4 ms·

30% of every sale is a ludicrous payment for this kind of functionality.

by mvdtnz 2y ago

foxyv 2y ago
Yeah, it's actually kind of low. Kindle Direct Publishing takes 30% of digital book sales and those are like a couple megabytes. Steam is distributing 100GB+ titles on top of adding Steamworks SDK and a ton of other features.
- turtlebro 2y ago
  Dude, why are you defending Steam so hard? Gaben is not really Jesus, he's a guy with a superyacht and a doomsday bunker in NZ. You can buy and play games on Epic store, it works just as well. It has achievements too. Devs get a larger cut.
  - foxyv 2y ago
    If I were looking for alternatives to Steam it would probably be Good Old Games, Humble, or self publishing. Epic Game Store is just kind of trashy. They keep engaging in anti-consumer practices.
- gamblor956 2y ago
  30% was a great deal when KDP launched..several decades ago..Prior to KDP, self-published authors would have costs of about 90% to print and distribute their own books. Traditional publishers generally take 85% but in exchange handle the editing, marketing, and physical logistics of book printing and distribution. Similarly, when Steam launched, its biggest competitor was retail. Studios got paid a % of the wholesale price (after the publisher recovered its costs), which worked out to an average of approximately 10-15% of the retail price for successful games and 0% for unsuccessful games. (Note: this does not include the milestone payments to the studio during the development of the game.) But markets have changed. 30% may or may not be a great deal anymore. (For KDP, many authors say that the 30% is worth it because the volume of their Amazon sales dwarfs all other-channel sales combined. Some relatively famous sci-fi authors have said that about 90% of the sales of their self-published works were through Amazon.)
anonymars 2y ago
Devil's advocate: what is the typical markup at retail stores? I am inclined to agree with you, it feels like rent seeking at some level (middlemen profiting from the work of the creator), but at the same time, there are many moving parts to get product into the hands of customers so I'm not sure what's fair / standard. (This is separate from the topic of the article, in which Apple prohibits others from looking elsewhere for these services, which sure seems like textbook anticompetitive behavior)
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Apples and oranges. Boxed retail have to pay for buildings, shipping, stock management, etc which just do not exist in the same quantities for digital downloads.
  - anonymars 2y ago
    But the same argument came with ebooks, which didn't turn out to be much cheaper than physical books
- mikestew 2y ago
  Devil's advocate: what is the typical markup at retail stores? Who cares? We're not selling boxed software. Let me give you a better question: how much would it cost to host a web site and give a payment processor their cut? I can answer that, because I've done it for Pocket PC/WinMobile apps: 7% to FastSpring, or whoever, for payment processing and then web site hosting for, what, a few hundred a year? 30% is friggin' ridiculous. Discovery is non-existent on Apple's App Store, so we are paying for...what? Overpriced payment processing, and some minimal online storage? I don't give a shit that Apple provided a "platform", as Microsoft isn't charging for me to have the privilege of dropping a binary on a Windows box. And for Apple to then turn around and demand a cut every time money changes hands, whether Apple had anything to do with it or not, is just icing on that anti-competitive cake.
  - anonymars 2y ago
    The point is it's a frame of reference. The claim is that 30% is ridiculous. Why? Based on other comments in the discussion, it sounds in the same ballpark to other online stores, ones without Apple's anticompetitive pressure. If that's the case, it sounds like a very lucrative market, so competition should bring that number down if it's so profitable. Again, this is a separate question from Apple's anticompetitive behavior, it's solely about whether a 30% cut is itself reasonable or outrageous.

30% of every sale is a ludicrous payment for this kind of functionality.

by mvdtnz 2y ago

30% of every sale is a ludicrous payment for this kind of functionality.

Yeah, it's actually kind of low. Kindle Direct Publishing takes 30% of digital book sales and those are like a couple megabytes. Steam is distributing 100GB+ titles on top of adding Steamworks SDK and a ton of other features.

turtlebro 2y ago
Dude, why are you defending Steam so hard? Gaben is not really Jesus, he's a guy with a superyacht and a doomsday bunker in NZ. You can buy and play games on Epic store, it works just as well. It has achievements too. Devs get a larger cut.
- foxyv 2y ago
  If I were looking for alternatives to Steam it would probably be Good Old Games, Humble, or self publishing. Epic Game Store is just kind of trashy. They keep engaging in anti-consumer practices.
gamblor956 2y ago
30% was a great deal when KDP launched..several decades ago..Prior to KDP, self-published authors would have costs of about 90% to print and distribute their own books. Traditional publishers generally take 85% but in exchange handle the editing, marketing, and physical logistics of book printing and distribution. Similarly, when Steam launched, its biggest competitor was retail. Studios got paid a % of the wholesale price (after the publisher recovered its costs), which worked out to an average of approximately 10-15% of the retail price for successful games and 0% for unsuccessful games. (Note: this does not include the milestone payments to the studio during the development of the game.) But markets have changed. 30% may or may not be a great deal anymore. (For KDP, many authors say that the 30% is worth it because the volume of their Amazon sales dwarfs all other-channel sales combined. Some relatively famous sci-fi authors have said that about 90% of the sales of their self-published works were through Amazon.)

anonymars 2y ago

Devil's advocate: what is the typical markup at retail stores? I am inclined to agree with you, it feels like rent seeking at some level (middlemen profiting from the work of the creator), but at the same time, there are many moving parts to get product into the hands of customers so I'm not sure what's fair / standard. (This is separate from the topic of the article, in which Apple prohibits others from looking elsewhere for these services, which sure seems like textbook anticompetitive behavior)

paulryanrogers 2y ago
Apples and oranges. Boxed retail have to pay for buildings, shipping, stock management, etc which just do not exist in the same quantities for digital downloads.
- anonymars 2y ago
  But the same argument came with ebooks, which didn't turn out to be much cheaper than physical books
mikestew 2y ago
Devil's advocate: what is the typical markup at retail stores? Who cares? We're not selling boxed software. Let me give you a better question: how much would it cost to host a web site and give a payment processor their cut? I can answer that, because I've done it for Pocket PC/WinMobile apps: 7% to FastSpring, or whoever, for payment processing and then web site hosting for, what, a few hundred a year? 30% is friggin' ridiculous. Discovery is non-existent on Apple's App Store, so we are paying for...what? Overpriced payment processing, and some minimal online storage? I don't give a shit that Apple provided a "platform", as Microsoft isn't charging for me to have the privilege of dropping a binary on a Windows box. And for Apple to then turn around and demand a cut every time money changes hands, whether Apple had anything to do with it or not, is just icing on that anti-competitive cake.
- anonymars 2y ago
  The point is it's a frame of reference. The claim is that 30% is ridiculous. Why? Based on other comments in the discussion, it sounds in the same ballpark to other online stores, ones without Apple's anticompetitive pressure. If that's the case, it sounds like a very lucrative market, so competition should bring that number down if it's so profitable. Again, this is a separate question from Apple's anticompetitive behavior, it's solely about whether a 30% cut is itself reasonable or outrageous.