The recent "look at our unplayed Steam backlog" thread more than proved the point - once the prices go below certain thresholds, people will buy "just in case". Inhibitions are lowered. We buy plenty of stuff we'll never play.
Not to mention, people do that even without sales. Most people with a console have a backlog, and a lot of those were full-price or close to full-price as well as the sales ones.
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think he's trying to fill in blanks that don't really need filling in. If you can't make money at a price point, and can't make
enough money at a lower one, your model is what needs to change. And if you can make enough money at a lower price point, as he mentions people (including him) actually are, then the economics of the situation are working as intended.
Now, if he's upset about people not playing the game post-download, then he should try and do something about that within the game. Give people a reason to come back (or for the first time). Do some kind of deeper integration with the Steam social layer or create a game where people actively encourage their friends to help them, or add additional content and announce it in the Steam news feed or something. Yes, getting people's attention to play is important and really hard, and as an artist that's important to
him. But it has very little to do with the economics of the situation.
