Steam aids off-line sales - Valve

News - Lombardi doesn't mind where sales come from

Valve marketing man Doug Lombardi has said that Valve's popular promotional Free Weekends on Steam don't just aid digital game sales, they can also give off-line sales a push too.

Speaking to GI.biz, the Valve exec explains: "When we do our free weekends on Steam for our products we see an increase in player numbers, obviously, and then we'll see a spike in sales at the end of the weekend on Steam and at retail.

"Recently we've seen data that shows Left 4 Dead free weekends increase the sales of Left 4 Dead on Steam, at retail and on the Xbox 360, which we would never have guessed could have happened, but it's just that word of mouth.

"A lot of the 'Steam is there to compete with retail' stuff is sort of sensationalized. We spent more money at GameStop in the US promoting Left For Dead than we did at any other chain. We sold more copies of Left 4 Dead at Gamestop than we did at any other chain."

Lombardi went on to explain that Steam is primarily a marketing tool, and that while Valve are happy to embrace digital distribution, they don't really mind where players buy their games.