"The 70/30 revenue split is outrageous" :: Vampire: The Masquerade

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albertx Jul 1, 2019 @ 4:28am

"The 70/30 revenue split is outrageous"

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-07-01-paradox-the-70-30-revenue-split-is-outrageous
Then why is this game still here in Steam Store? Why not being honest to us instead of calling Steam or industry standard BS that Apple, Google, GOG using it. Stop being hypocrite Paradox Interactive.

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Showing 1-15 of 17 comments

Elysium Jul 1, 2019 @ 6:14am

Because exposure, it's as simple as that.

Guigui Jul 1, 2019 @ 6:59am

250 dlc for each games is outrageous too.

Bankai9212 Jul 1, 2019 @ 8:37am

Yet when Epic took 10 bucks off it on the store, they were quick to remove it from the store front greed everyone.

Elysium Jul 1, 2019 @ 8:45am

Originally posted by Bankai9212:
Yet when Epic took 10 bucks off it on the store, they were quick to remove it from the store front greed everyone.

Discounting a game is innherently devaluating it, and no publisher has interest in devuating a game that has yet to be released.

Bankai9212 Jul 1, 2019 @ 8:47am

Originally posted by Elysium:
Originally posted by Bankai9212:
Yet when Epic took 10 bucks off it on the store, they were quick to remove it from the store front greed everyone.
Discounting a game is innherently devaluating it, and no publisher has interest in devuating a game that has yet to be released.

I am aware, just fine it funny given the article of them praising the store. Its all just greed plain and simple.

Elysium Jul 1, 2019 @ 8:55am

Originally posted by Bankai9212:
I am aware, just fine it funny given the article of them praising the store. Its all just greed plain and simple.

It's not greed to not want your game being devaluated before it's even released. And the smaller the store cut the better (although Epic's cut is still way too high for the ♥♥♥♥ services it's offering).

Bankai9212 Jul 1, 2019 @ 9:01am

Originally posted by Elysium:
Originally posted by Bankai9212:
I am aware, just fine it funny given the article of them praising the store. Its all just greed plain and simple.
It's not greed to not want your game being devaluated before it's even released. And the smaller the store cut the better (although Epic's cut is still way too high for the ♥♥♥♥ services it's offering).

Again not trying to say they should devalue the game, just the praise he gave Epic, despite them doing this without their consent. The "cut" publishers and certain devs complain about is irrelevant as they can sell it on as many platforms they want, or their own which Paradox has. He just wants epic to give them money for "exclusivity" which is they he is brown noising.

Elysium Jul 1, 2019 @ 9:29am

Originally posted by Bankai9212:
He just wants epic to give them money for "exclusivity" which is they he is brown noising.

If they wanted an exclusivity deal, they would've struck one already. They want the game on as much platforms as possible, but still it's their right to complain about a cut they see as abusive.

mirta000 Jul 1, 2019 @ 10:33am

This man is now in a higher position than CEO. I don't know can I trust Paradox to deliver not exclusive games.

Grubbs008 Jul 1, 2019 @ 10:46am

Well, i guess it will be taken off Steam some time soon then.

#10

GRIMREAPER ALVA Jul 1, 2019 @ 12:24pm

About Steam's cut, here's a few articles and videos that explains it

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/why-valve-actually-gets-less-than-30-percent-of-steam-game-sales/
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/2019/05/07/why-steam-cant-meet-epics-price-challenge/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rWBM0y2DY0

Here's some developers take on it

https://twitter.com/RobotBrush/status/1112204567394086913
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/c04zpc/im_an_indie_game_dev_and_steam_blew_my_mind_and/

Here's consumer's take on it

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/b9i4yd/to_everyone_complaining_about_steams_cut_please/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HVkRH6eEJQ

And here's my take on it. In short, Valve's 20 to 30 percent take is justified for the amount of features and services they provide. The whole debate about 20 to 30 percent cut from Steam vs 12 percent cut from Epic is a farce. Its a stunt pulled by Epic. Its not about the percentage cut. Its about Epic giving these greedy publishers a bag of cash to sign exclusivity deals on their platform and Epic lining their own pockets in the process. All the while trying to strong-arm customers to submit to this forced exclusivity and other anti-consumer practices while providing virtually nothing

If it was only about the cut then, these publishers would've moved to other platforms that has lower cut than Epic, who've been into digital distribution platform a lot longer than Epic. Platforms like Discord, which reduced their cut down to 10 percent after Epic store's announcement. Humble Widget through Humble Bundle, which asks for 5 percent of the cut. Itch.io, which asks for basically whatever percent of the cut you want to give them, which is lower than all the others combined. And yet a lot of developers and publishers choose Steam over any of them Why ? Because none of the other platform provides the massive visibility / discoverability of games that Steam provides and the subsequent big sales potential. Not to mentions Steam is the only platform that provides THE most features and services towards both developers and customers compared to any other storefronts in the world, PC or console.

https://blog.discordapp.com/why-not-90-10-3761ebef4eab
https://www.humblebundle.com/developer/widget

For the record, other major platforms like GOG, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Amazon, Google, Apple and a lot of others also take the industry standard 30 percent of the cut while providing significantly less features and services to both customers and developers in return. I wanna emphasize on Sony and Microsoft (Playstation and Xbox) who are the biggest gaming platforms next to PC, Who've been taking that 30 percent cut from developers and publishers for decades now while doing business with them. They don't provide nowhere as near as many features and services as Steam does. Who takes hefty licensing fee from developers / publishers spanning in millions of dollars to sell their games on Playstation and Xbox. Who used to charge devs / pubs money everything they wanted to patch / update their games on those consoles. Who locks certain essential features and services behind monthly subsciption fee against customers. And yet, developers / publishers happily put all their games on those consoles and make huge profits. Now with Epic, while they do take 12 percent cut, they also provide virtually nothing in terms of features and services for customers. Steam on the other hand provides numerous features and services for customers for their 20 to 30 percent cut.

To give you a rough idea of the amount of features and services Steam provides, take a look at the following chart. It lists all the major features of Steam compared to other platforms on PC. These are just some of the features and services that are public knowledge and / or have been revealed by Valve themselves. There's a whole host of other infrastructures that Valve operates and maintains on a daily basis. All of these combined costs a lot of upkeep on a day-to-day basis. At the same time, Valve regularly innovates, improves and expands on all of these features, services and infrastructures to give customers and developers a better gaming and business experience.

https://imgur.com/P6cIq1u
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks#announcements/detail/1697194621363928453
Valve lets all developers / publishers to generate free Steam keys on their platform and sell them anywhere else where the devs / pubs keep all the profit. What's interesting about that third party Steam key, is that on average more than 30 percent of any games purchased on Steam are bought from third party key sites. The rest 70 percent of purchases are straight from Steam itself. Meaning Valve doesn't get any revenue from the 30 percent of a games purchased from Steam. And yet, Valve itself enables and supports the free generation of third party keys for developers / publishers to sell them elsewhere, keep all the profit AND Valve themselves will bear the cost of those games being operated and maintained on Steam. The result is that developers / publishers gain more revenue and we customers get to buy games cheaper from third party sites selling Steam keys.

When you look at all these features and services that Valve / Steam provides and are continuing to provide at an even greater capacity every single year, it is clear that out of all the other platforms, only Steam gives back the most to both consumers and developers. Unlike other platforms, Steam earns their cut AND they're adding and improving new features and services every single year for no extra charge. Not only that. Valve has also reduced their 30 percent cut to 20 percent for those who meets certain sales milestone.

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks#announcements/detail/1697191267930157838

In conclusion, what Epic is doing is using the 12 percent to undercut others using money generated from Fortnite, then trying to get developers / publishers on board with cash incentive and subsequent forced third party exclusives, and then trying to strong-arm customers with said forced exclusive deals and other anti-consumer practices while providing us virtually nothing since they cannot compete with Steam on fair grounds or match Steam's level of features and services with that 12 percent cut. Its all about greedy developers / publishers getting paid by Epic for exclusive deals while shoving down all sorts of anti-consumer / anti-competitive policies on us customers. Epic does not care about customers as they've openly proved and stated it time and again. They only care about lining their own pockets.
Valve / Steam always has customers interest at heart followed by developers / publishers. Epic on the other hand, has only their own interests at heart, following by developers / publishers. We, the customers, will choose the platform to do business with that has our interests in mind. Because at the end of the day, we customers don't need their games to survive, its the developers / publishers who needs us, our business, to make their day-to-day living.

#11

GRIMREAPER ALVA Jul 1, 2019 @ 12:24pm

#12

Trundle Jul 1, 2019 @ 12:30pm

Cuts don't mean ♥♥♥♥. It all just corporate propaganda

#13

TheRandomGuy Jul 1, 2019 @ 1:25pm

Between this and the fact Paradox is supposedly dropping Linux support for future titles, they've come downhill in such a short amount of time.

Regarding the quote, the guy did later say he wasn't attacking Steam though. Still, at least they did say they're not doing exclusivity with this title anyways. They're on record for that and will face a LOT of backlash if they backtrack from it.

It's future titles we have to be worried about though.

#14

Apeironic_Entelechy Jul 1, 2019 @ 6:35pm

Originally posted by albertx:
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-07-01-paradox-the-70-30-revenue-split-is-outrageous
Then why is this game still here in Steam Store? Why not being honest to us instead of calling Steam or industry standard BS that Apple, Google, GOG using it. Stop being hypocrite Paradox Interactive.

Your argument is nonsensical, just because they believe that the common industry cut is too high doesn't mean that withdrawing their product from Steam and other sources would be worth it.

Frankly, I think some people need to stop reflexively attacking anyone who says even slightly positive things about Epic. Their cut being fairer to devs then other stores is perfectly compatible with them being ♥♥♥♥♥♥ for consumers.

I think ya'll need to calm down, they aren't saying that they're going to get an exclusive deal.

#15

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Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 > General Discussions > Topic Details

Date Posted: Jul 1, 2019 @ 4:28am

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