Retail was a horrible system for developers.

Let's use Galactic Civilizations II as an example.

It's list price was $39.95 (back in 2006).

The wholesale price for it was $28.50 (that's what the retailer paid).

The retailer also would charge typically $1 to $3 in MDF (in-store marketing - i.e. shelf space) which was non-refundable. So if they bought 50,000 units, you wrote them a check for $50,000 to $150,000 and if they didn't sell well, those unsold units would come back for a full refund.

After that, the distributor takes a cut -- usually 40%.  So we would get $17.

Then, we had to pay for manufacturing of the box which was usually around $2 per unit.

So on a $39.95 game, we would get $15 per unit MINUS $1 to $3 per unit sold in.

To use War of Magic as an example, we sold in around 75,000 units at retail with an average MDF of $2. So the first day we wrote a check to the retailers for $150,000.

They sold around 50,000 units at retail so 25,000 units came back.

So we netted around $600,000 on sales of 50,000 units.

By contrast, on Steam, if we sold 50,000 units we'd make $1.4 million and we could release the game on our own schedule without them threatening massive massive fines if we moved the release date after we signed an agreement. And Steam sells massive quantities on top of that.

GOG has a number of issues for developers. It doesn't provide retail-time reports. Instead, every quarter we get a report on how many units they say they sold. We just take their word on it that they sold that many since there's no activation or any other way to tell how many copies they sold.  

And companies make.."mistakes" on accounting all the time.  Atari claimed to have sold only around 1,500 copies of Demigod in Europe back in the day. But because we had activations, we knew we had actually sold around 40,000 copies during that period and made them correct their "error".

Hence, even if we made a non-Steamworks version, there's no universe where we'd put a new game on a service that didn't have some sort of activation if for no other reason that we want to make sure that there weren't any accidental accounting issues.

When we preorder or buy from the stardock website and you are your steam fees less?

I think someone in a previous post mentioned products that allow licenses for multiple PCs. I think up to 3 was mentioned and I think I have seen one app that allowed 5. So I have to ask, does Steamworks have support for this? Since GC3 is going to have Multiplayer support, it seems to me that there would be great testing benefit in having 2 or more players sitting in the same room on their own PCs testing the playability of the MP aspects of GC3. Couldn't SD encourage this is some way?

Yes. They're 0.

Yes.  We don't mind people installing our games on multiple PCs. But only 1 copy should be running at a time. 

Steam is currently testing family sharing, which enables that exact scenario. You install the game on a system using your Steam account, and then people you've authorized (your family) can play it from that machine without having to login as you.

Yea, that's how it should be. 

When we had Impulse, we were developing GOO and the idea behind that was that you could trade or give away or sell your copy of the game. The idea was to make it behave like a book.

To be honest, steam seems way to convenient right now to sell products, even if they did fork out the cash and resources for the non steam version odds are that if you truly want a non steam version, then prove it to them that you are worth their time and take a risk with the special offer of alpha access. Not only will it will make your voice louder but it just may give them enough hand cash to actually even think of printing all the disk. Perhaps you will have a better idea what is going on if only you had alpha access where they are making things in front of your eyes.

I am surprised steam does not charge fees once the game is added to steam. I'll make sure to always buy my star dock titles from the website in the future Also please make a new corporate machine

It depends on the product. But if it does, the license is EXTREMELY EXPLICIT about it. Office 2013 is one copy per computer. Office 365 allows for 5 computers simultaneously. Fprot Home allows for 5 license. All of these are clearly (well as clearly as reading a licesne is) outlined in the license you purchase for said product.

Normally products that allow for multiple installs only do so because they are subscription based.

Do hotseat multiplayer if you want to do that.

Yes, thanks to Frogboy for the talk. Even though we might not see a non-Steam version at least we know that Stardock is thinking about alternatives. Until then, we'll keep on pushing for a non-steam version and hopefully our desires will be fulfilled one day.

Yeah - he could just as easily be like most companies and either ignore us or say, "Because i said so. No. Shut up - discussion over."  But, that's what's also always set SD apart from other companies.  He hears the reasons why some of you aren't happy with the Steam decision and understands, and is willing to take the time to explain why he feels it is the best business decision to move ahead with it.   Well done, sir.

A facinating look at the horrors of retail. Thanks for the detailed breakdown. Its usually something most publishers/dev guard like it some kind of state secret. Though I do get that publishers dont like to make the retailers angry. I've seen my fair share of 'totally obvious but its totally not retaliation' kinds of actions form retailers and even from distributors too. It's very soap-opera-ish sometimes.

Ever notice how 'accounting mistakes' never give you MORE money than you're supposed to get?

Given Atari's recent history, I'm about 50/50 on whether it was accidental or deliberate mistake. Especially given the issues some devs had with Lace Mambo.

Hrm, let me just grab that copy of the license key I stored with the installer...  oh, yeah.  The installer vanished, ergo so did the license key.

You didn't get an email, with a key?  I did.  If you email them I'm sure they have a record of your purchase.

Nice to see stardock on these forums. That at least tells me someone is reading these forums. I don't know about all that Bla-bla-bla, but I've only had the internet for the last 2 years. I would not be here is u didn't have Gc1 at Walmart or Gc2 Da expansion at best buy. I didn'thave the internet; until lately, and don't have a credit or debit card. This has made me pretty much buy games from computer stores. If the game was not on the shelf I would never have played Galactic civilizations. If u look at the numbers not everyone who has a computer is on the internet. For the most part I don't buy my games off steam. I did buy Moo2 awhile back becaise people talked about that, and expected it to be like Gc2. I was disappointed. I had to install games without the internet. I say make a box set. I also use the stardock website not steam to download the game. I don't think that steam is currently on my computer. Not everyone has the internet they need boxed games.

If steam collapses most likely microsoft will take over. I also think to have a Linux and a apple version of the game is a good idea.

In reply to this post from this thread: https://forums.galciv3.com/449603/page/2/#3413119

You do not have to resort to insults to make your point. Insults make me perceive that what follows will be a less-thought-out post.
 

What may be "best" to you may not apply to others who may not be in your shoes (reliable, cheap, high speed internet, etc.). Consider yourself to be lucky.

Some may say that Steam hurts the bottom line...regular discounts dilute the actual value of games nowadays and Steam sales are the primary reason for this.

Guess what they say about giving a little freedom for a little security...hello NSA!

You're not living in a perfect world. There's bound to be different people and developers with different needs, just like how we have different religions.

All those sales have done is massively boost sales. To the order of 3000% for some companies. What a tragedy.

Games on Steam can keep selling long after a physical release would no longer be economically feasible to produce and sell.

Yes, because a distribution system that has massively reduced costs and boosted profit per copy sold for game developers is the equivalent of secret unconstitutional government spying.

You should probably go read the post from Frogboy where he talked up Steam's benefits to developers. It reduces costs and boosts profits per unit sold, which if you're trying to make a game is pretty much the best thing that can possibly happen to you.

I'm not sure that you got my point. 3000% sales is one thing, but if the game is priced at $0.50 per unit instead of let's say $15 the profit for companies may be less than what the company needs to survive. Thus the dilution of value of games. Also, games on Steam had better keep on selling else there's no real use for the infrastructure anymore. By that time you should hope that someone remembers to create a non-Steam patch for the game.

I would have thought that you would have learned not to trust your details to third-parties. Case in point, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft. All, whether they liked it or not, had to share your personal information to the government.

Thank you but I've already read it. I believe we're going off track here at this point. I agree that it reduces costs of distribution and it (may) boost profits per unit sold (I hope so, after taking in the losses from sales and all that as well). But I don't need this program to launch my games or be constantly running for me to enjoy my games. Distribution via Steam is fine. Updating games via Steam is also fine. Multiplayer, mods, what-have-yous through Steam is fine. But not when I want to play my single-player offline games. That is where I draw the line. We do not need Steam running offline. I've tried offline mode, it did not work for me. And I found out that Steam called home today to update the client even when it is in offline mode. Isn't this suspicious to you?

I always found funny how digital distribution is so great to save costs and yet prices are the same because apparently, those huge savings are not s big (so Steam slashes as much as a regular retailer and you only save on coasters.. er.. disks?)... or some are too eager to eat big pie pieces.

I do believe that those Steam sales devaluate the work put on those games. Not that I have ever bought a Steam game during a sale. (should preorder discouncts count? I saved 3€ in Enemy Within!!!  )

Stardock can go with the option that Paradox Interactive uses for its Steam games- require internet connection (and Steam) for first time activation and then Steam is not required except to update the game.

There is a possibility that Stardock already does this, in which case almost no one should have any problems with Steam

You notice how a lot of genres that had been stagnating suddenly flourished when digital distribution really took off?

There's a reason for that. Those genres were not economically viable at retail. The "extra money" as you put it is going towards the cost of making games that wouldn't exist at all if they could only be sold at retail. What it really did was bring costs down and profits per unit up, making genres that sell fewer units viable again.

The indie game golden age that we're in right now? Doesn't exist without digital distribution, and Steam just happens to be #1 in PC digital distribution.

(Also, prices are not the same. Console prices are influenced by the console manufacturues, but PC prices are all over the map. How are $5 and $10 games the same price as games used to be? Once you factor in inflation, games have gotten significantly cheaper over time.)

This is categorically false. My best friend happens to work on AAA console games. Their normal sales chart is a huge peak early on, and then falling off a cliff. Most games go to 0 sales for the developer within a couple of months, and the only money coming in is from DLC (and Gamestop maybe making a buck on used copies). Certain AAA games can last longer, but it's rare.

Why? Because most console games are sold retail, and the minimum cost to make it worth making them is a lot higher. If your copies sell out, it's often not worth it to make more copies, so you can't capitalize on that demand at all. If it's now a lower volume sales game, you won't make enough to make it worth paying Gamestop to carry it. This stuff is expensive. On top of that, you can't just drop the price willy nilly. You can't sell the game for $10 and make any money after manufacturing costs and the retailer cut.

For digital distribution games, they don't go out of print. They don't run out of stock. You don't find yourself with a bill for manufacturing more than you need. You can have sales. And yes, as the game's value on the market goes down due to it being out a while, you can drop the price. You CAN sell the game for $10 and still make money per unit sold, and as a bonus you pick up people who would never pay $40+ for that game. That's taking someone who would never be a customer and making them a customer, which gets you money you wouldn't otherwise get, at no cost. (Not selling the game at $60 because you want to protect it's "value" makes no sense after two years, when you can instead actually sell it for less. Anybody who would pay full price already has.)

Plus after they have a sale and sell the game to a bunch of new people for cheap, they've created a whole new wave of potential DLC customers.

Do you think maybe there's a reason why literally the entire industry is going this way? It's not because Frogboy went into a smoke filled room with other game execs and decided to try and screw people over. It's because the economics of it are so vastly superior to retail that it's a no-brainer. Even the next-gen consoles are going this way with day 1 digital availability.

Sony would love to be able to sell you a two year old game for $10 that you didn't buy before. They couldn't when they had to make new disks and ship them. With digital, they can.

The normal huge sale is 75% off. A 3000% sales boost is a VERY good day at 75% off. There's a reason why so many companies want to get their older games into these sales. This isn't Steam being evil, these sales are great business for everybody involved. Plus it creates new DLC customers by getting the game to people who haven't played it and now can with a low investment.

I get money from people who weren't buying my stuff before, who are now potential customers for more of my stuff. This is good.

The problem there is the government. Time to get voting to fix it.

There's no "may" about it. Frogboy spelled it out, and he has first hand knowledge. The numbers aren't even close. Retail sucks if you're a developer.

No, because I know how Windows works.

Steam can update while in "offline" mode because the updater is a separate program, running as a system service. That's why it can update Steam without UAC prompting you - it's already got admin privileges. It's also why it can update while Steam is in offline mode - the updater isn't the same program and isn't in offline mode.

That's a highly common method of doing updates in modern versions of Windows where not everybody and their uncle is running as an admin. Other programs that do the same thing include current versions of Acrobat & Flash, Google Chrome, Firefox (though it'll let you know it's doing it), Skype, and Windows Update's automatic updates.

Steam being able to update itself is no more suspicious than your browser doing the same thing.