How to significantly increase sales number on Steam

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ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ 24 Aug @ 2:29am

How to significantly increase sales number on Steam

Make it possible for devs to allow for a time-limited trial of their game.

This functionnality already exists on the Steam store, but it seems to be currently reserved to a rare selection of games.
Making it available through Steamworks would allow devs to offer free trialing for a set amount of time, that they set up themselves.

It is important to understand the difference between this trial feature, and demos or free week-ends :

- demos are separate builds of the game that cost ressources to maintain.

- free week-ends must be linked to a sale event and greenlit by Valve. Not for all types of games.

- limited times trial : trying the main build for 30mn/1h before choosing to purchase. Not linked to event or sales, choice to enable and for which duration is left to the dev's judgement. Currently unavailable through Steamworks.

Free trialing is a very efficient marketing tactic to convert curious passerbys into paid customers. In the case of games, devs could take advantage of the feature by making sure their game's intro/trial is really appealing.

I think allowing it for all games would be advantageous for :

1- Players :
Make informed purchase decisions based on the first 30mn/1h of gameplay, or more depending of the game and dev's choice.
Getting hand-on games is much more efficient than trailers/let's plays to get a feel for the game, and to see how well it runs on your own hardware.

2 - Studios/devs :
Remove the need to produce a dedicated demo build : that takes time and ressources to create and maintain so the demo stays representative of the main build's last updates.
This feature is meant to let players experiment the introduction of the game, but devs would still be able to offer a longer/more complete vertical slice in the form of a demo, when and if needed.

3- Valve :
The store would benefit in several ways : increased sales from a better marketing, since trialing is extremely efficient at hooking up curious passerbys :
We can imagine a significant portion of thge current clic count on the "add to wishlist" button would become clics on the "trial the game" button, which gives a chance to games to hook players in, increasing both sales count, and sale price (more players buying full price instead of waiting for a sale).
It would also put Steam in a position of market innovation, differenciating the store from all others, increasing user count, and in the end shaping the industry itself for the better : the main build itself becomes a tool for marketing instead of having to sink ressources into trailers and demo builds.

The point that this feature, for some reason, wouldn't help sales or be undesired by developers keeps being brought up.

As long as we don't get actual conversion rate data from Valve or another 3rd party, it'll be hard to quantify the effect of such a feature. I'm convinced this rate is positive based on :
- recent effort from Valve to promote demos
- the fact that free week-ends, f2p, demos, and other forms of limited trial exist

It's ok to think otherwise though.

As a user I'd still like your opinion about it :

Disregarding considerations about devs and Valve, would this feature be useful to you? Would it be interesting to you to try out a game before a purchase, or when wishlisting it ?

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Edit 4 : original post updated to come across as less confrontational. Thanks a lot for all the feedback and to everyone who commented on this thread :)

Last edited by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ; 31 Aug @ 4:28pm

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Showing 1-15 of 150 comments

Hi Im Swat 24 Aug @ 2:32am

Hell no.

ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ 24 Aug @ 2:36am

Originally posted by Hi Im Swat:
Hell no.

Why ?
It'd functionnaly serve the role of a demo, without needing for the devs to make and update a demo build... It'd allow players to test out games on their hardware, and would increase sales by hooking up some of them.

Would you care to elaborate why you think it'd be a bad idea ?

Tito Shivan 24 Aug @ 2:47am

What you want already exists. It's called 'Free to Play'
Not every dev is interested in that kind of business model.

Ettanin 24 Aug @ 2:50am

Originally posted by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ:
Make every game free to play for the first 30mn/1h, to hook players in. You know, kinda like your local dealer offering the first dose for free...

and then i create an account every 25 minutes and continue my saves where i had left off and valve and the dev earn zilch

Nx Machina 24 Aug @ 2:50am

Why? Developers have options on Steam. None are mandatory.

A demo, a free weekend and the recent time limited trial for a game.

Last edited by Nx Machina; 24 Aug @ 2:51am

ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ 24 Aug @ 2:59am

Originally posted by Ettanin:
and then i create an account every 25 minutes and continue my saves where i had left off and valve and the dev earn zilch

I'm sure there'd be many ways to prevent this.

Originally posted by Nx Machina:
Why? Developers have options on Steam. None are mandatory.

A demo, a free weekend and the recent time limited trial for a game.

True, but I was thinking of a store-wide feature. No need for extra work on a game-to-game basis. These options (fully f2p, free we, demo builds...) would still be available.

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:
What you want already exists. It's called 'Free to Play'
Not every dev is interested in that kind of business model.

It's not a business model, just a store feature suggestion...

Last edited by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ; 24 Aug @ 3:02am

Ettanin 24 Aug @ 3:06am

Originally posted by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ:
Originally posted by Ettanin:
and then i create an account every 25 minutes and continue my saves where i had left off and valve and the dev earn zilch
I'm sure there'd be many ways to prevent this.

Not all games use cloud only or account authenticated saves and there are a lot of drm free indie games. Everything stored locally on your system can be edited.

Devs will offer demos if they want to. Valve will not force them.

Last edited by Ettanin; 24 Aug @ 3:09am

ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ 24 Aug @ 3:13am

Originally posted by Ettanin:
Originally posted by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ:
I'm sure there'd be many ways to prevent this.
Not all games use cloud only or account authenticated saves and there are a lot of drm free indie games. Everything stored locally on your system can be edited.

Devs will offer demos if they want to. Valve will not force them.

Fair point, but I don't think all players should be deprived of an interesting feature because of some marginal abuse. Also pretty sure it'd require less work to protect saves from abuse than maintain dedicated demo builds. In fact a majority of games can't afford to offer a demo because of the issues it entails :
- diverts manpower and time from the main build to maintain/debug/playtest
- requires separate updating in parrallel of the main build to maintain an accurate representation

Last edited by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ; 24 Aug @ 3:15am

Ettanin 24 Aug @ 3:21am

Originally posted by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ:
Originally posted by Ettanin:
Not all games use cloud only or account authenticated saves and there are a lot of drm free indie games. Everything stored locally on your system can be edited.

Devs will offer demos if they want to. Valve will not force them.
Fair point, but I don't think all players should be deprived of an interesting feature because of some marginal abuse. Also pretty sure it'd require less work to protect saves from abuse than maintain dedicated demo builds. In fact a majority of games can't afford to offer a demo because of the issues it entails :
- diverts manpower and time from the main build to maintain/debug/playtest
- requires separate updating in parrallel of the main build to maintain an accurate representation

The PC is not a console, hence there is no manufacturer that can dictate its architecture, and those that can afford DRM already do. An indie that cannot afford DRM won't be able to afford "save protection" DRM either nor will limit their game to Steam in order to implement such system because Steam cloud save infrastructure is Steam exclusive. Not to mention that Steam Cloud is a synchronization feature and not a DRM feature, hence requires saves to be local.

You want to know whether a game is good for you? Watch streams and let's plays. Those made demos obsolete.

Last edited by Ettanin; 24 Aug @ 3:24am

Nx Machina 24 Aug @ 3:27am

Originally posted by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ:
True, but I was thinking of a store-wide feature. No need for extra work on a game-to-game basis. These options (fully f2p, free we, demo builds...) would still be available.

Store-wide feature?

Do you have the data to backup How to significantly increase sales number on Steam and convince the developers, publishers of your suggestion.

They have options already as previously stated: A demo, a free weekend and the recent time limited trial for a game. None of those are mandatory, it is their choice to participate or not as it would be to allow their game to be played for thirty minutes or one hour for free.

You can watch YouTube videos for free and get to decide if the gameplay hooks you in.

Last edited by Nx Machina; 24 Aug @ 3:33am

#10

ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ 24 Aug @ 3:29am

Originally posted by Ettanin:
Originally posted by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ:
Fair point, but I don't think all players should be deprived of an interesting feature because of some marginal abuse. Also pretty sure it'd require less work to protect saves from abuse than maintain dedicated demo builds. In fact a majority of games can't afford to offer a demo because of the issues it entails :
- diverts manpower and time from the main build to maintain/debug/playtest
- requires separate updating in parrallel of the main build to maintain an accurate representation
The PC is not a console, hence there is no manufacturer that can dictate its architecture, and those that can afford DRM already do. An indie that cannot afford DRM won't be able to afford "save protection" DRM either nor will limit their game to Steam in order to implement such system because Steam cloud save infrastructure is Steam exclusive. Not to mention that Steam Cloud is a synchronization feature and not a DRM feature, hence requires saves to be locally.

You want to know whether a game is good for you? Watch streams and let's plays. Those made demos obsolete.

The (very moderate) burden of protecting saves from abuse would rest on Steam. And an easy fix for this abuse would be to restrict free trials of games to confirmed accounts (those that bought something already, are older than a set amount of time, etc.)

Streams and lets play are useful for some things, but don't exactly offer the same advantages : one can't test the technical aspect of a game on its own PC from a let's play, nor can experience the "feel" of a game from a stream.

Originally posted by Nx Machina:
Store-wide feature?

Do you have the data to backup How to significantly increase sales number on Steam and convince the developers, publishers of your suggestion.

They have options already as previously stated: A demo, a free weekend and the recent time limited trial for a game. None of those are mandatory, it is their choice to participate or not as it would to allow their game to be played for thirty minutes for free.

Do you have data showing it wouldn't increase sales ? Basic logic and countless other examples tell us a free trial is a great way to entice people into a sale. There wouldn't be free week ends on Syteam if that also didn't work for games...

As previously stated, it wouldn't remove any option from devs, just offer more functionality to users.

Last edited by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ; 24 Aug @ 3:34am

#11

Ettanin 24 Aug @ 3:31am

Originally posted by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ:
Originally posted by Ettanin:
The PC is not a console, hence there is no manufacturer that can dictate its architecture, and those that can afford DRM already do. An indie that cannot afford DRM won't be able to afford "save protection" DRM either nor will limit their game to Steam in order to implement such system because Steam cloud save infrastructure is Steam exclusive. Not to mention that Steam Cloud is a synchronization feature and not a DRM feature, hence requires saves to be locally.

You want to know whether a game is good for you? Watch streams and let's plays. Those made demos obsolete.
The (very moderate) burden of protecting saves from abuse would rest on Steam. And an easy fix for this abuse would be to restrict free trials of games to confirmed accounts (those that bought something already, are older than a set amount of time, etc.)

This requires servers. Servers require RECURRING costs. Recurring costs are something an indie, if at all, cannot spare.
Servers mean DRM. Most indies do, in fact, not use DRM.

Steam is not a charity, either. They will not offer servers that do not promise a return on investment.

Last edited by Ettanin; 24 Aug @ 3:31am

#12

Nx Machina 24 Aug @ 3:34am

Originally posted by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ:
And an easy fix for this abuse would be to restrict free trials of games

Restricts free trials? Sound familiar. Oh! time limited trial for a game.

#13

ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ 24 Aug @ 3:36am

Originally posted by Ettanin:
Originally posted by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ:
The (very moderate) burden of protecting saves from abuse would rest on Steam. And an easy fix for this abuse would be to restrict free trials of games to confirmed accounts (those that bought something already, are older than a set amount of time, etc.)
This requires servers. Servers require RECURRING costs. Recurring costs are something an indie, if at all, cannot spare.
Servers mean DRM. Most indies do, in fact, not use DRM.

Steam is not a charity, either. They will not offer servers that do not promise a return on investment.

The servers for downloading game builds, storing saves on cloud etc. are maintained by Valve as it is already the case, I'm not sure I understand your point ? If this feature increases sales, then it's far from a charity, I thought that was clear in the OP.

Originally posted by Nx Machina:
Originally posted by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ:
And an easy fix for this abuse would be to restrict free trials of games

Restricts free trials? Sound familiar. Oh! time limited trial for a game.

I'm not sure I should be answering this since you cut of the sentence to make it look worse. Bad faith move. As stated in the rest of the sentence you cut, the restriction would only apply to newly created accounts, those that are already restricted from basic social and store features... It feels you're missing the point on purpose TBH.

Last edited by ⓢⓔⓇⓘⓊⓢ_ⓢⓘⓂ; 24 Aug @ 3:38am

#14

Tito Shivan 24 Aug @ 3:36am

Originally posted by Ettanin:
Devs will offer demos if they want to. Valve will not force them.

And that's the root of it.
Steam cannot offer free time for the games in the store without dev/publisher explicit permission.
And for that devs already have the tools to do so.

#15

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Date Posted: 24 Aug @ 2:29am

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