Eurogamer turned to Valve's Jason Holtman to see what Valve has to say about sales and whether or not any of the remarks made by EA's David DeMartini hold any water. Surely, data from Steam's userbase of 40 million people and counting can't all be wrong, right?
"Discounts serve a lot of functions. Highlighting serves a lot of functions. The qualities of the games serve a lot of functions. Everything we've seen, PC games and IP and all those franchises are more valuable today than they were four or five years ago.
"If this were all about a cheapening and somehow lessening the money out there or somehow customers don't want to pay any more, they think everything should be like a used car lot - sticker price is not the real price - you'd feel that and you'd get real reinforcement of that. We don't see any of that. We see people buying a lot and enjoying it and playing a lot.
"Discounting is one small function of what we do. It's one small function of our market and our store. It certainly doesn't seem to be anything that cheapens IP.
"We do it with our own games. If we thought having a 75 per cent sale on Portal 2 would cheapen Portal 2, we wouldn't do it. We know there are all kinds of ways customers consume things, get value, come back, build franchises. We think lots of those things strengthen it.
"If we were somehow on a cycle where you could see it, you wouldn't see us repeating it. We wouldn't repeat it with our own games. We wouldn't repeat it with partner games. Partners wouldn't want to repeat it.
"Actually everything we see is to the contrary. It's funny, when you look at the data, things come out and they make you scratch your head for a little bit, and then you're like, that kind of makes sense.
"For instance, if all that were true, nobody would ever pre-purchase a game ever on Steam, ever again. You just wouldn't. You would in the back of your mind be like, okay, in six months to a year, maybe it'll be 50 per cent off on a day or a weekend or during one of our seasonal promotions. Probably true. But our pre-orders are bigger than they used to be. Tonnes of people, right? And our day one sales are bigger than they used to be. Our first week, second week, third week, all those are bigger.
"That points out that what's happened with those sales is, you've probably caught somebody and introduced them to a game when they haven't had it, and they've played it, and the next time the franchise comes out or the next move from that publisher, the next move from the partner, they've just become more avid gamers.
"The trade-off they're making is a time trade-off."
"If this were all about a cheapening and somehow lessening the money out there or somehow customers don't want to pay any more, they think everything should be like a used car lot - sticker price is not the real price - you'd feel that and you'd get real reinforcement of that. We don't see any of that. We see people buying a lot and enjoying it and playing a lot.
"Discounting is one small function of what we do. It's one small function of our market and our store. It certainly doesn't seem to be anything that cheapens IP.
"We do it with our own games. If we thought having a 75 per cent sale on Portal 2 would cheapen Portal 2, we wouldn't do it. We know there are all kinds of ways customers consume things, get value, come back, build franchises. We think lots of those things strengthen it.
"If we were somehow on a cycle where you could see it, you wouldn't see us repeating it. We wouldn't repeat it with our own games. We wouldn't repeat it with partner games. Partners wouldn't want to repeat it.
"Actually everything we see is to the contrary. It's funny, when you look at the data, things come out and they make you scratch your head for a little bit, and then you're like, that kind of makes sense.
"For instance, if all that were true, nobody would ever pre-purchase a game ever on Steam, ever again. You just wouldn't. You would in the back of your mind be like, okay, in six months to a year, maybe it'll be 50 per cent off on a day or a weekend or during one of our seasonal promotions. Probably true. But our pre-orders are bigger than they used to be. Tonnes of people, right? And our day one sales are bigger than they used to be. Our first week, second week, third week, all those are bigger.
"That points out that what's happened with those sales is, you've probably caught somebody and introduced them to a game when they haven't had it, and they've played it, and the next time the franchise comes out or the next move from that publisher, the next move from the partner, they've just become more avid gamers.
"The trade-off they're making is a time trade-off."
Holtman went on to compare sales from discounted games versus day one sales to the decision to watch a movie in theaters or buying it on DVD later.
"Following that argument, nobody would ever go to a first run movie ever again. Even now, as DVDs come out even faster, you'd just be like, heck, I'll just wait and get the DVD and me and 10 friends will watch it. But people still like to go to theatres because they want to see it first, or they want to consume it first. And that's even more true with games.
"If you're a fan of a game or a property, and you want it when it comes out, you want it. It's very valuable to you because you're a fan. You want to play it then, just like you want to see your favourite rock back when they come around.
"If you want to wait and get a discount later or find a sale or promotion, that's also super valuable for you. But all of those pieces, what they're adding up to is, more people are playing games, more people are engaged and they're making choices all along that spectrum of, yeah, I want that game when it comes out and, oh, I used to buy that game and now I'll buy it a year later. That's fine too."
"If you're a fan of a game or a property, and you want it when it comes out, you want it. It's very valuable to you because you're a fan. You want to play it then, just like you want to see your favourite rock back when they come around.
"If you want to wait and get a discount later or find a sale or promotion, that's also super valuable for you. But all of those pieces, what they're adding up to is, more people are playing games, more people are engaged and they're making choices all along that spectrum of, yeah, I want that game when it comes out and, oh, I used to buy that game and now I'll buy it a year later. That's fine too."
He concluded by saying how sales on older games helped people decide to pick up the game that they were not even considering in the first place. It even allows users to pick up games that typically disappear from the market after just three months of being sold.
"Now you can do things like say, I never did own XCOM. Maybe I should buy that for $2 or $5 and pick it up. Or I didn't get that triple-A game from three years ago, maybe I'll pick that up on a promotion. And that's making people happier. And it's making them more willing to even buy the first time release.
"And that's what we're seeing in our data. Tonnes of people are still pre-purchasing games and getting them when they come out."
"And that's what we're seeing in our data. Tonnes of people are still pre-purchasing games and getting them when they come out."
A counter-argument supported by facts and years of data collection? Indeed it was. Your rebuttal, EA?
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