After 22 years of development, Valve’s Steam platform has long become the leader in the entire PC digital game market. Even though it has faced competition from platforms such as GOG and Epic, Steam has always been the first choice for many players. Even EA, Ubisoft and Blizzard, which had tried to create their own platforms, eventually returned to the platform. As for the secret behind it, G Fat himself seems to have made it public as early as 15 years ago.
Even though GOG focuses on being DRM-free, and the Epic Games Store releases free games regularly every week, in terms of functionality and convenience, no platform on the market can compete with Steam. In fact, as early as more than ten years ago, Valve founder Gabe Newell, also known as “G Fat” among players, once explained the reasons why Steam can come out on top, and players found that the arguments at that time can still be established today.
In an interview with PC Gamer in 2011, Gabe Newell discussed Valve’s online store design in depth and explained how the PC gaming market was trying to survive in the war between Sony and Microsoft’s PS3 and Xbox 360 home console platforms. According to him, the key to Steam’s foothold at the time was regular “sale events.”
From the early days of development, Valve has held large-scale special sales every year in various seasons, giving players the opportunity to purchase a large number of game works at affordable prices. It is occasionally paired with some social activities to collect cards and stickers. This has immediately established a very distinctive brand image for the Steam platform and quickly accumulated a group of loyal customers. As long as the more games in the player’s collection library, the willingness to switch to other platforms will be lower, not to mention social functions such as “wish list”, card drops, and discussion boards.
Although this operation method that focuses the user experience on “collection” has attracted many other platforms to follow suit in the future, even so, Steam ultimately still has the advantage of being the first to enter the market, coupled with richer and more convenient functions, it continues to gain a foothold.
In addition to some large sales, Valve occasionally holds smaller promotions and targets specific genres or works from specific publishers. For example, Steam held a “Deck Making Festival” today, offering price reductions for many games that revolve around card battles or construction. Not only that, Steam has also continued to evolve in terms of functionality over the years. For example, the addition of the “refund function” has roughly solved the dilemma of players encountering special sales the day after purchasing a game.
For players, Steam has long become an integral part of the entire PC market, and it is also a stage for many independent games to shine. However, the “special offer method” adopted by Valve for Steam not only affects the platform itself, but also seems to have quietly changed the habits of PC players as a whole over the years. Market research company Kantar recently cooperated with the University of California and interviewed more than 6,250 “heavy gamers” from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. The final results showed that about 62% of players are unwilling to pay the “original price” to buy games. However, in addition to frequent special promotions on Steam, the increase in the price of AAA games is of course another reason that cannot be ignored.
Source: KOCPC Chinese