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How about charging for services rendered based on cost to produce them rather than some arbitrary number. Some effective competition would be good, but likely o

How 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 ago
I 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 ago
    I thought the 30% was universal. Well that’s a bummer to learn
    - j_maffe 6mo ago
      https://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 ago
I 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 ago
  It 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.
  - ahartmetz 6mo ago
    What's more, Epic spends order of magnitude a billion dollars per year on free games on the Epic Store. People still don't want the Epic Store because it's crap. Like Jesus H. Fucking Christ, do these assclowns ever get a clue? I'm very fine with them not getting a clue though, Valve spends money and effort on promoting Linux and Epic (Tim Sweeney) kinda does the opposite. With all the shit Microsoft is pulling, he still prefers Windows while complaining about it.
    - jamesnorden 6mo ago
      I remember the early days of the Epic Store, there was no "shopping cart" feature, you could only buy one game at a time.
  - bitmasher9 6mo ago
    I think GoG is a great store and Battle.Net is fine for what it is.
- snowram 6mo ago
  It is a red water business, and no one will ever want to switch off from multiple years of game investment.
- account42 6mo ago
  "attempts" is the key word here. Hard to compete with a monopoly backed up with network effects.

How 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 ago

I 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 ago
  I thought the 30% was universal. Well that’s a bummer to learn
  - j_maffe 6mo ago
    https://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 ago

I 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 ago
It 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.
- ahartmetz 6mo ago
  What's more, Epic spends order of magnitude a billion dollars per year on free games on the Epic Store. People still don't want the Epic Store because it's crap. Like Jesus H. Fucking Christ, do these assclowns ever get a clue? I'm very fine with them not getting a clue though, Valve spends money and effort on promoting Linux and Epic (Tim Sweeney) kinda does the opposite. With all the shit Microsoft is pulling, he still prefers Windows while complaining about it.
  - jamesnorden 6mo ago
    I remember the early days of the Epic Store, there was no "shopping cart" feature, you could only buy one game at a time.
- bitmasher9 6mo ago
  I think GoG is a great store and Battle.Net is fine for what it is.
snowram 6mo ago
It is a red water business, and no one will ever want to switch off from multiple years of game investment.
account42 6mo ago
"attempts" is the key word here. Hard to compete with a monopoly backed up with network effects.