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| 29. |
Re: Valve: Steam Good for Retail |
May 10, 2011, 13:12 |
Ray Marden |
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But that's $78 ($6.58/month) to Amazon for, collectively, some free VoD, free two-day shipping, discounted same-day shipping, no sales tax, free release day delivery on preorders, and sub-twenty four hour customer support. Additionally, Amazon pushes a wide range of deals - combo purchases, hourly discounts, daily discounts, spontaneous sales, and increasingly larger and larger preorder discounts.
Case in point: I had Portal 2 at my residence when I got home from work on the day it came out for an equivalent total of $15 ($35 price minus $20 credit for preordering.)
What did retail offer me? Higher equivalent price? Limited PC inventory? No PC version unless I preorder? No PC retail space period? Higher priced used games? Taking days to stock a game? More space devoted to used games than new games? "New" games that have already been opened and played? A consistent lack of preorder bonuses due to limited stock? Much more resistance to discounting? Sales tax? Gas and time obtaining the product?
Meanwhile, Steam is not good for retail. For whatever relative spikes it may cause when advertising a given game, it has already taken a significantly larger portion of overall sales from retail. If there was no online delivery, where would I be purchasing my games? At retail, of course. In contrast, with Steam and Amazon Prime available, why do I ever go to retail? Only in the rare exception where it has a better deal or my wife wants to make a spontaneous purchase.
How many jobs will be left for us when everything is digital?
Wanting to shop retail, but feeling mistreated by retail,
Ray |
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