Valve could reduce their cut honestly, perhaps some program for independent developers to help them get on their feet. I don’t think the top games or big publishers should be getting cut reductions.
Either way, Valve haven’t been buying out studios for exclusive games, so Epic and Sweeney can go fuck themselves, they are scum.
At the same time it’s not like Valve is not making use of the extra money to use it only for taking in profits. It might of been what made it possible to try entering the hardware market with VR and the Steam Deck and putting resources in trying to make Linux gaming for accessible for regular people. Might of been what allowed them to not be deterred after the failure of the Steam machine and Steam Controller.
Why do I see this online so often? Is it an educational thing? Is it an auto correct thing? Or something other? I am not a native speaker, so I have no clue how this happens.
If I recall correctly valve did lower their cut in the wake of EGS having better terms for devs.
For the first $10m earned it’s 30%, then it’s 25% until $50m, then it’s 20% from then on.
I do think Valve could drop it to 25% and not lose much sleep over their coffers.
I mean I don’t know how much money steam is banking, but they provide quite a good service for their share.
Max download rates at all times (almost).
Amazing steam overlay. Online gaming. Online saves. Workshop. Linux support.
And many more. Some of that epic has too but in comparison epic launcher is shit.
It would effectively not do anything for game devs to reduce it by 5%.
On the dev side steam provides distribution and a bunch of tools while you develop your game. Tomorrow you can pay 100$, and steam will support you with keys, releasing and publishing your game, reviewing it for free etc.
I have a game I’ve been developing for 5 years part time. I have steam keys I share with testers, and can distribute version for free, with all the patch notes and update features from steam for 100$.
When I do release, they’ll have earned the 30%, and if I don’t release I’ll have saved a ton and steam will take the costs. This greatly reduces the barrier to self-publishing. Out of all the companies I deal with, this is by far the fairest and lest predatory model there is. Gaben could have just bled us of our money even more and it would have worked. They are very rich because they are very humble in a sense.
I think Steam’s cut should probably be something like 0.05 * (log(x) + 1) where x is number of copies sold.
You mean that games need to have 100 000 copies sold to get to the 30% cut?
The reason big studios get better rate is because they have leverage. Just as Amazon has leverage against apple in app store
If scale is no longer an issue, why can’t Epic create a store with similar functionality to steam? Because it’s not about that. It’s about Tim not being able to pocket as much.
Epic simply doesn’t want to be consumer friendly. Epic sees the money Valve is making, but not the effort Valve puts into their store. Just how consumer friendly Valve is the reason Valve basically a monopoly. Valve gives so many tools to the devs too such as SteamAPI to make their games better and accessible to a wide range of consumers with a wide range of devices.
Epic knows that the way it can fight Valve is by pointing out their 30% cut. Everything else, involves making their store better, which Epic doesn’t wanna do.
And in the same court case - it was discovered it was not profitable despite their more limited offerings.
If the percentage was the most important part, why isn’t every game on Epic?
discord i believe when they sold games only took like 10% cut. turns out, thats not all it takes to sell games, and its not like no one uses discord, so you couldn’t even say people were avoiding the software as it is a popular platform.
Yes. Since nobody else seems to want to answer. Also, they waive the Unreal Engine revenue share from sales on the Epic Store.
I appreciate Epics pro developer stance, but the need a better consumer experience and innovation in that space if they want to be serious about the store.
Valve has spen’t much of the last 25 years pushing the industry forwards in distribution. That’s why there’s so much loyalty to them.
They are only pro developer because they aren’t breaking into the market well at all.
I guarantee that if they ever have a breakthrough and start approaching 40% sales or more, they will double their cut for sure.
Their cut is literally only to draw in developers and operate at a loss, subsidized by other income or investors, to gain as much market share as possible before jacking up prices.
It is the exact scummy playbook that amazon went by to drown their competition with their bare hands. The only difference is that Epic doesn’t understand the market at all and won’t commit resources to improving their store.
People hated Steam and were very skeptical initially. Respect was earned over time
They were literally selling physical game boxes with a code and an installer for Steam in it instead of the game.
Steams initial tactics are as scummy as Epic’s. The reason they don’t need them anymore is because of their semi monopoly.
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Do you know why steam is dominating? There are no better alternatives. They actively work on projects that benefit everyone, including their competition.
For the time being, there’s nothing to be said other than other companies need to stop being so shitty.
Valve forever more have my support just because of proton. Letting me get off windows to game has been revolutionary for me.
I don’t understand this mentality. It has no loyalty to you, why be loyal to it?
Be loyal to people, not to organizations.
Yea, steam actually earned their market share through being a solid storefront and game distribution center and not because of exclusive releases from third parties or shady practices beyond promoting games.
Sure, they are the only place for valve games, but that is because those are their games. Yes, some of their games have loot boxes and that is all terrible, but that is the games and not inherent to steam.
It’s as if the recipe for success is not fucking over your customers and provide good product. Huh, weird
Did they tho? Steam was absolutely terrible in the beginning, the only reason people used it back in the early days is because you needed it for super popular valve games. It had nothing to do with them being a solid storefront or anything of sorts.
my problem is people conflate pro develper and pro consumer actions as the same thing, when they arent. what epic does is very pro developer(better cut, money in advance if exclusive), but the platform is far from being pro consumer(removes consumer choice in platform to buy it on, lower competiuon, inconplete community, store, workshop, and os functionality). I’m in open arms for competition, but it actively is a worse consumer experience, then its very hard to support.
I said this in another place, but the single only reason that Epic is pro developer is because they have miniscule market share.
If they gain significant market share, they will 100% absolutely guaranteed, no doubt, double their cut from developers.
It is the exact scum tactic that has been done dozens of times before like amazon.
Here’s the difference. When we talk about companies dominating an industry, we’re usually talking about practices that keep competition from even forming. Monopolies are formed as a result of big companies buying out or making it impossible for their competition.
Steam doesn’t do that, which is a big reason they won their monopoly suit. They just provide a better model than anyone else is willing to, and they rake in the cash because of it.
Compare this situation to books-a-million in the states. Books-a-million doesn’t have a monopoly on books, they just have created a better environment for selling them. They aren’t stopping other book stores from opening or buying chains to shut them down, they just sell you a cup of coffee and give you a place to sit while you browse their massive selection.
That’s not a monopoly, that’s just better business.
While you may have a point that we can’t know what any company will do in the future, the fact remains that Valve has earned their place by 2 factors alone:
1.- Constant innovation to make their platform a place where everyone wants to be, without crippling the competition, despite having the means to do it. 2.- years of building trust with their users and providers alike by being transparent and clear on what they offer, while adding value which costs money that they absorb.
Yes, 30% of so much money is a shitload of money, but I have yet to see one good reason why that’s a bad thing other than the usual “it’s too much” bullshit argument.
Unity, Reddit, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, these companies have 1 common denominator: they have gone out of their way to destroy anything that would present a risk to 10 cents of their revenue, including, but not limited to, absorbing any potential competition, regardless of if they represent a risk to their dominance or not.
Do not compare valve to these assholes. Valve is making tons of money? Unless you can show me, with evidence, how this is detrimental to anyone else, other than the fact that you are not making as much, all you have is bullshit and a fucking tantrum.
We worry about companies that aren’t anywhere near as dominant as valve. Just because their interests align with ours today doesn’t mean they will tomorrow.
Valve is dominant because they treat users well. Is your argument here seriously “Yes, Valve is a better platform that treats you well, but you shouldn’t use it because other people already do! You should use a platform that’s not as good because competition!”
A competitor in any industry needs to do more than “exist” to be worth using. If Valve starts acting shitty I will stop using it, much like how I have stopped purchasing or playing Blizzard games.
Valve isn’t dominating an essential industry. They could control 100% of the game market and it would make no difference to anything important.
It matters if people are captive consumers of the product. It does not matter if they can simply stop using the product with no ill consequences.
The same goes for movies, TV, music. You can simply stop buying these commercially with no ill effect.
The US congress is freaking out about TikTok because of national security concerns about china potentially harvesting data on americans and influencing politics, not because TikTok is a monopoly.
This is not at all the same thing.