this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2024
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I mean they're getting our data directly or buying it. I might as well be one of the folk who gets compensated for my data.
Nah, pretty sure this isn't about the data. They just want to encourage people to go through the effort of setting up an account and downloading their launcher in the hopes that they can then later entice you to buy something else while you're there. Every time you run one of those free games they get to show you another offer, and since you're already signed up, the hurdle to buying something is far lower than it otherwise would have been.
Yeah, it's a market share/userbase play
Correct, as an added bonus, they get to report X million monthly active users on top of that to their investors (that's why they make you come back every week for a new game). Likely at relatively little cost to them since they don't have to pay full price for those games.
It's probably still expensive as hell but when you have a competitor as big as Steam in the market, you gotta be able to afford some ammunition, and the Unreal Engine likely still brings in tons of cashflow.
Actually it is (or at least was) surprisingly cheap for them. A while ago internal data leaked and they paid surprisingly little for the giveaways. Either the Devs are desperate or there was some kind of backdoor deal like no or very little fees (for engine and distribution) for the next game they develop or something like that. Look it up, the data is still out there; incredibly cheap.
Right. They probably wouldn’t have been able to pull this off for as long as they have been if it was just hemorrhaging money.
Yeah it's not like valve or any of the other companies that sell games on steam too. They'll all have your data and some what people think are so dastardly, (when in reality it's just grown-ups playing with numbers).