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They also nickel and dime the adults, but only the ones who make the games. It's fine though, because they're nice to players and they've brainwashed them into
by nananana9 6mo ago
They also nickel and dime the adults, but only the ones who make the games.
It's fine though, because they're nice to players and they've brainwashed them into giving their money to Valve instead of to the developers who actually make the games they fucking play.
- jdoe1337halo 6mo agoI agree that 30% is too large of a cut, but what would be appropriate? 15%? Steam does add a ton of value from an immediate audience, solid advertising opportunities, and amazing distribution for the developer.
- Forgeties79 6mo agoLinux releases they only take 10% FWIW Edit: whoops that’s completely false. I do not know where I got that idea
- ekianjo 6mo agoNope
- Forgeties79 6mo agook
- LollipopYakuza 6mo agoThat sounds great but I can't find any information about it. Do you have a link, please?
- Hikikomori 6mo agoHow about charging for services rendered based on cost to produce them rather than some arbitrary number. Some effective competition would be good, but likely outcome is publishers taking more.
- Forgeties79 6mo agoI feel like that just becomes another situation where bigger organizations get more bargaining power and get better deals, so you’re just kind of shifting problems. I’m not saying a flat percentage like they have is necessarily the best solution, but I’m not sure trading problems is a good idea either. Just seems like a different way for smaller developers to get screwed.
- j_maffe 6mo ago> bigger organizations get more bargaining power and get better deals This is exactly how it's setup right now.
- Forgeties79 6mo agoI thought the 30% was universal. Well that’s a bummer to learn
- j_maffe 6mo agohttps://www.geekwire.com/2018/valves-new-steam-revenue-sharing-tiers-spur-controversy-among-indie-game-developers https://www.geekwire.com/2018/valves-new-steam-revenue-shari...
- bitmasher9 6mo agoI never understood people who argue steam doesn’t have real competition. The number of fully funded attempts to compete with steam is impressive. Steam has more competition than any other of the major app stores. Steam also had to provide additional value over pre-existing methods of installing games on the PC in a way the Android Play Store or the PlayStation Store did not have to.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 6mo agoIt is incredible how much the other stores fumbled the implementation. As a rule, Epic, Origin, etc apps were terrible. Laggy, bad UI, sometimes difficult to even complete a purchase. You would have thought that close relationship with the games industry- someone must know how to make a high performance native application. Yet it always felt like web developers pumping out another half assed Electron platform. The Steam store must generate billions in revenue -put some real manpower behind the engineering.
- kay_o 6mo agoAs that has done both sides of games, I would like to propose some doubts for people to consider on that is dissimilar to the standard b2b saas; for to clarity I'm not saying 30% is good - One chargeback for your 5$ game can consume you 55$ or more, handful and you permanently lose the ability to accept the payment anywhere including future businesses outside of games - Amount of people that will take parents cards is eye watering - The value of offline payment acceptance in the form of physical cards (kids do not possess standard payment rails but can acquire your game on steam in the cash) - They don't take flat 30% for almost a decade now - You don't often get to use Stripe or 2-3%. Your cost closer about 15% if you choose to process you own payments
- MetaWhirledPeas 6mo ago> One chargeback for your 5$ game can consume you 55$ or more, handful and you permanently lose the ability to accept the payment anywhere including future businesses outside of games This sounds like personal experience. Can you elaborate? Edit: OHH perhaps you are saying this is one of the benefits of Steam; that it shields you from all this.
- kay_o 6mo ago> Edit: OHH perhaps you are saying this is one of the benefits of Steam; that it shields you from all this. Yes. In a sijmilar way: regular companies get Stripe at commodity pricing, games get xsolla, paysafe, tebex, and a massive compliance questionnaire, games are software (to you) but closer to porn or gambling on risk (to MoRs and processors). People are less "likely" to charge back Steam because of their other games being frozen and Steam has volume to dilute chargebacks whereas you starting out may hit double digit dispute rates in one. Whether this is fair is an exercise best left to the reader ;.
- maccard 6mo agoYeah - steam handle this for you.
- SXX 6mo ago> They don't take flat 30% for almost a decade now Yes Valve is very generous. They take MORE from developers who make LESS money. I sure bottom 98% of developers never sell above $10,000,000 to decrease cut from 30% to 25%. Very few indie devs or small indie studios ever sell over 50,000-100,000 copies. PS: In practice if your project funded by publisher it means that you as developer will make less money from a game than Valve.
- Rucadi 6mo agoAnd doesn't forbid you from using their platform for free if you sell the keys by yourself and you can also decide to publish your game to other stores...
- topham 6mo agoEA presented their numbers for their online store. They were making something like 12%, and losing money. They ran it at a loss and try to use its existence to declare everyone else overcharging. Apple, Google, Steam. Meanwhile, they were unable to make money, just proving they don't know how business works.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 6mo agoDoes that count the ludicrous number of games they have given away? That has to be a boat anchor on their financials.
- l11r 6mo agoYou mean Epic Games, don't you?
- HDBaseT 6mo ago[dead]
- ekianjo 6mo agoAgain that old, tired argument. nobody has a gun to the devs head to force them to sell on steam
- nightpool 6mo agoPlenty of devs choose to sell on other platforms or directly and do fine. Steam doesn't have a monopoly on games the way Apple and Google do
- para_parolu 6mo agoAll distribution channels that existed before steam are still available. Multiple competitors to steam are available.
- jvanderbot 6mo agoWithout steam, I'd still be playing my CD version of Homeworld 2. I have paid $10 for every $1 of game I play, perhaps as high as $100:$1. A 30% cut of that seems totally reasonable. I have hundreds of games I keep just in case, and have played 10s of games I'd never have considered because they dont appear in Game Informer, PC Gamer, GoG, Twitch, Youtube, or other channels. They just are magically brought to me by steam, and I buy it and try it because I'm an adult now. If game creators hate this, I feel bad for them, but I don't want anything to change as a consumer.
- j_maffe 6mo agoOf course 30% seems reasonble to you, you're not the creator of the games. It's quite confusing to me that you're endorsing the side that has an insane ROI instead of the side that is sufferring greatly to make ends meet.
- jvanderbot 6mo agoI'm endorsing my side. Not Steam's side, or the creator's side. Maybe their business model is awful, but I love what they do, and what they have done. They have made my linux machine a top tier gaming option, freeing me from the only use of windows left. They have brought me the steam deck, which has a thriving accessory market due to their creative commons licensing. Etc etc. They are pro consumer. I want steam to continue largely as is. In an ideal world all artists would be better compensated for the joy they bring to the world, but I'm quite happy as a consumer of art. Not to be too harsh, but frankly, the existence of struggle for recognition does not entitle artists to a penny of my money or a second of my time beyond the transaction they propose, nor does it entitle them to anything that Valve does or makes. That we can all work together well is a function of a local solution to the tension of conflicting interests. Valve is seeking a balance. It could be much worse for both sides. But if you want, think of it this way - all of Steam's profits, billions of dollars, are only 30% of the sales they have brought. They made 17 Billion in rev last year, so nearly 25 Billion went to game makers / publishers. This is 2-3x what spotify paid to artists in the same year.
- 6mo ago
- beart 6mo agoMy understanding is the tools that Steam provides as part of it's developer platform are top notch. And there are a lot of integration points such as cloud saves, social, match making, achievements, store, and so on. There is also a robust CD pipeline. I can easily see this providing value above and beyond most other retailers that would sell video games. For example, Best Buy takes a 30% cut for physical merchandise, without providing any of the above mentioned features.
- cortesoft 6mo agoDevelopers choose to give Steam 30% of their revenue because they know the steam channel increases their revenue by more than 30%. Doesn't that make it a good deal for developers?
- AmbroseBierce 6mo agoAttention span is finite and Steam took a big chunk of it from gamers, in other words there is a chance that in a world where everyone hated closed platforms like steam (for not allowing reselling or any other reason) direct ads would be more favorable for developers than steam, or word of mouth, or any of it's alternatives.
- BobaFloutist 6mo agoOk, so now you're criticizing them for being too successful. They don't own the OS, they don't (until very recently) own the hardware, they haven't really made any major uncompetitive or anti-consumer moves I'm aware of, and they provide a service that the majority of devs consider worth it. I guess you could argue they're taking advantage of a bit of a "natural monopoly", but there's still plenty of room for other people to eat their lunch, and things like itch seem to have carved out a niche for devs that would rather keep their money than get the additional services Steam offers. I don't think Steam is flawless, but for how powerful they are, they sure seem a lot less evil than almost every other large corporation.
- cortesoft 6mo agoSure, if we were in an alternative reality, things would be different. Valve built a platform that gamers like, and gamers like it for all the choices Valve made. I also find it interesting you chose "not allowing reselling" as a thing that would have made users not like steam... but not allowing reselling is probably the feature that game developers like the most! I wouldn't be surprised if developers would choose to keep the 30% fee over dropping the fee but changing to allow reselling.
- account42 6mo agoVendors give the Mafia 30% of their revenue because they know the protection racket increases their revenue by more than 30%. Doesn't that make it a good deal for vendors?
- BobaFloutist 6mo agoWhen I'm interested in an indie game, I always go first to the developer's website to see if I can just buy a copy directly from them. The vast, vast majority of the time I have to buy it through Steam, maybe Epic, and itch/gog if I'm lucky. It's vanishingly uncommon for them to host the game themselves.
- cma 6mo agoFor indies Steam's network lock-in effects are so strong that if you sell without their cut off Steam, instead of same price eating their cut on Steam, you likely do worse. Because selling off-Steam takes one sale out of their algorithm. Same reason to embed your trailer on your site with YouTube, even if you could afford the bandwidth and keep users from having to watch ad-rolls--self-hosted and the YouTube algorithm will punish you. A huge part of the high profits portions of the economy is based on this kind of winner take all capture.
- ux266478 6mo agoNah, I'm happy to pay the guild, they put that 30% to good use. I just wish their partner portal wasn't a gigantic pile of crap in return.
- selfmodruntime 6mo agoYou can choose to not host your game on steam. Plenty of developers do.