It's not like they were confirmed sales (Score:5, Interesting)
For indie games, wishlist numbers are pretty consistently turning into long-term sales at some ~10% conversion rate, iirc (don't quote me on that specific number though, too lazy to check now). This is mainly because people get emails whenever a sale begins for an item on their wishlist, which leads to many of those entries eventually turning into a sale. I've seen this effect being discussed many times and this seems consistent with my own Steam publishing data.
true but partly only (Score:2)
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developers are complaining about losing sales they never have actually gotten. How many of these wish list items would have ever materialized into sales?.
It's more than that - how many wishlists a game is one of the factors affecting its placement in category browsing. So a lowered wishlist count is a lowering of placement which definitely has an impact on sales.
That's what I was wondering, conversion rate? (Score:2)
So people are removing games from their wish list and developers are complaining about losing sales they never have actually gotten
I was wondering the same thing, even if the removals are higher does it really matter, as these were people too cheap to buy the game to begin with and just pout it on a list...
Does Steam have figures for what percentage of wish list users actually convert to a real sale later on? That may provide some answer as to how much actual loss there may be.
But, even then is it really a
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So people are removing games from their wish list and developers are complaining about losing sales they never have actually gotten.
I think maybe developers aren't understanding how Steam wish lists work. When you buy a game Steam automatically deletes it from your wish list - because you now own it!
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Statistics provided to developers by Steam explicitly separate wishlist deletions from buys.
Source: I'm looking at them right now.
Re: Make something people want (Score:1)
We pretend that Steam didn't start as an independent developer.
You are a fucking moron.
Maybe just cleaning not confusion (Score:1)
Anecdotally I think this may just have to do with people looking at their wishlists for the first time in a long time as the steam sale started and just pruning things they no longer really want or have obtained through other services. I did just that yesterday because I hadn't updated my wishlist in months and it turns out 3 of the games on it I'd already gotten through other services.
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Screw these gatekeepers.
Unfortunately without something like Steam, game developers and studios will go one of the two ways - invasive and obnoxious DRM or console-only. Steam is necessary evil :(
Its clearly written (Score:3)
Maybe people were just cleaning up their wish list before ranking them.
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Except people didn't get that far. Which item in the wish list is granted was buried in the fine print. The vast majority of people thought, based on what was posted all over the event page that a random item was granted. That was my first impression too, right there in the same sentence that role people to prepare their wish lists.
Steam issued a public apology over what they admitted was very poor communication surrounding the event. They also changed the text, changed the wording in the rules, and release
free game prize (Score:1)
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Considering how poorly this event has been explained and how buggy the web app has been in the first couple of days, it's likely that most people do not understand this. I consider this entirely Valve's fault; it would have been easily avoided with just a little thought put into communication and a little effort into testing. Thank goodness it's just a silly web game and not another bug that nukes all the user's files.
I do this for every sale (Score:2)
The first day of any sale I look at my wishlist and see what is on it that is on sale and look at what games on there I actually want and which ones I am no longer interested in. Many games I put on before they ever release and I look at them once they have released and are on sale and then determine if the game is any good and one I will enjoy playing and steam sales are a good time to go through your wishlist.
just bought uboat yesterday ... (Score:2)
and was prompted with that "Grand Prix" offer, inviting me to click through some crap in the midst of a purchase transaction without the faintest prior disclosure about what it entailed, so i took mental notice that either steam's marketing staff or my fellow steam co-customers (or both) just had achieved a new record level of moroonism and ignored that stuff, continuing with my purchase.
so it was this!
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I've read through the Grand Prix page twice, and still can't figure out exactly how it works. I think you join a team, and then do something-or-other to score points... not sure if those are team points or your points, or what the points do? Bleh. All that matter to me is that lots of things are discounted right now.