Not actually true. They only require price parity for steam keys. Basically don’t sell steam copies anywhere cheaper than on steam. Any other copy you can sell for whatever price.
They can set retail price to $1000 for all I care. As long as the actual sale price is $10 for instance is all that matters. And putting off permanent price for as long as possible to not devalue products and get more customers during sales due to thinking it is a deal is common strategy.
Its actually why when epic did coupons and covering the discount some publishers opted out because they didn’t want their games to sell that low yet even if the profit taken is the same. Because they were aware price tracking sites would lead people like me to pass on future sales seeing that the price had been lower, so deciding to wait instead of “overpaying” compared to the all time low.
As part of the four-week long sale, Epic is offering $10 off every single game on the store priced over $14.99. Crucially, Epic explained it would be footing the bill for that promotion, meaning developers’ take-home cut wouldn’t be impacted by the deal.
On the surface, it seems like a win-win for all involved, but some publishers have decided to pull their games from the store for the duration of the sale.
They can set retail price to $1000 for all I care. As long as the actual sale price is $10 for instance is all that matters.
It does matters because is how price parity works, promotions has a beginning and end date, it’s not based on the lowest price at a time but in the consistency of the price.
It’s OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.
Key word being comparable as opposed to same. And its not even theoretical. Just looking at games from isthereanydeals which provides historical lows over the years from numerous storefronts shows that many games have had sales cheaper than Steam.
And personal experience too buying many steam keys over buying from Steam because the prices were lower.
You could try to argue how comparable means same, but I’d say how real world sales has steam keys lower than the steam store is what matters more, since its actually what we pay.
I believe the clause applies to any storefronts as it operates on the MFN pricing principle.
But let’s say it doesn’t, and you’re correct and you could buy the same game on itch, gog, humble, epic, M$ store, ubi store, whatever else.
Did you ever actually see any of the stores promote better pricing on their first party platform? I haven’t.
Did you ever see assassins creed games being 5$ cheaper if you buy them on the ubi store as an example?
Same as the above for humble, epic, EA, Microsoft?
That’d be a pretty effective way to drive people to your storefront and drive first party sales with additional profit to the first party… and yet for some reason that practice apparently doesn’t exist.
I am almost 100% sure that’s not done out of the goodness of the shareholders hearts and has more to do with the legal spaghet of it all.
But at the end of the day the above is speculation, I have no concrete way to prove it one way or the other besides the limited observations that I’ve made over the years.
Yeah its saved me money over the years. I’m realizing in this thread lot of people didn’t know Steam prices isn’t always the best price and missing out on lot of discounts.
They don’t want to drive you to your storefront so that you get the games cheaper. They want to sell for the same price without paying commission. They want to pocket the difference, not give it to you.
What do you mean it doesn’t exist? Epic got me to download their launcher because they were selling gta 5 for free. How could I have found that out if I only play on steam???
Not actually true. They only require price parity for steam keys. Basically don’t sell steam copies anywhere cheaper than on steam. Any other copy you can sell for whatever price.
Even that isn’t true which a quick search on isthereanydeals before buying games will show a lot of times when it comes to steam key prices.
Recent example is ARC Raiders. https://isthereanydeal.com/game/arc-raiders/info/
Current best price is 15% off for $34.17 versus $39.99 on Steam. And all time low was $31.92.
People are missing out on deals if they assume Steam store price is the lowest price for Steam games.
But the key price is the same, they giving you a discount. They can’t change the price of 100$ to 80$ without giving a 20% discount.
They can set retail price to $1000 for all I care. As long as the actual sale price is $10 for instance is all that matters. And putting off permanent price for as long as possible to not devalue products and get more customers during sales due to thinking it is a deal is common strategy.
Its actually why when epic did coupons and covering the discount some publishers opted out because they didn’t want their games to sell that low yet even if the profit taken is the same. Because they were aware price tracking sites would lead people like me to pass on future sales seeing that the price had been lower, so deciding to wait instead of “overpaying” compared to the all time low.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/teething-pains-for-epic-games-store-as-publishers-opt-out-of-debut-mega-sale-
It does matters because is how price parity works, promotions has a beginning and end date, it’s not based on the lowest price at a time but in the consistency of the price.
I linked their own guidelines regarding steam key prices. They do require price parity with steam for steam keys. (with some exceptions)
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
Key word being comparable as opposed to same. And its not even theoretical. Just looking at games from isthereanydeals which provides historical lows over the years from numerous storefronts shows that many games have had sales cheaper than Steam.
And personal experience too buying many steam keys over buying from Steam because the prices were lower.
You could try to argue how comparable means same, but I’d say how real world sales has steam keys lower than the steam store is what matters more, since its actually what we pay.
I believe the clause applies to any storefronts as it operates on the MFN pricing principle.
But let’s say it doesn’t, and you’re correct and you could buy the same game on itch, gog, humble, epic, M$ store, ubi store, whatever else.
Did you ever actually see any of the stores promote better pricing on their first party platform? I haven’t.
Did you ever see assassins creed games being 5$ cheaper if you buy them on the ubi store as an example?
Same as the above for humble, epic, EA, Microsoft?
That’d be a pretty effective way to drive people to your storefront and drive first party sales with additional profit to the first party… and yet for some reason that practice apparently doesn’t exist.
I am almost 100% sure that’s not done out of the goodness of the shareholders hearts and has more to do with the legal spaghet of it all.
But at the end of the day the above is speculation, I have no concrete way to prove it one way or the other besides the limited observations that I’ve made over the years.
I had tracked ubisoft vs steam prices over the years, and usually if you wanted to pay less Ubisoft was the way to go for Ubisoft games.
Like Far Cry 6 $6 all time low on Ubisoft store and $11.99 all time low on Steam.
https://isthereanydeal.com/game/far-cry-6/info/
Good resource, thanks
Yeah its saved me money over the years. I’m realizing in this thread lot of people didn’t know Steam prices isn’t always the best price and missing out on lot of discounts.
They don’t want to drive you to your storefront so that you get the games cheaper. They want to sell for the same price without paying commission. They want to pocket the difference, not give it to you.
I’ve never seen a reliable source display steam has price parity. Their steam key price parity however is very clearly displayed. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
What do you mean it doesn’t exist? Epic got me to download their launcher because they were selling gta 5 for free. How could I have found that out if I only play on steam???