[whoisyc]

I wish more game developers adopt the “no sales, period” policy of Factorio.

Here’s a relevant quote from the developer.

> Not having a sale ever is part of our philosophy. In short term, they are good and bring extra money, but we are targeting long term. I believe that searching for sales is wasted time, and people should decide on the price and value, but putting option of wasting time to search for deals or waiting seems like bad part of the equation.

https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?p=159659#p159659

I get why people put games on sale. It gets you on a list on steam and gets people to talk about you on Reddit and gets emails sent to everyone who’s wishlisted your game. It boosts your profits and I get it.

But let’s be honest, these techniques benefit the developer not the player. The developer profits from the players FOMO when a sale happens. The player thinks he has accumulated a glorious Steam library when in reality he just wasted tons of money on games he wouldn’t even ever launch.

If any thing the domain of this website already tells you everything you need to know. It’s all about marketing, aka moving money from your pocket into theirs with psychological maneuvers.

[tokai]

Putting a product on sale is amoral because somebody might buy something they don't need, is weirdest take I have seen in a while. We're not all just whales, some people don't have that much money. Plenty of teenagers, unemployed, etc. are able to get some good experiences because of good sales.

[qnleigh]

I think the point is that, on the whole, sales manipulate consumers into spending -more- money than they otherwise would have. Of course this isn't true for every person all the time, but on average I suspect it is; sales are common partly because they actually lead to more revenue, despite the discount.

[crazygringo]

That's not why sales lead to more revenue.

They do because people who can't afford full price will wait to buy on sale. Whereas people who can afford full price will often just buy it when they want it for instant satisfaction.

So they get mostly full price from people who can pay full price, and make it accessible to people who can't afford it at full price.

[MisterSandman]

Citation needed?

Are you saying Amazon does Prime Day so people who previously couldn’t afford an air fryer can now afford one? Are you saying Black Friday is actually a massive charity event by companies so people can buy their products?

I’m pretty sceptical of this whole “make it accessible” logic - I can only imagine very few parts of my life where a discount was actually the only way I could afford something (back when I had limited pocket money). A game going from $80 to $60 doesn’t practically make it any more accessible to most people, it just makes people feel better about their purchase.

[watwut]

I was definitely waiting for sales when I was younger when the games were too expensive for me. And when my earnings went up, I became more willing to buy them full price.

No, I would not buy those games for full price. And not just games. And not just me.

It is the same deal with black Friday sales, with people who buy used stuff etc.

[crazygringo]

There's no "citation", just go work at any business.

And you seem to be misunderstanding. They're not doing it out of charity. They're doing it because if something costs $50, they make more profit selling 20 at $100 and 20 at $70 than they do selling just 20 at $100.

> A game going from $80 to $60 doesn’t practically make it any more accessible to most people

I think you may be out of touch with some people's financial realities. $20 can very much be the difference between buying something and not buying it this month. And people will literally wait half a year to buy something on Black Friday because it's the only way they can afford it.

[Yeul]

With physical goods unsold items literally cost money to the point that sometimes it is cheaper to sell it for a dollar.

[bombcar]

The real reason cracktorio can do no sale is the same reason Minecrack can be basically no sale (same price forever) - it’s an evergreen game people will always buy at a low roar.

Most games are like DVDs or books, they frontload 90% of their total revenue in the first few months, and so sales are a way to squeeze a bit more juice out later.

[CodeArtisan]

While the price of Minecraft stays the same, the game never stopped evolving and getting content updates. For $30 you get a much bigger game now than fifteen years ago.

[ReaperCub]

The reason factorio devs can take such a stance is that they crowd financed the game over a decade ago when doing that was viable, and since then the game has achieved cult status. Sure the game was officially released in 2020, but it had been in Early Access since 2016.

Ironically I bought it and never played it. I only bought it because I played a clone of the game called "Dyson's Sphere" made by a Chinese developer and wondered what the original game was like.

> The developer profits from the players FOMO when a sale happens.

No, That isn't it at all.

This is like super backwards. FOMO happens typically when a big game is released. No months/years afterwards.

A lot of players are waiting for a game to be the right price. Triple-A titles are now £60+. Doom the Dark Ages was over £70 at launch that is without the extra micro-transaction nonsense. Some games (even indie games) come out at £25-30. I am a big Doom fan and play megawads such as Eviternity and I said to myself "No I am not paying that much" for the new Doom game. I have plenty of disposable income.

If the game comes down to less than £15 that is 3-4 overpriced coffee / 3-4 pints of beer down the bar.

If you are patient you know that the game is going to go on sale some time in the future so you wait until their is a sale. Steam even have mid-week deals. I hear/see these conversations all the time on Discord, in person, reddit etc.

> The player thinks he has accumulated a glorious Steam library when in reality he just wasted tons of money on games he wouldn’t even ever launch.

I've never heard anyone flex their Steam Library. I don't think anyone thinks of it this way. Achievements in a particular game, sure.

[Jare]

> FOMO happens typically when a big game is released

FOMO around sales: I've bought a bunch of games when they were on sale even though I was not going to play them right away, simply because I didn't want to end up wanting to play them later and have to buy them full(-ish) price. And then I never played them anyway.

[ReaperCub]

I understood what they were saying, I don't think that is generally true due to how Steam tends to operate.

There isn't going to be much FOMO when people know that a game is going to be on sale every other month. Maybe if you are unfamiliar with Steam you might do that.

I've heard people say plenty of times "I might pick it up when it is on sale again". That seems like the opposite of FOMO.

[dalmo3]

> these techniques benefit the developer not the player

Hard disagree. Buying games on sales is a magnificent way I can expand my horizons and play random games I'd have never heard of otherwise or would've never tried.

[Etheryte]

This is like Michael Phelps giving swimming advice. Interesting to listen to for sure, but not really applicable to the vast majority of people.

[Jare]

It's not so simple. While it may not be causation ("they're successful because they don't make sales" is likely not true), the correlation can be almost as strong: the philosophy / mindset that leads you to make that choice of strategy is the same philosophy that also informed various other decisions that led to you developing a successful game.

I think a good example of this was the Blizzard of old. They "could afford" to only launch things that were near perfect because they were successful, but they also were successful because they never relented on their perfectionism.

So you shouldn't blindly imitate the choices of successful people, but taking a few pages out of their core values and driving pillars will likely help a lot.

[whatevaa]

I waited for Elden Ring to be on sale because I wasn't sure if I will like it, and 2 hours is not enough to try a game like this. No other reason.

Lot's of people buy on sale because it's too expensive for them otherwise. Factorios sales model does mean lost sales, they have just decided that it is okay for them. Game is DRM free, can be pirated with no problems if you can't afford it.

[imtringued]

The point of sales is that you sell the game to people who think the game is worth full price at full price and those who have less money or think the game is worth less to them at the price they would rather pay.

It's basically a reverse auction process, where the bids start high and get lower over time.

The KSP1 DLC is basically never worth it at full price to me.

[fileeditview]

I don't know.. maybe if you cannot control your impulses..

For me Steam sales are great. I have things in the wish list and when the sale is good I might buy it. I always check if it's a good sale on SteamDB.

I usually play these games but most of the time not for long. That's why I don't want to put in the full price.

[garaetjjte]

Stupid thing with sales is that "regular" price ends up being overpriced.

[raincole]

> these techniques benefit the developer not the player

And when every dev is doing that it hardly benefits the devs either.

[levocardia]

Seems like basic price discrimination. Occasional sales let you capture some of the people for whom your game (or the option to play your game, maybe never exercised...) is worth $10 instead of $20 (or whatever). I don't really see who is harmed here, other than players who say "well maybe the game will go on sale..." -- but did they really value the game at its sticker price to begin with?

[dvdkon]

Yes, and the devs' refusal to ever put the game on sale has led to me still not buying Factorio, despite hearing how good it is. I'm just not sure of the value when I buy most my games at 10 EUR or (much) lower.

[fasterik]

Factorio has deep gameplay. You can spend thousands of hours on it and still have more to learn and experience.

If it's your kind of thing, spending $70 for the base game plus the Space Age expansion is really good value; orders of magnitude more than most games. But if you want something that will give you a few hours of entertainment and then move on from it, it's probably not for you.

There's a free demo which has more than enough gameplay for players to decide whether they want to invest in the game.

[SirHumphrey]

For games like Factorio and Minecraft sales work a bit differently. These games are evergreen and very easily and commonly pirated, so people who are buying already have tens or hundreds of hours in the game. The marketing and capturing price sensitive markets through sales makes less sense - you are only losing margin to people who would buy regardless.

[izacus]

> but did they really value the game at its sticker price to begin with? reply

Factorio is a game that's sold at 35$ price point - half of the usual new game price. Does that mean that the developer doesn't value his game when it's so cheap?

What a silly notion.

[raincole]

I guess you're being rhetorical or sarcastic, but for people who're not familiar with today's gaming market: $35 is a very high price for 2D games like Factorio. Most 2D games are $10~$20. If you take sales into account, it would be much closer to $10 than to $20.

[fasterik]

Thinking about games along a single axis (2D vs. 3D) is a weird way to measure value.

You should compare Factorio with other sandbox/simulation games with procedural generation, deep systems, complex logistics, and large modding communities. Examples that come to mind are Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress, which have similar price tags.