They're definitely doin it right... unfortunately if they can't keep their site up it won't matter. How will you take all my money Steam if all I get from your site is 503 errors?!
Oh God not again...I love the holiday events so much...but...I lost so much money on all those $5/$10 deals during the summer that I'd be afraid to look at my chequing if I bought into another.
I do however have to compliment Steams marketing they make me WANT to buy all these games just so I can get the holiday achievements.
...and then they put Sam and Max complete for 75% off...
As long as nobody asks me to change my Facebook avatar, if I like the brand, I'll usually play along. Gamification = making stuff fun? That's genius marketing? People sit in a room and get paid to think, gee, I wonder how to get someone to do this, uhhhhh, make it fun?? GENIUS!!!
As long as nobody asks me to change my Facebook avatar, if I like the brand, I'll usually play along. Gamification = making stuff fun? That's genius marketing? People sit in a room and get paid to think, gee, I wonder how to get someone to do this, uhhhhh, make it fun?? GENIUS!!!
Believe it or not, it is.
0
Straight_ManGeeky, in my own wayNaples, FLIcrontian
The Boy Scout movement had two acronyms that are appropo methinks:
KISMIF - keep it simple, make it fun;
KISS - keep it simple stupid.
They used those, and taught them to leader trainer TRAINERS (wood badge classes), who in turn passed them down to boy leaders via adult leaders and boy leader training classes. The boy leaders used to use them a lot, and understood them. Making something fun and easy to do draws folks who will spend money, I guess is the lesson. Boy's parents liked the morality values the Boy Scouts taught, and spent money to send boys with troops for activiites which were fun and educational for the boys. Valve is doing it with gaming, and Steam as a vehicle also makes sense.
Epic Holiday Giveaway. Unreleased games will be delivered to the winner at the time of their release. Prize value is the purchase price of those games at the time of the drawing. Odds of winning depend on the number of pieces of Coal remaining in all user Steam inventories at 10:00 am Pacific Standard Time on January 2, 2012. The winner is solely responsible for any taxes applicable to the prizes. The winner of the Grand Prize will be additionally awarded a one-time “true up” payment from Sponsor based upon U.S. income taxes owed by the winner.
Good Guy Valve: Awards $35K worth of games, offers to pick up the taxes owed on your new library as well.
To re-iterate how incredible this thing is... I just played a game I've owned for months (Anomaly: Warzone Earth), which is fun. To reward me for all this hard work of having fun and playing games, Valve has gifted me a copy of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, for no reason other than they're awesome. I didn't have to buy anything. I am just participating in their meta-game.
Earned five objectives tonight. Spiral Knights (luckily I had played this in the past, and somehow had 320 crowns so I didn't have to buy anything to get the achievement), Psychonauts, Orcs Must Die, Anomaly: Warzone Earth, and Bunch of Heroes (more like Bunch of Dicks). I now have three lumps of coal, a new game, and two nearly useless coupons. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.
I won 2 coal, a 50% off Valve coupon, and a 50% off "Rock of Ages" coupon. Gave the coupon to Zanthian being the only person on my friends list who wanted it. Can anyone actually use the half off Valve coupon? If you can it's yours.
I wonder what the usage stats will be on these coupons, and if they'll offer them again next year. So far, I've seen only few people think that a coupon is useful, especially since most of the game were on more sale during the event. "Here's a coupon for later that's not as good as today's deal!"
If the coupons were a further discount off of the holiday price, I think they'd see more use.
This could be addicting. You know I don't play games in the volume most of you do, but there were a couple cool games I looked at this morning for like 9.99 or even less.
Finally got my seventh coal. Decided I'm going to craft them all because the chances of winning a main prize are slim to none, and besides... Do I really want every single Steam game ever?
I turned in my seven coal and got a copy of Saw. I was a little nervous after I found out @Winfrey crafted a coupon. Whew.
I don't know what some of these publishers are hoping to accomplish. I did the CrimeCraft achievement tonight; the only thing I learned is that I find CrimeCraft to be a really bad game, even though it's free to play, and I will never, ever in a million years play it. The controls are awful, and the way to get the achievement basically highlights how bad they are.
Comments
I do however have to compliment Steams marketing they make me WANT to buy all these games just so I can get the holiday achievements.
...and then they put Sam and Max complete for 75% off...
Curse you Steam...
EDIT: WOAH 503 ERRORS EVERYWHERE!
GameBlade: EQ2's free to play version is extremely crippled and you would need to spend $20-$30 to get even close to the full experience.
KISMIF - keep it simple, make it fun;
KISS - keep it simple stupid.
They used those, and taught them to leader trainer TRAINERS (wood badge classes), who in turn passed them down to boy leaders via adult leaders and boy leader training classes. The boy leaders used to use them a lot, and understood them. Making something fun and easy to do draws folks who will spend money, I guess is the lesson. Boy's parents liked the morality values the Boy Scouts taught, and spent money to send boys with troops for activiites which were fun and educational for the boys. Valve is doing it with gaming, and Steam as a vehicle also makes sense.
If they allowed you to gift copies of the games you didn't want, that might be a lot cooler.
Think I'm going to grab a few of the on sale games today, anyone up for getting some holiday achievements?
If the coupons were a further discount off of the holiday price, I think they'd see more use.
I turned in my seven coal and got a copy of Saw. I was a little nervous after I found out @Winfrey crafted a coupon. Whew.
Either way. Got it