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May I ask a few questions about Steam sales?

 

 

 

My classmate bought me two $20 Steam cards from a hypermarket, and I paid him the retail price. Now I have $40 on my account and I'm finally using Steam woohoo!

 

First, I bought Avernum: Escape from the Pits because it's for sale for $2 rather than the $10 because $2.

 

Next, I bought Kingdoms Rise which is $15 early access multiplayer. Runs crappy on my laptop, looks somewhat good, still in beta I think, so I'll wait for more updates.

 

 

 

Now I have about $24 IIRL and I want to buy Avernum Crystal Souls or the Geneforge Saga. Either way, it won't take much time deciding what to buy once I download the demo for Crystal Souls. But here's the real question:

 

Which is better; to buy A2:CS with it's full price on Steam? Or buy it during a sale? I wanted to support Jeff as much as possible, because that's how being supportive works right? I would gladly buy it from the home page itself, unfortunately, this 16 year old ain't got credit card or any payment method listed there :/

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May I ask a few questions about Steam sales?

 

 

 

My classmate bought me two $20 Steam cards from a hypermarket, and I paid him the retail price. Now I have $40 on my account and I'm finally using Steam woohoo!

 

First, I bought Avernum: Escape from the Pits because it's for sale for $2 rather than the $10 because $2.

 

Next, I bought Kingdoms Rise which is $15 early access multiplayer. Runs crappy on my laptop, looks somewhat good, still in beta I think, so I'll wait for more updates.

 

 

 

Now I have about $24 IIRL and I want to buy Avernum Crystal Souls or the Geneforge Saga. Either way, it won't take much time deciding what to buy once I download the demo for Crystal Souls. But here's the real question:

 

Which is better; to buy A2:CS with it's full price on Steam? Or buy it during a sale? I wanted to support Jeff as much as possible, because that's how being supportive works right? I would gladly buy it from the home page itself, unfortunately, this 16 year old ain't got credit card or any payment method listed there :/

 

It depends whether you wish to wait for a sale or have it right away.

If you wait for a sale. You likely get it at discount.

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If you want to support Jeff as much as possible and cannot buy it from his website, they buying A:CS from Steam before the price drops is the most supportive thing that you can do. If you wait for a sale, Jeff will get less money, but then you might be able to afford Geneforge as well and then Jeff might get as much money, depending on the total price of A:CS on sale plus the Geneforge bundle.

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Yeah, I see what you're getting at. I'd suspect Jeff gets more money from A:CS at full price than getting Geneforge and A:CS at a discount because Jeff has to pay the Steam fee twice. Obviously, he doesn't have to pay Steam anything if you buy from him directly. That said, if you can't buy from him directly because you're sixteen and can't get a credit card, I'm not sure how Steam solves that problem. Predictably, I'd recommend the Geneforge Saga over A:CS, partially because you get five games instead of one, but also because it's Geneforge and what could possibly be better than that?

 

In related news, I wouldn't put too much hope into Kingdoms Rise. I voted for it on Greenlight at the start of last year, but the developers seem to have fallen off the Earth since then.

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Yeah, I see what you're getting at. I'd suspect Jeff gets more money from A:CS at full price than getting Geneforge and A:CS at a discount because Jeff has to pay the Steam fee twice.

 

While Steam requires developers to be tight-lipped about how exactly the money gets divided, it's generally believed that Steam's cut is a percentage of the sale price, in which case it shouldn't matter as long as the same amount of money is being spent either way.

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It's a question of doing what's best for you or best for Jeff.

 

Buying directly from Spiderweb Software or a the highest price is best for Jeff, but he's happy to make any sale at any price.

 

Best for you is to wait for a sale so you can get the most games for the price. You can get free game demos from Spiderweb Software that will help you decide whether you like the games. Some take anywhere from 10 to 40 hours so they will keep you busy until you decide.

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While Steam requires developers to be tight-lipped about how exactly the money gets divided, it's generally believed that Steam's cut is a percentage of the sale price, in which case it shouldn't matter as long as the same amount of money is being spent either way.

 

That could be, but it seems unlikely that there wouldn't be a flat fee for each sale, similar to Amazon Marketplace or eBay.

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I'd wager the Steam deals with developers are more likely to be similar to the kinds of "content provider" deals Amazon and iTunes make with music and book publishers. Marketplace and eBay deal with individual items, not infinitely reproducible digital items. Just my thoughts.

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Yeah, it is definitely a portion of the sale, no flat fee involved. I've seen devs say as much, though not what portion exactly it is.

 

I've heard a lot of speculation that the standard rate is about 30%. No idea if it's true, but it seems to be the figure that gets thrown around most often.

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That's probably about right. The Humble Store is explicit about how it divvies up proceeds, and their split is 75% to the company, 10% to charity, and 15% to the Humble Store itself.

 

—Alorael, who has to wonder if part of why Steam is so careful with the information is that it doesn't give everyone the same deal. A big company could very well walk away if asked to give up a sizable chunk of its income. An indie outfit might be willing to pay a premium for the legitimacy and exposure of Steam.

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Alorael, I strongly suspect that you are correct. For example, I do not see Sid Meier giving up as high a percentage of his revenue to have Civ V on steam as Jeff does to have his games on Steam. Which from a pure business model makes sense as Civ V sells a lot more copies than A:CS does, so Steam can cover its costs with a smaller piece of the action.

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Are you diving into Avernum Escape from the Pit right away?

 

You'll probably have to wait a good six months for Avernum 2 Crystal Souls to go on sale, and it likely won't be a big sale. On the other hand, it's not just likely, I'd wager it's probable, that the Geneforge Saga will hit Steam's Weekly Sale sometime in the next two months, and you'll be able to grab it for $3.99 or some such.

 

So my feeling is you pay up for Avernum 2 which is a recent effort to help support further Spiderweb development (plus get yourself a sweet game to play), and you grab Geneforge when it hits the sale rotation, as it's a game Jeff mostly expects to sell at sale prices anyway.

 

But, whatever works best with you.

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