If a dev wants to make X per game, they could get X with a lower price point on Epic. To still get X, they could sell the game for a lower price on Epic. That lower price may get some people to buy the game who wouldn’t buy it for anything more.

The game can still be sold on both Steam and Epic, which is the whole point of this discussion, so Steam having a larger userbase is irrelevant.

Ahaha awesome, thanks.

Looks like it wouldn’t work well in Australia unless the models are not very privacy-conscious…lol

That would cost an insane amount of money and be wildly politically unpopular (why do immigrants get so much help before paying a single dollar in taxes when American citizens are struggling?).

And what’s the point in blocking the entire border if anyone can become “an American within the day”?

What’s wrong with the launcher?

Oh, interesting! I wonder if that blocks the entire country, or just the region. And no, I’m not opening that link at work, lol

Are you saying the two sides are…

• Do literally everything possible for privacy, and
• No, some things are not necessary

?

I think it goes by IP address of both the viewer and the uploader.

Australians are more likely to upload videos with Australian accents, and those are more likely to be shown to people in Australia. And they watch them, so viewership increases within the Australian market, so the algorithm continues down that line.

It’s no surprise that big-name publishers suck. Though over time, it does seem like digital prices fall lower than physical prices. Especially if we look at those who can’t mass produce physical copies. Look at indie devs, for example.

There are lots of indie devs and games released on multiple e-stores. But at least in NA currencies, I don’t think we see lower prices on Epic.

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

I’m curious if the same thing happens on the Epic store. I’d seen some people discussing Epic being a lot cheaper in certain currencies, but not in North America anywhere.

Lower prices can “unlock” more customers/sales

As long as you never want your $60 game featured on Steam, you can absolutely do that.

Why wouldn’t that happen?

They actually do in some regions! But I couldn’t see anyone talking about it about any North American currency.

i can’t help but notice that you stop responding every time you get asked to back up your claims

Nah, it was because I stopped using Lemmy for the day…lol

A lower price may attract more buyers, leading to more money overall (rather than only seeking to maximize each individual sale)

I could see a situation where a developer wants to always earn, say, $10 from their game. So on Steam it might sell for $13, on another platform it might be $11 to show the difference in platform fees.

Yeah, this is the kind of thing I was picturing.

I’ve looked into it and this actually does happen in some other regions’ pricing! But not many people seem to be talking about it happening in USD/CAD, at least at a glance.

I’m still curious as to why that difference would be.

Thank you for sharing your experience!

How much income per sale a seller is willing to accept is a big part of the equation that goes into pricing

Or they could sell on Epic for $60 and just pocket more per sale because most players are used to new games being $60 anyway.

For AAA publishers, definitely. For indie developers or anyone who’d be wanting to try to bring customers to Epic, that wouldn’t be the ideal long-term strategy.

Then let’s look at Epic, who also doesn’t sell Steam keys, but takes a much lower cut.

Does Epic regularly have lower All-Time-Lows than Steam?

Because that’s not beneficial for companies. They want to make (more) money.

If having a lower price means you make more sales, then yes, it definitely can be beneficial for companies.

If you want to make $40 per copy, you could sell for $60 on Steam, or about $47.00 on Epic.

Being on sale for $47 would “unlock” more customers than you’d get if your game was only available for $60 everywhere. Some customers won’t ever buy the game at $60, but they would at $47, and the company makes the same amount of money.

That is beneficial for companies.

Just because they’re not on sale at the same time doesn’t mean Steam doesn’t get the same sale price.

And if GOGs sales aren’t going lower than Steam’s sale prices, then that’d be evidence in favour of what I’m saying.

So we should be seeing lower All-Time-Lows on Epic than on Steam, right?

Do we?