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Kaynos Nov 29, 2023 @ 5:12am
How come Green Man Gaming can sell this game 18% cheaper than steam ?
95$ CAD for a new game. This is starting to get insane ! I know inflation is a thing, but new games went from 79 to 89 to 95 in a space of 2 years. Enough is enough. How come a 3rd party re-seller can afford to sell new game 18% cheaper than Steam ?
Last edited by Kaynos; Nov 29, 2023 @ 5:13am
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Originally posted by lukaself:
Originally posted by Kaynos:
95$ CAD for a new game. This is starting to get insane ! I know inflation is a thing, but new games went from 79 to 89 to 95 in a space of 2 years. Enough is enough. How come a 3rd party re-seller can afford to sell new game 18% cheaper than Steam ?
I've seen quite a lot of misinformation in this thread so let me chime in:

Valve simply does not take any cut from keys that are sold outside of Steam. GMG buys directly from publishers generating keys for them though Steamworks' developer interface which subsequently allows lowering the prices. Publishers make a better margin from those, GMG gets a cut, everyone's happy.

It's a long-time yet little known policy which is often conveniently omitted when arguing that Valve takes too much from developers. It used to be a common practice for indie developers to have their own website set-up on the side to sell Steam keys (Factorio for instance) but Valve had to change from unlimited requests to a case-by-case basis due to rampant abuse - as is expected with anything goodwill-related. :clickbutton:

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
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Showing 1-15 of 40 comments
Sifer2 Nov 29, 2023 @ 5:31am 
It's not exactly new GMG has been undercutting Steam for like past 10 years. And now some other sites are actually undercutting GMG lol. How they still make profit? Dunno.
#1
PocketYoda Nov 29, 2023 @ 5:35am 
Originally posted by Sifer2:
It's not exactly new GMG has been undercutting Steam for like past 10 years. And now some other sites are actually undercutting GMG lol. How they still make profit? Dunno.
They sell a lot of keys.. And they buy the keys at base price.
Last edited by PocketYoda; Nov 29, 2023 @ 5:35am
#2
Sifer2 Nov 29, 2023 @ 5:42am 
Originally posted by PocketYoda:
Originally posted by Sifer2:
It's not exactly new GMG has been undercutting Steam for like past 10 years. And now some other sites are actually undercutting GMG lol. How they still make profit? Dunno.
They sell a lot of keys.. And they buy the keys at base price.

So your saying the Publishers offer them a discount for buying keys in bulk? That's interesting I guess.
#3
PocketYoda Nov 29, 2023 @ 5:45am 
Originally posted by Sifer2:
Originally posted by PocketYoda:
They sell a lot of keys.. And they buy the keys at base price.

So your saying the Publishers offer them a discount for buying keys in bulk? That's interesting I guess.
Yes they buy bulk.. at cost price.
#4
Amplifier Nov 29, 2023 @ 6:59am 
Originally posted by PocketYoda:
Originally posted by Sifer2:

So your saying the Publishers offer them a discount for buying keys in bulk? That's interesting I guess.
Yes they buy bulk.. at cost price.

Erm... this is a digital product, dude. WTF is 'bulk purchase' when this isn't physical? It's not like the game has an expiry date or limited supply to it
Last edited by Amplifier; Nov 29, 2023 @ 7:00am
#5
Amplifier Nov 29, 2023 @ 7:01am 
The reason, OP, why GMG can charge lower is likely because GMG demands less commission to be paid by the game devs. Steam charges devs like 30% commission if im not wrong. This means devs need mark up the price to cover their costs more
#6
PocketYoda Nov 29, 2023 @ 7:51am 
Originally posted by reignworld:
The reason, OP, why GMG can charge lower is likely because GMG demands less commission to be paid by the game devs. Steam charges devs like 30% commission if im not wrong. This means devs need mark up the price to cover their costs more
Steams commission varies on how much products they sell.
Originally posted by reignworld:
Originally posted by PocketYoda:
Yes they buy bulk.. at cost price.

Erm... this is a digital product, dude. WTF is 'bulk purchase' when this isn't physical? It's not like the game has an expiry date or limited supply to it
No but the companies still charge for the keys.
#7
Wild Nov 29, 2023 @ 1:18pm 
can anyone tell me about how soon GMG gives the keys for activation?
#8
Nall Nov 29, 2023 @ 1:23pm 
You could get the game for 60% of the MSRP too, if you commit to buying 200000 copies of it.
#9
Nall Nov 29, 2023 @ 1:23pm 
Originally posted by Wild:
can anyone tell me about how soon GMG gives the keys for activation?
For pre-orders they usually send them out a few days ahead of release.
#10
Barbas Nov 29, 2023 @ 1:34pm 
It's not about bulk purchasing. Valve takes a 30% cut, except for keys sold outside of Steam where they take 0%. They choose to let developers generate keys and sell them at no profit for Valve under some kind of strategy of bringing people from outside into the platform. If everyone started buying from these Valve would obviously end the deal, but most people don't and so it remains. Not to be confused with grey-market websites, where individual sellers do not work directly with publishers.
#11
PocketYoda Nov 29, 2023 @ 4:39pm 
Originally posted by Barbas:
It's not about bulk purchasing. Valve takes a 30% cut, except for keys sold outside of Steam where they take 0%. They choose to let developers generate keys and sell them at no profit for Valve under some kind of strategy of bringing people from outside into the platform. If everyone started buying from these Valve would obviously end the deal, but most people don't and so it remains. Not to be confused with grey-market websites, where individual sellers do not work directly with publishers.
Steams cut goes down if you sell a lot of copies, only indie games pay 30% most AAA pay like 11% or something..
#12
Alby Nov 29, 2023 @ 4:42pm 
Originally posted by PocketYoda:
Originally posted by Barbas:
It's not about bulk purchasing. Valve takes a 30% cut, except for keys sold outside of Steam where they take 0%. They choose to let developers generate keys and sell them at no profit for Valve under some kind of strategy of bringing people from outside into the platform. If everyone started buying from these Valve would obviously end the deal, but most people don't and so it remains. Not to be confused with grey-market websites, where individual sellers do not work directly with publishers.
Steams cut goes down if you sell a lot of copies, only indie games pay 30% most AAA pay like 11% or something..

that's messed up
#13
Cap'n YatesJ Nov 29, 2023 @ 4:48pm 
Originally posted by reignworld:
Originally posted by PocketYoda:
Yes they buy bulk.. at cost price.

Erm... this is a digital product, dude. WTF is 'bulk purchase' when this isn't physical? It's not like the game has an expiry date or limited supply to it

Bulk just as in "a lot" - publishers want to incentivize platforms to buy as many keys as possible.

GMG might buy X amount of keys at one price, they will buy more at a lower price.
#14
Barbas Nov 29, 2023 @ 5:16pm 
Originally posted by PocketYoda:
Originally posted by Barbas:
It's not about bulk purchasing. Valve takes a 30% cut, except for keys sold outside of Steam where they take 0%. They choose to let developers generate keys and sell them at no profit for Valve under some kind of strategy of bringing people from outside into the platform. If everyone started buying from these Valve would obviously end the deal, but most people don't and so it remains. Not to be confused with grey-market websites, where individual sellers do not work directly with publishers.
Steams cut goes down if you sell a lot of copies, only indie games pay 30% most AAA pay like 11% or something..
That's not true.
- 30% cut on the first 10 million $ in revenue
- 25% cut between 10 - 50 million $
- 20% cut after 50 million $
The end. If your game makes 200 million $ for example Valve's cut would be 3 + 10 + 30 = 43 out of 200 million = 22.5% total cut for Valve. Most games don't make 200 million just on PC though.
#15
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Date Posted: Nov 29, 2023 @ 5:12am
Posts: 40

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