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Valve says Steam sales do not cheapen IPs, data proves otherwise

Valve has said EA's accusation that sales cheapening intellectual property is wrong as it can benefit games, publishers and gamers.

Speaking with Eurogamer, business development chief Jason Holtman told the site during Develop that it's the opposite case.

"Ask our partners," he said. "Ask the large to the small and see what they think about that. Putting it all in the bucket of, it's all about the discounts, I don't think that's everything about it.

"Discounts serve a lot of functions. Highlighting serves a lot of functions. The qualities of the games serve a lot of functions. Everything we've seen, PC games and IP and all those franchises are more valuable today than they were four or five years ago.

"If this were all about a cheapening and somehow lessening the money out there or somehow customers don't want to pay any more, they think everything should be like a used car lot - sticker price is not the real price - you'd feel that and you'd get real reinforcement of that. We don't see any of that. We see people buying a lot and enjoying it and playing a lot."

Holtman said the date collected from 40 million users further disproves DeMartini's theory, as if gamers only waited on sales, no one would ever pre-purchase games on Steam.

"For instance, if all that were true, nobody would ever pre-purchase a game ever on Steam, ever again. You just wouldn't," he said. "In the back of your mind be like, okay, in six months to a year, maybe it'll be 50% off on a day or a weekend or during one of our seasonal promotions. Probably true. But our pre-orders are bigger than they used to be. Tons of people, right? And our day one sales are bigger than they used to be. Our first week, second week, third week, all those are bigger.

"That points out that what's happened with those sales is, you've probably caught somebody and introduced them to a game when they haven't had it, and they've played it, and the next time the franchise comes out or the next move from that publisher, the next move from the partner, they've just become more avid gamers.

"The trade-off they're making is a time trade-off."

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Stephany Nunneley-Jackson

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Stephany is VG247’s News Editor, with 22 years experience (with 15 of them at VG247). With a brain that lacks adhesive ducks, the ill-tempered, chaotic neutral fembot does her best to bring you the most interesting gaming news. She is also unofficially the site’s Lord of the Rings/Elder Scrolls Editor.

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