I love Steam and I love Gabe, but the system we have that let Steam extract so much money out of the gaming industry is broken.
And that’s true for software or online services in general, and I’m saying that as someone who benefit from that system as a software engineer.
Then why are publishers and customers so loyal then? There has been attempt after attempt to create a competitor but they all fall short. Steam offers so so so much in comparison to the competition it’s not even funny. The 30% is justified.
It is broken in the sense that it’s absolutely insane that they can take 30% and nobody can build a competing product that only takes 20%.
It is not broken in the sense that they keep doing what they are doing and developers and customers consistently choose their offer.
It’s not a monopoly because they exploit their position.
It’s a monopoly because nobody else is trying hard enough.
I’d argue that Valve does more than just take 30% as a middle man. Between Steam Input, Proton, the beta built in recording system, the Forums for every game, community system and the marketplace, having your game on Steam is a massive value generator for the consumer and by extension developers.
30% might not be what the industry standard should be, but Valve isn’t just providing a standard digital distribution service.
What do you suggest, when the alternatives like epic or Ubisoft are exponentially worse?
Steam is the best, and we’re lucky that Steam is the one that won rather than another. Which could definitely have happened because once one of them is in place it’s extremely hard to change.
So the situation is good for gamers, but from an economic point of view it’s bad.
