In order to reduce game sales outside of Steam...

[JamesD]

In order to reduce game sales outside of Steam, Valve will no longer automatically fulfill key requests from devs

https://www.vg247.com/2017/08/18/in-order-to-reduce-game-sales-outside-of-steam-valve-will-no-longer-automatically-fulfil-key-requests-from-devs/

[spacecadet]

I suppose this is their right, as it's their service, but I don't really understand why a publisher would need 500,000 keys for a game that sells only a couple thousand on Steam. Why even have it on Steam in that case? At the very least, why rely on them for your whole business, when they only give you like .01% of that business? Just make your own damn keys.

[Flojomojo]

There are a lot of "game stores" that do nothing but undercut Steam: Humble Bundles, Green Man Gaming, GamersGate, Cdkeys, Dealzon, Onlinekeystore, Cheapshark, probably others. Most of them look shady and likely hurt the reputation of the Steam store. When you buy a key from them and redeem the game on Steam, it uses Steam's database and bandwidth resources. Steam gets nothing except for the chance to try to catch your eye with some sales while you're downloading.

 

There's a lot of crap in the Steam store, and I'm sure many publishers just want wide distribution so maybe they'll be noticed with their next release.

 

I'm surprised Steam has let this go on as long as it has. I wonder if there will be any impact to Humble Bundles? Most of my ridiculously large collection of Steam software was purchased from them.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Yeah..same here. Humble Bundle is easily one of the reasons I have such a large collection of Games on Steam. This will hurt such bundles because a majority of them were using redemption keys for Steam to get the games. Looks like I will just have to wait for special deals on GOG now since that is all downloadable self installer stuff without DRM to worry about.

[JamesD]

Most of my games have come from Humble Bundle and Bundle Stars.
I wouldn't have bought the games at Steam store prices.
I've never even downloaded 90% of them.

[StopDrop&Retro]

I think people are running with a hot take, and I don't blame them based on the wording they used. But according to this article, the title of this thread might be completely wrong according to Valve.

 

It seems the new policy will be implemented on a case-by-case basis and meant to prevent card farming.

 

“We’re trying to look more closely at extreme examples of products on Steam that don’t seem to be providing actual value as playable games — for instance, when a game has sold 100 units, has mostly negative reviews, but requests 500,000 Steam keys,” said Valve. “We’re not interested in supporting trading card farming or bot networks at the expense of being able to provide value and service for players.”’

 

In a Steam Blog post in May, Valve said it had found that some crafty developers were engaging in Steam Trading Card profiteering. The practice involves releasing what Valve referred to as “fake” games, and giving away “many thousands” of keys to bots that play those titles. That unlocks trading cards, which the developer then flips for a profit on Steam.

 

At the same time, Valve’s new policy could conceivably affect mass distribution of Steam keys for situations like large Kickstarter projects or low-cost indie game bundles.

 

However, Valve said that it has no intention of ending the distribution of Steam keys used for legitimate third-party sales, and that it will continue to provide free keys to developers for that purpose.

“It’s completely OK for partners to sell their games on other sites via Steam keys, and run discounts or bundles on other stores, and we’ll continue granting free keys to help partners do those things,” Valve told Polygon. “But it’s not OK to negatively impact our customers by manipulating our store and features.”

 

 

So yeah, this panic might be a whole lot of nothing.

[Flojomojo]

Sounds legit. Card farmers can go scam elsewhere. It's amazing that's even a thing.

[Mord]

I suppose this is their right, as it's their service, but I don't really understand why a publisher would need 500,000 keys for a game that sells only a couple thousand on Steam. Why even have it on Steam in that case? At the very least, why rely on them for your whole business, when they only give you like .01% of that business? Just make your own damn keys.

 

The reason is explained in the article - by using Steam's free keys, you get to use Steam's bandwidth and resources for free while you reap the full price of the free keys you were given by Steam on other sites. I'm rather surprised they gave out unlimited keys for free at any rate. Would have made sense to make a small number automatically available for sending to potential reviewers and the like, then at most granting 1 free key per legit sale on steam. If you make enough of a turd of a game that it doesn't generate many sales on steam even after sending out a bunch of review copies, then you probably don't need a heck of a lot of additional keys to sell elsewhere.

 

"This is why we can't have nice things" is another appropriate expression.

[JamesD]

https://www.vg247.com/2017/08/18/valves-new-policy-on-large-amounts-of-steam-keys-spells-doom-for-cheap-game-bundles/

[Tanooki]

Reading that is not a good outcome with Steam. Basically forcing the game maker to dilute the value of their game instead of issuing keys to get included in Steam or other style sales for bundles. This would cripple or destroy the steam based humble bundles and wreck all the other troll and non-troll sites that issue discounts on steam downloads on their own side. I get Valve wants their kind of hefty 30% cut, but punishing all the game developers to put the screws to 3rd party outlets isn't right.

 

Perhaps this will cause a growth of interest in more 3rd parties putting better programs they keep on Steam also on GOG where they're not colossal d-bags like this.

[Good_Times]

Steam is very handy for opening letters and preparing vegetables.

[MCHufnagel]

Reading that is not a good outcome with Steam. Basically forcing the game maker to dilute the value of their game instead of issuing keys to get included in Steam or other style sales for bundles. This would cripple or destroy the steam based humble bundles and wreck all the other troll and non-troll sites that issue discounts on steam downloads on their own side. I get Valve wants their kind of hefty 30% cut, but punishing all the game developers to put the screws to 3rd party outlets isn't right.

 

Perhaps this will cause a growth of interest in more 3rd parties putting better programs they keep on Steam also on GOG where they're not colossal d-bags like this.

Steam will still rule the market because developers have been getting lazy. It must be easier to use Steamworks instead of making a DRM-free versions because there a quite a few GOG version of indy games getting updates much later than Steam versions or even never getting updated. Edited August 21, 2017 by MCHufnagel

[Tanooki]

You could assume that could be true, but it also may be just because Steam has a bigger user base so they'll cater the update to that first. A couple years back though before GoG Galaxy existed I could see it as a roll out would be a bit more tricky, but now it has that client and you can just pump out the fixes automatically to those using it much like Steam.

 

I agree developers/publishers are lazy so it may not change, or it could a little. I'd be surprised if someone didn't get annoyed enough by it to start doing GoG releases, or started doing them again (like Capcom that just did SFAlpha2 then quit.)

[TPA5]

Makes sense to me that Steam doesn't want to be handing out bandwidth and hosting costs for (essentially) free in these cases. And I say that as someone who finds Steam onerous at best. I buy most of my PC games through GOG anyway, since I find little interest in most modern-release games.