Danikat wrote: »

Bhaal5 wrote: »

ozm8ey wrote: »

So according to the steam announcement eso was among the top grossing games of 2018 on steam. I find this really cool and surprising. What do you guys think?

I think its a paid for advert, not like companies havent done that before

That was my first thought too (I used to work in a shop which definitely did that - it was fairly common for games to be in the chart the day they were released, without us ever offering a pre-order for them). But the fact that it says right there on the page it's measured by gross revenue makes me wonder.

In the UK that would be false advertising, which is illegal. They can put together a chart any way they like, but they can't claim it's based on revenue if that's not true. As far as I know most western countries have similar laws. I can't imagine Steam would be stupid enough to make a claim like that if it's not true.

Salvas_Aren wrote: »

What is gross revenue? Total or Steam?

If they add the direct purchases (including the bot accounts) ... would be easy to be among the Top 100 anyway. The exact placement of the tile could be paid for advert, as mentioned.

I assume its specifically revenue through Steam, for 2 reasons:
1) Steam are the ones doing this and it's really not in their interest to advertise games which are selling really well elsewhere.
2) I doubt they'd even have that information. ZOS is a private company, they don't release their financial information and I'd be very surprised if they'd share it with Steam just because they asked. Same for any other company.

But if we all listened in maths during high school (i know right, who did that) we'd all know that statistic can be manipulated to say what "YOU" want. So if "Z" company (lets call them zenimax) pays "y" distributor (lets call this one steam) x amount of money to uses its figures to say its "top seller". Wouldnt be a far stretch, considering some of the practices they already use.

Bhaal5 wrote: »

ozm8ey wrote: »

So according to the steam announcement eso was among the top grossing games of 2018 on steam. I find this really cool and surprising. What do you guys think?

I think its a paid for advert, not like companies havent done that before

nyah, more then likely, its crown sales.
edited. first time hearing about pantheon. googled it. meh. sounds like yet another generic high fantasy flash in a pan

You all are over-thinking this.

1) This is a Valve/Steam ranking according to Steam's gross revenue. It has nothing to do with sales or revenue outside of Valve.

2) Steam rapes takes 20% to 30% of the money you pay for games, DLCs, etc that you buy through Steam. That's off the top. You pay sales tax. Not sure how EU VAT is handled.

3) Valve is estimated to have earned about US$4 billion in commission in 2017 for passing your game purchase money through Steam.

4) Since F2P titles are included in the ranking, 'Revenue' means every penny that you passed through Steam, with Valve skipping 20% to 30% off the top for the arduous task of acting as leech middleman.


What may prompt the thinking that these are paid rankings is that Valve has from time to time played with an upfront fee to list a game. The fee ranged to a few hundred dollars to several thousand, and then, of course, the hefty commission on everything sold.

Considering the culture that Valve's founders came from, their cutthroat business practices, and the shenanigans Valve has gone through to avoid EU taxes and consumer protection laws, anything published by Steam that might help a game title or publisher in any possible fashion probably has hidden fees and benefits to Steam.

The typical Steam subscriber has no idea just how nefarious and greed-driven Valve can be.

ArchMikem wrote: »

inDeviation wrote: »

How are free games apart of "Top Grossing"?

Something is fishy, and I ain't talking about Lilmoth Garlic Hagfish.

Since when was ESO free?

If you win the key codes from streamers on Twitch or through contests

Nice! I wish ESO well for many years to come.