Compensation? For what?

1

10goliath

Chieftain
Joined
Feb 21, 2012
Messages
15
Location
Nebraska
So I just finished a session of Civ 5. I closed out of the game and Steam says that I have been given a complimentary copy of Civ 4 on Steam by Firaxis! Apparently this was due to a mix up where BNW (which I preordered) was launched slightly late.

I have two problems with this. (No, this was no a scam. This message appeared as an official Steam update) First, why Civ 4? I have two copies of it already, the complete and the GOTY edition! Why couldn't they give away one of the Civ 5 dlc's instead? Second, the game launched in the middle of the night where I live. I was asleep when the game launched, and the pre-patch included most of the content in encrypted form, so the actual update probably took no more that 30 seconds! Why compensate for something so minor?

http://gyazo.com/da81595aebb88feacc7222a0b3a798b
 
What the hell were they thinking? Giving you a free game? ******s!

More serious reply below:

People are pissed because they pre-ordered BNW for like 25€ on steam and just a few hours after the game released the price was dropped to 20€ due to the summer sale deal. Why would anyone preorder any game in the future if they do such a thing?

Of course those people should not have bought in on steam in the first place but other shops were it was already costing as low as 20€ as a pre-order.
 
As said above:
CIV5 was put on sale by accident, so everyone who pre-ordered via steam paid more then those who waited until release. Since preorders are considered as a good thing by most devs / publishers, they gave away a free copy of CIV4 as a compensation reduce the negative impact of this incident.
 
It isn't minor to offer a 10 percent discount as the only pre-order bonus and then discount the game by 33 percent on the release day. The amount may be minor, the hit to the satisfaction level and trust of the most loyal customers (those who hand over money before release and reviews) is not.

Civ4 is a token apology only anyway, just a gesture. The vast majority of BNW preorder customers are very likely to already have had Civ4. I have a boxed copy and a copy on Steam, for example. But I appreciate the gesture nevertheless.
 
My situation is unfair, bot for me, but for Steam, I should not have won this gift, but I did.

I bought my BNW pre-order when they screwed up brazilian prices for a few hours and it cost me only US$1 approximately. They should be giving away gifts to other people because of what they did to me and other lucky brazilians who bought on that timeframe. :p
 
I got this message too and I'm downloading the game.

To 10Goliath: The game is put on your steam inventory for a reason and not directly on your game library. That means you have the option to gift it to a friend if you already own it. Of course that means that there will be nothing for you, but at least there's less chances it will go wasted.


On another note, I really hope this game comes with all the expansions else it will just turn out to be another evil marketing strategy to churn even more money from the "loyal costumers".
Just like offering "free" salty snacks at bars

EDIT: just checked, it's just the base game. You can go to hell Firaxis!
 
It was steam that messed up, not Firaxis. They have no control over Steam's sale prices, so you should direct your hate to them, Killbray
 
Nyanko said:
It was steam that messed up, not Firaxis. They have no control over Steam's sale prices, so you should direct your hate to them, Killbray
Click to expand...

Really, it is steam that decides the prices?

Anyway in truth I wasn't even angry at the decreased price for the sale, I'm more angry at the fact that they want to pass as an apology something that might as well be marketing strategy.

Valve gave Portal for free for a while, but they stated clearly that they did so because they expected to get more people to buy Portal 2.

"Civ IV" as a base game is more like a demo than a complete game, especially when right now buying the whole package costs almost the same as buying the individual expansions.

I refuse to consider this a sincere apology, and I refuse to even install the game when I know it would be an incomplete experience since BTS made it so awesome in comparison according to everyone I know.
 
Nyanko said:
It was steam that messed up, not Firaxis. They have no control over Steam's sale prices, so you should direct your hate to them, Killbray
Click to expand...
Wrong. Every sale must be approved by the publisher, of course they have control over it. They probably approved a discount across the board for Civilization games and forgot to leave BNW out of it.

Now, Civ4 as compensation doesn't cut it IMO. Is there anyone here who doesn't have it already?
 
I don't have it so for me it was a pleasent suprise. I think it is a nice gesture.
 
Fairfax said:
Wrong. Every sale must be approved by the publisher, of course they have control over it. They probably approved a discount across the board for Civilization games and forgot to leave BNW out of it.
Click to expand...

There's an active lawsuit against Apple exactly for publisher price setting of e-books.
Given there's no suit against Value about Steam game pricing, I doubt they are doing the same thing that Apple tried to do.
 
joncnunn said:
There's an active lawsuit against Apple exactly for publisher price setting of e-books.
Given there's no suit against Value about Steam game pricing, I doubt they are doing the same thing that Apple tried to do.
Click to expand...
Apple was doing something different. That was a cartel, an agreement between Apple and competing publishers to set high prices.
What Valve does is perfectly normal, they suggest "hey, we want to put Bioshock Infinite as a daily deal on our summer sale, with cards and all" and then 2K approves. Or "we think prices for Russia/Brazil should be a bit lower, here's a table with our suggested prices" and publishers decide wether to follow it or not. The opposite also applies, publishers change their prices all the time, Valve simply takes a 30% cut and provides statistics, that's it.

They're not bringing the 5 biggest publishers over to discuss price fixing and make the product 20% more expensive, which was Apple's deal.
 
haha awsome i totally got civ iv too! i had no idea until reading this thread.

I think it was a good gesture seeing as how, as petty as the money is, they did the 33% sale. I think its more of a marketing goof on their part that they would avoid in the future when games release during the summer. nontheless I appreciate getting civ iv because i've only played it at a friends house.
 
I got 2 copies... go figure. here's a screen shot:
Spoiler :
 

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I was impressed by this. I didn't care much about the few extra dollars but it's nice to see Steam making amends...though why would I play Civ IV when I've got BNW? :D
 
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