4 ms·
TBH the profit margin on this game is probably closer to 100% than 10%, it was a solo-dev game so never much overhead, I think one guy was hired to work on it.
by benoau 10mo ago
TBH the profit margin on this game is probably closer to 100% than 10%, it was a solo-dev game so never much overhead, I think one guy was hired to work on it.
- jasonjmcghee 10mo agoWell he made a 10% deal with a publisher iirc and steam gets 30% - so that's a chunk right there
- kiba 10mo agoHe also put an insane amount of effort, far more than most of us mortals.
- cheschire 10mo agoSee: Blood, Sweat and Pixels; Chapter 2 https://a.co/d/4OIUtsN https://a.co/d/4OIUtsN
- MegaDeKay 10mo agoCame here to recommend this book. It is fantastic. There are nine other games covered besides Stardew Valley. Some are great, some not so great, but the stories behind each one are excellent.
- kevinh 10mo agoValve's 30% cut would lower it substantially. Taxes might put it beneath 50%.
- ehnto 10mo agoAll the game markets take huge cuts. Steam is 30% if I recall correctly.
- chamomeal 10mo agoDamn I didn’t realize. 30% is pretty hefty
- margalabargala 10mo agoThe service Steam provides to game developers is substantial.
- benoau 10mo agoNot really, what they actually do for most games is basically what Google and Apple do: a token review, then nothing apart from some niceties for players. Then they pocket an immense profit, it came out in one of Epic's cases that Valve net $50 million/year profit per employee. The only thing for developers they still do better than Google and Apple really is a few promotions throughout the year that target specific genres for released games developers can register for (whereas Google and Apple select the games they promote), and the "Next Fest" 3x a year for unreleased games. They used to do stuff like "visibility rounds" that would reach 100,000s of people who didn't know about your game - the same feature today targets people who already wishlisted your game, so these days most developers have to put significant effort and money into promoting their Steam page on other channels like tiktok/youtube/reddit.
- margalabargala 10mo agoWell, plus there's the whole version management and packaging and hosting and distributing giant amounts of data. If you are an indie team that makes a 50GB game and has 50k players, distributing and update management would be a gargantuan task without Steam or something like it. 2.5 petabytes of bandwidth isn't cheap. Yes what they do is profitable, I'm not saying that it isn't. But paying for what they do is (clearly) still more attractive to developers than rolling their own infrastructure to do the same.
- skibidithink 10mo agoWhat Steam brings is a firehose of gamers with their credit cards ready to all the games they think will be successful. There's a reason why everyone launches on Steam.
- foxrider 10mo agoSteam takes 30%, other stores take 10-20%
- geon 10mo agoPresumably he spent years working on it. His own time should be subtracted from the revenue too.
- benoau 10mo agoHundreds of millions minus hundreds of thousands of dollars lol.
- keyringlight 10mo agoAnd the decision to risk years of his life spent on a project that might not pan out. IIRC he was largely supported by his girlfriend during development and he worked in a cinema. That's in contrast to a job at a studio where you get a salary for your time whether it succeeds or not.
- tracker1 10mo ago30% off the top for most stores (Valve/Steam, Apple/iPhone, Google/Android, etc), then around 50% taxes between state, local... some fixed expenses and overhead. It's probably well under 20% in the bank after all is said and done. That said, it's still a lot of money.
- yunnpp 10mo agoGod, that's awful. That 30% cut for the middle man hurts. At least the government tax can be put to good use (emphasis on can...)
- tempest_ 10mo agoGabe gotta buy a $500 million dollar yacht. It pays to be the middle man!
- LaffertyDev 10mo agoStardew likely qualifies for the reduced store cuts. Steam _lowers_ the percentage for a game when it sells high. Still somewhere between 10 and 25%, though. Generally, the Steam cut is considered “fair” for Indy devs. The benefits of steam (discoverability, massive audience) generate more sales. My Indy dev friends are not upset about the steam cut at all. This, however, is one area where eventually Epic Games shines — they take a much lower cut and if they increase in popularity with gamers then steam might be forced to lower their share.
- 3eb7988a1663 10mo agoThe game has also been on sale numerous times for less than $15. It is currently available on Steam for $9