It wasn't long ago that the head of EA's Origin department, David DeMartini, put Valve on blast for supposedly devaluing games and muffling pre-order numbers by running routinely competitive sales. Valve were quick to defend themselves with logic, but now developers are showing their support after a massive influx of profits.
Gamasutra interviewed a variety of developers after this year's Steam Summer Sale, which offered hundreds of games for 50% to 75% off, and they all share the same stance: sales are as good for Valve as they are for game studios.
One of the developers who was spoken to was Max Schaefer, CEO of Runic Games, and he was ecstatic about the profits incurred from having Torchlight featured as a sale item multiple times during the Steam Summer Sale. He stated:
We find that we get several thousand percent increases in units and revenue on the days of the Steam sales, and unit sales are usually about double the normal for a few weeks after the sales are over
Other developers such as Supergiant Games and Team Meat experienced similar throughput both during and after the sale. Games that may have suffered from a previous lack of marketing were finally able to receive a spotlight on the front page of Steam, a place that hundreds of thousands of gamers visit on a daily basis.
From my point of view, I purchased four games that I had completely forgotten to visit and I've thoroughly enjoyed all of them. The best part is I know I'm not the only one. For EA to come out of the woodwork and make it seem like sales are bad for the industry is just naive, and it's one of several reasons why I couldn't care less about Origin.
Long live sales!
