Steam? Sales? No comments?

Gamers can also use this forum to chat about any game related subject, news, rumours etc.

Moderator: maddog986

User avatar
junk2drive
Posts: 12856
Joined: Thu Jun 27, 2002 7:27 am
Location: Arizona West Coast

Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by junk2drive »

Hours ago I saw on facebook (and here)that Matrix is trying to Greenlight PC on Steam and in the news thread that over 200k copies have been sold.

Matrix never reveals sales numbers and has always said that Steam doesn't work out for them. I was shocked.

Can't believe that no one is commenting.
Conflict of Heroes "Most games are like checkers or chess and some have dice and cards involved too. This game plays like checkers but you think like chess and the dice and cards can change everything in real time."
User avatar
e_barkmann
Posts: 1292
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2000 8:00 am
Location: Adelaide, Australia

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by e_barkmann »

Good for them. Steam is a brilliant content provisioning system.

cheers.
Scourge of War multiplayer group

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/sowwaterloo
User avatar
decaro
Posts: 4004
Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2005 12:05 pm
Location: Stratford, Connecticut
Contact:

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by decaro »

ORIGINAL: Chris Merchant

Good for them. Steam is a brilliant content provisioning system ...

That's the first time I've ever seen a positive comment about Steam.
Stratford, Connecticut, U.S.A.[center]Image[/center]
[center]"The Angel of Okinawa"[/center]
Home of the Chance-Vought Corsair, F4U
The best fighter-bomber of World War II
User avatar
Hertston
Posts: 3317
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2002 3:45 pm
Location: Cornwall, UK

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by Hertston »

The thing I find most 'shocking' is that Panzer Corps should have to go through the farce that is Greenlight at all to be sold on Steam.

I would be interested to know how well the non-exclusive titles - particularly Unity of Command - did on Steam, and if that was a factor in the decision.
User avatar
rodney727
Posts: 1457
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2011 4:53 pm
Location: Iowa

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by rodney727 »

I'm all for it. Means a lot more money for them. Once it gets ported to the App Store it will have the possibility to reach another 250 million users .
"I thank God that I was warring on the gridirons of the midwest and not the battlefields of Europe"
Nile Kinnick 1918-1943
Josh
Posts: 2568
Joined: Tue May 09, 2000 8:00 am
Location: Leeuwarden, Netherlands

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by Josh »

Well if it attracts more players to the hex based wargames I'm all for it. There must be a zillion RTS players who don't even know the concept of turn based hex wargames, so maybe it can wet their appetite for more.
A bit strange that is has to go through Greenlight though [&:] I know there are very few turn based games on Steam but nevertheless PC should make it straight for Steam. Maybe this says something about Steam too, unfamiliar territory for them.
User avatar
demyansk
Posts: 2871
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2008 12:55 pm

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by demyansk »

I talk to other gamers mostly about FPS titles and they have no clue that companies like this exist. I wonder how many of the gamers who use our favorite titles on Matrix are in the 18-25 age range? I'll bet most of us are over 30.

I like Steam b/c when you get another computer you don't have to worry about all the games and it works well for me with all my games.
ComradeP
Posts: 6992
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 3:11 pm

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by ComradeP »

I never had all that many problems with Steam, it does what I want it to do thus far. I've had far more problems with EA's system than with Steam.
I would be interested to know how well the non-exclusive titles - particularly Unity of Command - did on Steam, and if that was a factor in the decision.

Without giving exact figures, Steam sales were higher than they were through digital download websites in just a couple of months compared to the sales on the internet for about a year. However, we're nowhere near 200.000, a target which many wargame developers might be extremely lucky to reach 5%-10% or so of, but not much more.
SSG tester
WitE Alpha tester
Panzer Corps Beta tester
Unity of Command scenario designer
User avatar
carnifex
Posts: 1294
Joined: Mon Jul 01, 2002 8:47 pm
Location: Latitude 40° 48' 43N Longtitude 74° 7' 29W

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by carnifex »

Steam works for me. I frequently work off different laptops and having all my games available on any platform I'm currently on is great.
User avatar
IainMcNeil
Posts: 2784
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 10:01 am
Location: London
Contact:

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by IainMcNeil »

We have had so many requests to add the games to Steam we decided to try it out. There is no submission process to Valve other than Greenlight, so every single game has to go via Greenlight unless you already have a deal in place with Steam. We think Steam is an interesting option for some games but certainly would not plan to take everything to steam. Panzer Corps is at a good place in its life cycle where we've had the bulk of sales that we are going to get direct without the additional visibility of something like Steam. That's not to say it doesn't still sell well ( we just had our best week since August last year), but we think this is the right time to look for a wider audience and introduce them to these type of games and once they get a taste for them, hopefully draw them in to the rest of the line up.

As stated elsewhere we have no plans to do anything exclusive with Steam. We were doing digital downloads long before Steam and plan to be doing them long after! :)

If possible we will be allowing users who bought from us to add their game to their Steam account but we don't know enough about the process to understand how that works yet. We will almost certainly be offering the DLC's on Steam as well.
Iain McNeil
Director
Matrix Games
vonRocko
Posts: 1448
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 12:05 pm

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by vonRocko »

ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil



If possible we will be allowing users who bought from us to add their game to their Steam account but we don't know enough about the process to understand how that works yet. We will almost certainly be offering the DLC's on Steam as well.

That's fine as long as we are not "forced" to add it to steam!
User avatar
wodin
Posts: 10709
Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2003 3:13 am
Location: England
Contact:

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by wodin »

Iain remember Steam will be whacking out the game for buttons in their constant sales no doubt though. Which goes against your "price it low doesn't work once the game reaches a certain age" policy surely?
DBeves
Posts: 400
Joined: Mon Jul 29, 2002 5:11 am

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by DBeves »

ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil

We have had so many requests to add the games to Steam we decided to try it out. There is no submission process to Valve other than Greenlight, so every single game has to go via Greenlight unless you already have a deal in place with Steam. We think Steam is an interesting option for some games but certainly would not plan to take everything to steam. Panzer Corps is at a good place in its life cycle where we've had the bulk of sales that we are going to get direct without the additional visibility of something like Steam. That's not to say it doesn't still sell well ( we just had our best week since August last year), but we think this is the right time to look for a wider audience and introduce them to these type of games and once they get a taste for them, hopefully draw them in to the rest of the line up.

As stated elsewhere we have no plans to do anything exclusive with Steam. We were doing digital downloads long before Steam and plan to be doing them long after! :)

If possible we will be allowing users who bought from us to add their game to their Steam account but we don't know enough about the process to understand how that works yet. We will almost certainly be offering the DLC's on Steam as well.

Well, I can quite easily see PC being sold, and doing well on steam. It does highlight the stupidity of the current steam system though. Greelight is ok for greenfield projects but as the ONLY route in it is idiocy. If a game that has sold over 200k units doesnt have the necessary cahonas to be sold by them what has ? This is dumb for steam as they depend on fresh content to keep their profits up and they need to keep selling new stuff.
User avatar
IainMcNeil
Posts: 2784
Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 10:01 am
Location: London
Contact:

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by IainMcNeil »

No Steam do not set the prices - they just wont promote you unless you price drop. We'll just have to settle for not being promoted :)
Iain McNeil
Director
Matrix Games
User avatar
Missouri_Rebel
Posts: 3062
Joined: Sun Jun 18, 2006 11:12 pm
Location: Southern Missouri

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by Missouri_Rebel »

I think Battle Academy might also be a good STEAM offering.

Then again, I don't know anything of the business side of it. I do, however, applaud the forward thinking steps that may result in a wider audience and, quite possibly, the new blood that may be born.

I wish you all the luck.

mo reb
**Those who rob Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul
**A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have-Gerald Ford
User avatar
Erik Rutins
Posts: 39324
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2000 4:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA
Contact:

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by Erik Rutins »

As Iain said, we are exploring this as another distribution option. We are not planning to do anything that would create an inconvenience for our customers or tie ourselves to Steam. Feedback from our customers tells us they are very happy with the system we have now to sell game and the simple serial number check instead of any restrictive DRM. Nothing will change there, but we also have a lot of feedback that suggests we could reach other customers by also making some games available on Steam.

Regards,

- Erik
Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC


Image

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.
User avatar
junk2drive
Posts: 12856
Joined: Thu Jun 27, 2002 7:27 am
Location: Arizona West Coast

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by junk2drive »

I don't use Steam. I signed up a while ago to vote for another game. I was told I couldn't vote unless I buy something first. Just FYI.

I do like Desura because they were dealing in Linux games when I was dabbling with Ubuntu Linux. Now that Steam has made the effort to have an Ubuntu version, and possibly a future Linux console, will S/M look at making Linux versions of the popular games?
Conflict of Heroes "Most games are like checkers or chess and some have dice and cards involved too. This game plays like checkers but you think like chess and the dice and cards can change everything in real time."
Ranger33
Posts: 555
Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2012 8:19 pm

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by Ranger33 »

I usually just lurk around here but I wanted to say I'm excited to see you guys branching out to Steam a bit. I had never bought anything from Matrix until about a year ago when I saw some discussion about TOAW somewhere and thought I would try it out. I barely knew Matrix Games was a thing, much less that you guys had literally oodles of awesome titles just waiting to be discovered. Since then a lot of my gaming purchases have been from here. I would buy just about everything if I had the money.

I'm 25, just for reference. PC is for sure a game I would check out if I saw it pop up on Steam, and I think a lot of other gamers will be interested as well. Best of luck!
meskary
Posts: 114
Joined: Wed Dec 20, 2006 6:08 pm
Location: Colchester CT

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by meskary »

Future of Complex War Games:

If there are say 1500 die hard wargamers (whatever the number is here) that get our games here or HPS, opening them up to say the "masses" on steam can only help by getting more involved and liking the challenge...buying more games, more money for the company and maybe more titles...
DJflamethrower
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2013 7:33 pm

RE: Steam? Sales? No comments?

Post by DJflamethrower »

there's a steam gift card here that you might be able to get for free
Post Reply

Return to “General Discussion”