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#1 Re: News » Why Rampant Sales are Bad for Players » 2014-01-17 13:01:42

The only way to know for sure is to A/B test prices simultaneously

Valve can probably get a pretty good estimate by applying econometrics methods to their massive data set.

#2 Re: News » Why Rampant Sales are Bad for Players » 2014-01-15 21:36:55

I don't think I've actually felt screwed or burned by a game I bought going on sale later.  If I pay a price, it's because having the game was worth at least that much to me.

However, if you're planning to put the game on sale next week, you can't announce it, because you will cannibalize this week's full-price revenues

Have you tried doing this and verified?  I agree it'd be logical if it did, but steam sales are pretty predictable and I do not actually see that showing up in the Gary's Mod data (I'd expect dips preceding the spikes).

An alternative strategy to pre-announcing sales would be to announce a policy of partial refunds to people who buy just before a sale.

And how much thicker would that daily volume be if players weren't waiting for sales?

On the other hand, how much thinner would that daily volume be without the bought-it-because-it-was-on-sale players streaming, let's playing, and generally promoting the game?

You get revenue spikes later in the life of the game, right before announced price hikes, which are very similar to the spikes induced by putting a game on sale

Will valve put news of your upcoming price hikes on the front page of their store?  Steam sales get prominent placement on a store with ~75 million users.  The actual sale is perhaps less important than the millions of new eyeballs.  How can you even come close to that level of publicity?  Remember: http://chrishecker.com/No_One_Knows_About_Your_Game

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