How Effective Are Steam Sales?

One thing PC gamers look forward to every weekend are the sales various digital distribution companies place on their website, including those by the Steam service.  Valve has often touted the immense amount of activity that is generated by a single sale, but how effective are they really?

Earlier this year, Gabe Newell noted that a recent sale for Left 4 Dead, Valve’s popular survival zombie shooter, caused a sales increase of 3000%, rivaling the sales of those during launch week.^[1] This is no doubt impressive, allowing publishers to continually promote their games and spur additional sales through weekend deals.  However, without specific numbers, percentage figures could mean a wide range of things.

For example, Newell stated that one particular third party title saw an increase of 36,000% during a weekend sale.  This number is incredibly large, and leads one to wonder what the initial sales were beforehand.  If it only sold one copy the previous week, then 36,000 during the weekend sale, that seems far less impressive.  I imagine the true numbers for this title were much larger, but it shows that we cannot rely solely on percentages for a true grasp of how effective weekend sales are.

Thanks to Garry Newman, the creator of Garry’s Mod, we finally have a glimpse of actual numbers based on his September 14th sale.  After the sale ended, Valve sent Newman a set of stats and graphs on the overall performance of his title.  According to this information, the game sold 2,975 units 8 days prior to the sale.  During the sale, Garry’s Mod sold 34,927 units for an increase of 1074%, which now accounts for 9% of his overall units sold since release.^[2] An impressive chart of overall sales can be found on Garry Newman’s blog.

This is an impressive increase for a product that previously started out as a free mod, and turned retail in 2006.  Three years later, with the help of weekend sales, the game continues to thrive.   Information such as this echoes the concerns Newell stated earlier this year, that games are not being priced correctly, which I for one could not agree with more.^[3] Recent research by Russell Beale and Matthew Bond of the University of Birmingham help confirm this theory, stating, “The most important factor to avoid is a bad pricing – if your game fails at everything else, an accordingly low price might just save it.” ^[4]

A special thanks to Tom of The Steam Review for referring me to the statistics for Garry’s Mod.

Source
[1] Left 4 Dead sees 3000% jump in sales on Steam
[2] Garry’s Mod Sale Stats
[3] Valve: Are Games Too Expensive?
[4] Graphics? Storyline? Or Price?