Affinity products on Steam

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, Chelovek said:

Although, I would not mind if it was only the Windows version, to be honest. I would rather buy it on Steam, rather than on Microsoft Store

Why not buy directly from Serif, instead?

[Chelovek]

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Why not buy directly from Serif, instead?

I like to have everything on one place. Not through so many account, e-shops etc. 

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Chelovek said:

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Why not buy directly from Serif, instead?

I like to have everything on one place. Not through so many account, e-shops etc. 

So, with the exception of the Affinity apps, can you get every application you want or need to use through Steam?

If not (& for almost all users I think that would be true), aren't you still going to have to use multiple sources & accounts to get it all?

With that in mind, what would be the incentive for Serif to work with Steam, particularly to work out some sort of special licensing arrangement or a special price for a cross-platform license to be sold through Steam?

[Chelovek]

19 minutes ago, R C-R said:

So, with the exception of the Affinity apps, can you get every application you want or need to use through Steam?

Yes.

 

20 minutes ago, R C-R said:

If not (& for almost all users I think that would be true), aren't you still going to have to use multiple sources & accounts to get it all?

Well, I will have to, but why not make life easier? 

 

23 minutes ago, R C-R said:

With that in mind, what would be the incentive for Serif to work with Steam, particularly to work out some sort of special licensing arrangement or a special price for a cross-platform license to be sold through Steam?

I might've not understand this sentence right, but if I did, I will try to answer it.
Well, as I have said before, it might be more accesible, I did not hear about Affinity Photo, until some YouTuber once mentioned it, although, I did know some software or games I have never heard about through Steam, because it showed to me in recommended. Steam might have better advertisment and might make a bigger "name" to Affinity and will be more known, thanks to their type of advertisment. 

[R C-R]

11 minutes ago, Chelovek said:

45 minutes ago, R C-R said:

So, with the exception of the Affinity apps, can you get every application you want or need to use through Steam?

Yes.

Then you are almost certainly a rare exception, at least among users likely to use graphic apps like the Affinity, Adobe, & many others.

14 minutes ago, Chelovek said:

Steam might have better advertisment and might make a bigger "name" to Affinity and will be more known, thanks to their type of advertisment. 

That seems extremely unlikely to me. The Affinity apps already have have been mentioned in many places Mac & Windows users are likely to have seen; just google the full name of any one of them to see what I mean. You will find bunches of YouTube videos, positive reviews on graphics oriented websites, discussions about Affinity as a potential Adobe beater, & much more.

You may also have noticed that very few if any of those posting to the topic besides yourself have said anything about Steam as a source for anything besides games.

[thomaso]

On 1/5/2022 at 9:15 PM, Chelovek said:

I like to have everything at one place as well, not too many accounts, everything on one account.

Then you do expect to access the Affinity forums with your Steam account and do all online shopping with your Steam account? I wonder when the online services of governments, city administrations and banks will be accessible on Steam – and what would happen to Steam if that were possible. Sounds like a dystopian development. To what end? Just to get by with 1 account access?

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Chelovek said:

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

So, with the exception of the Affinity apps, can you get every application you want or need to use through Steam?

Yes.

Really? To me Steam seems to find no Adobe app at all: https://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=adobe

[thomaso]

From an ethical aspect the desired company seems to be susceptible to dubious, non reputable business practices, according to this two articles (Jan 2021 / May 2017):

 

Quote

» The European Commission has fined Valve, owner of the online PC gaming platform “Steam”, and the five publishers Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax € 7.8 million for breaching EU antitrust rules.

Valve and the publishers restricted cross-border sales of certain PC video games on the basis of the geographical location of users within the European Economic Area (‘EEA'), entering into, the so called “geo-blocking” practices. The fines for the publishers, totalling over €6 million, were reduced due to the companies' cooperation with the Commission. Valve chose not to cooperate with the Commission and was fined over €1.6 million. «

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_170

Quote

» It seems increasingly unlikely that Good Guy Valve ever existed. Good Guy Valve is a clever marketing conceit, a machine operating on a massive scale and one that can only do so because it is powered by the one thing Valve would later come to exploit above all: the free labor of adoring users and consumer goodwill that often feels both unearned and bottomless.

Valve controls an unprecedented slice of the PC gaming industry, and there can be no doubt that the power behind the throne is, and always has been, us. Good Guy Valve worked hard to make us believe that willingly installing surveillance and control software onto our computers was a morally benevolent, perhaps even righteous act — and we swallowed it hook, line and sinker. «

https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/16/15622366/valve-gabe-newell-sales-origin-destructive

 

 

[Chelovek]

On 1/9/2022 at 1:39 AM, thomaso said:

From an ethical aspect the desired company seems to be susceptible to dubious, non reputable business practices, according to this two articles (Jan 2021 / May 2017):

Well, then you shouldn't use Google or Facebook Apps, because the companies have done something non-ethical, almost every company does something un-ethical.

-Although, I do understand what do you mean by this.

On 1/9/2022 at 12:41 AM, thomaso said:

Really? To me Steam seems to find no Adobe app at all: https://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=adobe

Who says I need to use Adobe?

-In the end, even if it won't be that much of a big thing, no "normal" photo editing software is on Steam, so Affinity might be one of the first. And even if it won't be the biggest selling software on there, it will still make some money, so I do not see any reason to not add at least the Windows version on there. I have to admit, you guys had some good arguments, of which I had not thought before.

[Andy05]

22 minutes ago, Chelovek said:

it will still make some money,

That's the question. Steam isn't the first place for users buying photo editing apps (otherwise other publishers would have jumped that bandwagon ages ago). Not every distribution channel for software is meant to be useful for all kinds of apps.

Hence, it can also cause some more costs rather than earnings. Employees' time will be bound to version care on yet another platform, additional customer support for Steam customers via Steam would be needed and so on.

If you want to do this right (and successfully), then it's not like you upload something once and then you just start counting the money...

[R C-R]

24 minutes ago, Chelovek said:

Who says I need to use Adobe?

Nobody said you did, but that is beside the point, which is that Steam is not a source where very many people would think about looking for graphics editing apps, whether from industry leaders like Adobe or Corel or from other companies like Serif.

[Chelovek]

26 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

Hence, it can also cause some more costs rather than earnings. Employees' time will be bound to version care on yet another platform, additional customer support for Steam customers via Steam would be needed and so on.

I didn't think of that, you learn new things every day.

[thomaso]

48 minutes ago, Chelovek said:

Well, then you shouldn't use Google or Facebook Apps,

Any users use of those is not relevant here. This thread is about Serif using Steam as distribution platform. Note also, only a few software is offered via Amazon even though you might think or argue they do sell "everything".

52 minutes ago, Chelovek said:

will still make some money

Nevertheless, the reasons may outweigh for Serif to forego this revenue - with genuine interested parties certainly using the existing shops.

56 minutes ago, Chelovek said:

add at least the Windows version on there

Besides the various reasons mentioned already it could be another reason for Serif to avoid Steam that Affinity would need to run kind of within the Steam app (as far I understand the principle of Steam's digital rights management), which would be an entirely new influence when running Affinity and thus a further source for issues & bugs and therefore would require additional development effort for Serif which would reduce the possible profit via that platform.