The Frontier store should price match Steam

[bitstorm]

ED is currently £4 on Steam, Horizons is also £4. But they are £20 on the Frontier store!

I have 4 ED accounts, 1 Steam, 3 non-Steam, one of my non-Steam accounts is missing Horizons. Now this is just a mule account, so it's not a big deal or anything but for £4 I'd grab Horizons for it and complete the set for my 4 accounts, for £20 that's not happening.

But generally I don't see why the Frontier store isn't price matching Steam at all times anyway. It's in Frontier's interest to have people purchase through the Frontier store, and if you're price matching then you have something else to put in the newsletter which no doubt will encourage some players to purchase a 2nd/3rd/etc account, or even an account for a friend.

A newsletter is due out today right?

 

[Para Handy]

The Frontier store should price match Steam

Yes I agree totally.

I am not impressed with the drift to Steam with Elite anyway and this pricing differential seems to steer that way.

Frontier must be losing out on additional accounts (I have several) since multiple accounts and Steam is problematic if not impossible these days.

 

[SpaceGoblin]

Oh...

Crap.

I just made second steam account to accommodate the ED+H steam keys I got through Humble Bundle.

I can get the Deluxe edition on steam for £8 right now. Oh man. I'm so weak i'll probably end up with a 3rd steam account and a 6th Elite account.

I was dubious at first about a second steam account (I already have a registered Steam key for it on my original Steam acct), but they have this whole 'game borrowing feature' - my new account automatically figured out what my original account was, and will let me play some games I own on the 1st through the 2nd acct - so I guess this is expected behaviour now?!?

Yeah, extra logins etc to remember and what not, but doable if'n you really want.

As to why FDEV don't seem to discount through their own store, I can only imagine.

Perhaps it suits them, somehow (don't ask, I have no idea, just speculating based on what we can see) to have folks acquire the game through a 3rd party live Steam shrug

 

[varonica]

As to why FDEV don't seem to discount through their own store, I can only imagine.

Perhaps it suits them, somehow (don't ask, I have no idea, just speculating based on what we can see) to have folks acquire the game through a 3rd party live Steam shrug

It's not hard really, and it's tactic common to a lot of commerce, but specially e-commerce.

Steam resells Frontier keys which they probably buy in bulk for a discounted rate and sell on at a loss to lock players into the Steam store so they purchase player addons and future content and other games from Steam.

If FDEV were to lower their own store prices to match Steam's prices, they would then have to pass on a discount at a lower rate to Steam, because that's how it works with bulk key purchases. You can't sell bulk key purchases for the same price you sell one key in your online store. Steam would probably then still sell at a loss, undercutting the FDEV store prices again. They could go round and round in circles cutting prices and discounting to Steam until FDEV was selling the keys on to Steam at such a low price the Steam store could essentially give the keys away because in the end all they care about is players purchasing in game content from the steam store, and once they have a player locked into the Steam store for a major title like ED then that player is much more likely to buy future games through the Steam store.

As it is now FDEV gets direct sales from the store and most of the money from the sales of bulk keys through the Steam Store, and access to players who already buy most of their content from Steam. Trying to match Steam prices would eventually end up losing them a lot of money, it's a merry-go-round they are smart not to get involved with.

 

[bitstorm]

If FDEV were to lower their own store prices to match Steam's prices, they would then have to pass on a discount at a lower rate to Steam, because that's how it works with bulk key purchases. You can't sell bulk key purchases for the same price you sell one key in your online store. Steam would probably then still sell at a loss, undercutting the FDEV store prices again. They could go round and round in circles cutting prices and discounting to Steam until FDEV was selling the keys on to Steam at such a low price the Steam store could essentially give the keys away because in the end all they care about is players purchasing in game content from the steam store, and once they have a player locked into the Steam store for a major title like ED then that player is much more likely to buy future games through the Steam store.

I don't follow. The Frontier store does match Steam prices, some of the time. Frontier have discounted to match Steam on previous occasions (when ED was £8 if I remember correctly) this did not cause some impossible situation where the price spirals down as Steam/Frontier trying to undercut each other.

 

[Para Handy]

I don't follow. The Frontier store does match Steam prices, some of the time. Frontier have discounted to match Steam on previous occasions (when ED was £8 if I remember correctly) this did not cause some impossible situation where the price spirals down as Steam/Frontier trying to undercut each other.

I think that the Frontier Store has not discounted the game since the Steam version of the game became a "No-CD key" thing in April.

 

[varonica]

I don't follow. The Frontier store does match Steam prices, some of the time. Frontier have discounted to match Steam on previous occasions (when ED was £8 if I remember correctly) this did not cause some impossible situation where the price spirals down as Steam/Frontier trying to undercut each other.

I didn't say anything about Steam/Frontier trying to undercut each other.

I said that purchasing bulk keys for resale is always cheaper than buying one key at a time. Short term discounts for things like Black Friday don't factor into these negotiations, only the regular price. So bulk key purchases Steam makes to resale onto Steam buyers are being purchased at a marked down price from the regular price, because of that Steam always has the advantage of being able to sell ED keys cheaper to Steam customers because they are getting the keys cheaper than buyers who purchase them one at a time directly from the FDEV Store. If FDEV reduced the regular price for individual keys in the store that would then become the base price that Steam would be getting the discount on top of.

So if FDEV was to reduce the regular price to the same as the current Steam price, say £8, and Steam have an agreement where they get a 20% discount off the regular price for buying bulk keys (I have no idea what discount they get, that's just a random number) they would then be buying Steam bulk keys for £6.40 each, allowing Steam to again sell their keys below the FDEV store price. The reason you don't see the price spiraling down is because FDEV aren't matching the Steam price in their store with their regular price. So basically FDEV can't match the Steam price because the Steam price can always be cheaper due to the bulk key discount they have, and attempting to match it would just lead to them losing income.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

They used to ages ago. They even promoted / sold the fact like they were being nice about it.

Given the nightmare multiple accounts is with a current key though I wouldn't try. Add one to cosmetics duplication conspiracy that frontier are staying expensive because they know about this and just want to penalise you though ignorance circumstance.