The amount they collect is far more than the operating costs. But theres a hidden benefit… market visibility. Thats the true value that makes it worth valve’s high fees.
Yeah that’s the thing. People compare Valve to Apple all the time but it’s not a fair comparison. Apple controls the hardware platform while Valve does not. Many devs publish their games on multiple platforms including their own websites as well as Steam. Gamers are free to buy on any platform yet many choose Steam. If a dev decides not to publish on Steam that’s fine but they’ll have a harder time getting visibility.
It’s not just visibility either, some don’t want to have multiple platforms for games and other outright refuse to buy games from anything other than steam
Apple allows you to offer better deals on other platforms. Customers are allowed to buy on other platforms, but sellers aren’t allowed to give you any reason to. Even in cases where those other platforms take a smaller cut, the developer has to artificially raise the price until Steam is the cheapest platform if they want to remain on Steam.
Can you explain your reasoning why you think steam is gouging devs? While you think it may not be fair valve has offered a lot to devs. If it wasn’t for steam, we probably wouldn’t have as many indie games as we do now and it wouldn’t be feasible for some developers to even dream of creating their own game.
Steam does the marketing, they have a way for devs to interact with players, they store and distribute their game to include updates, they have a store page for every game, they have a payment system, they have drm and anti cheat if you want, they have analytics tools.
You can even sell your game elsewhere with steam keys and they won’t take a cut. If devs were that worried about it, they could do that themselves and market it themselves.
Just because a business is a business and trying to make money, doesn’t mean they are gouging people.
Steam has a two-part fee structure for developers. First, there’s a $100 fee per game when publishing through Steam Direct, which is a one-time, non-refundable fee, but it can be recouped after the game generates $1,000 in adjusted gross revenue. Second, Steam takes a 30% commission on all sales.
Here’s my feedback: I don’t care. Sop gouging game developers.
Agreed 30% is way to high. 15% is fair and they’d still make a ton of profit.
Mate, valve aint gouging game devs. Bandwidth and storage space isn’t free. Not to mention all the other tools that valve supports.
If you weren’t paying them their cut and doing it yourself it would end up being far more money typically to have the same scale and benefit.
Like seriously bandwidth costs get huge FAST.
Other platforms trying to ask for the same cut while not providing as many tools and services. Those are the ones if any are a problem.
The amount they collect is far more than the operating costs. But theres a hidden benefit… market visibility. Thats the true value that makes it worth valve’s high fees.
Yeah that’s the thing. People compare Valve to Apple all the time but it’s not a fair comparison. Apple controls the hardware platform while Valve does not. Many devs publish their games on multiple platforms including their own websites as well as Steam. Gamers are free to buy on any platform yet many choose Steam. If a dev decides not to publish on Steam that’s fine but they’ll have a harder time getting visibility.
It’s not just visibility either, some don’t want to have multiple platforms for games and other outright refuse to buy games from anything other than steam
Apple allows you to offer better deals on other platforms. Customers are allowed to buy on other platforms, but sellers aren’t allowed to give you any reason to. Even in cases where those other platforms take a smaller cut, the developer has to artificially raise the price until Steam is the cheapest platform if they want to remain on Steam.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/video-game-giant-valve-hit-with-consumer-class-action-over-pricing-2024-08-12/
Can you explain your reasoning why you think steam is gouging devs? While you think it may not be fair valve has offered a lot to devs. If it wasn’t for steam, we probably wouldn’t have as many indie games as we do now and it wouldn’t be feasible for some developers to even dream of creating their own game.
Steam does the marketing, they have a way for devs to interact with players, they store and distribute their game to include updates, they have a store page for every game, they have a payment system, they have drm and anti cheat if you want, they have analytics tools.
You can even sell your game elsewhere with steam keys and they won’t take a cut. If devs were that worried about it, they could do that themselves and market it themselves.
Just because a business is a business and trying to make money, doesn’t mean they are gouging people.
Steam has a two-part fee structure for developers. First, there’s a $100 fee per game when publishing through Steam Direct, which is a one-time, non-refundable fee, but it can be recouped after the game generates $1,000 in adjusted gross revenue. Second, Steam takes a 30% commission on all sales.