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Of course it's not guaranteed to convert everyone but imagine it like those free samples you get of certain foods in a supermarket.
Some people will try it and hate it. Most people will try it, think it's okay but won't like it enough to go out and buy the actual product. But there will be a small percentage that will love it and go pay for more. That small percentage of extra customers buying your product will recoup the losses you made by offering free samples and bring in more income than before.
To put this is Valve's terms; some PS3 users will get the redeem code but will never use it. Most will use the redeem code, maybe play the PC version a little but ultimately go back to their PS3. And then there will be that small percentage of PS3 users that will use the redeem code, complete Portal 2 on PC and then buy more and more games through Steam. This small percentage of people will (by buying more Steam games) recoup the losses Valve incurred from offering Portal 2 for free and bring in more income after these recouped losses.
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You're comparing a $5 piece of food to up to hundreds of dollars for upgrading a computer. Anyone that has a PC that can handle these new releases, is already a PC gamer. No one will dump out the money to convert just because Portal 2 was
that much better on PC than PS3.