Who sets the price of games and determines sales? Valve or developer / publisher?

[✪ Jim Lahey]

Sorry if this should be in off-topic, not sure.

But yeah how does that work? Do they decide together somehow? What's the process? And who determines when and how much a game goes on sale for? Does Valve initiate a suggested sale and the devs can decline or vice versa? Or does Valve just have full authority over prices or do the devs? hmm

[Spambot71 (main character)]

developer/publisher

valve provides tools and suggestions but other than enforcing certain legal requirements for duration and frequency of sales its all decided by the makers/pushers heh

[✪ Jim Lahey]

Originally posted by Spambot71 (main character):

developer/publisher

valve provides tools and suggestions but other than enforcing certain legal requirements for duration and frequency of sales its all decided by the makers/pushers heh

make some simple indie game and make it cost $500 and put it 99% off Kappa

I bet people would buy it would valve approve? haha

[Spambot71 (main character)]

As I said, pricing has to follow laws and valve DOES enforce the legal requirements. Inflating a price to use "sales" to make it seem more appealing is illegal in most countries.

[wuddih]

Originally posted by Jim Lahey:

Originally posted by Spambot71 (main character):

developer/publisher

valve provides tools and suggestions but other than enforcing certain legal requirements for duration and frequency of sales its all decided by the makers/pushers heh

make some simple indie game and make it cost $500 and put it 99% off Kappa

I bet people would buy it would valve approve? haha

you cannot have a permanent discount.

sales(discounts) are limited to every 8 weeks.

and before it is mentioned. price changes have to be nodded by Valve.

[✪ Jim Lahey]

Originally posted by wuddih:

Originally posted by Jim Lahey:

make some simple indie game and make it cost $500 and put it 99% off Kappa

I bet people would buy it would valve approve? haha

you cannot have a permanent discount.

sales(discounts) are limited to every 8 weeks.

Ik just have it on sale as much as you can while abiding by the rules :) just for the luls so people can say they have a $500 game or even $5000 :D

[Ishraqiyun]

I don't believe for a second that Valve has no say. It's so deeply in their (Steam's) interest to influence pricing that no responsible board of directors would allow only third-parties to dictate the revenue stream.

Does iTunes set its own prices?
Does Google Play set its own prices?

Also, imagine is EA released their multiplayer games on Steam for dirt-cheap, then let Steam carry the server traffic, the multiplayer functionality etc, all while selling in-game content that Steam takes nothing of.

This situation alone tells me that Steam sets at least limits to pricing, if not absolute prices. Anyone who argues against this must explain why Steam acts against its own interests.

[just.kamk /idle]

Originally posted by Ishraqiyun:

...
Also, imagine is EA released their multiplayer games on Steam for dirt-cheap, then let Steam carry the server traffic, the multiplayer functionality etc, all while selling in-game content that Steam takes nothing of....

Give an example?
Valve takes ~30% from those sales, if EA would dump their games even for a dollar, Valve would still make profit, but EA would "lose" (/not gain) a lot of money. EA would basically be out of business rather soon.

Sidenote: you don't have to gain revenue from every item / feature.

[Ishraqiyun]

Originally posted by kamk:

Originally posted by Ishraqiyun:

...
Also, imagine is EA released their multiplayer games on Steam for dirt-cheap, then let Steam carry the server traffic, the multiplayer functionality etc, all while selling in-game content that Steam takes nothing of....

Give an example?
Valve takes ~30% from those sales, if EA would dump their games even for a dollar, Valve would still make profit, but EA would "lose" (/not gain) a lot of money. EA would basically be out of business rather soon.

Sidenote: you don't have to gain revenue from every item / feature.

I did give an example. But you just said that Valve takes 30% from those sales - so who chose that 30% number?

[just.kamk /idle]

The 30% is Valves cut. Same as any other provider in this regard takes a cut from your sold items.

[Ishraqiyun]

Originally posted by kamk:

The 30% is Valves cut. Same as any other provider in this regard takes a cut from your sold items.

Yes but who set that number?

[just.kamk /idle]

Obv. the provider of services.

[Ishraqiyun]

Originally posted by kamk:

Obv. the provider of services.

You mean Steam?

[maddma]

indeed, the aforementioned percentage is too high !-( any other devs agree with me ?-) my game is only £4.99, which i feel is reasonable, unlike the reduction in what i receive; i also have a few apps on Google Play, and they take the same proportion; alas, none are selling enough; i can only imagine its so high due to laws in the country of the service provider, eg: USA in the case of Steam and Google (unless i'm incorrect, obv); plus, due to Brexit, USD to GBP has recently fell about 20%; WTF; i'll Twit to the dumb Trump and get him to change the rules !!--))

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by maddma:

indeed, the aforementioned percentage is too high !-( any other devs agree with me ?-) my game is only £4.99, which i feel is reasonable, unlike the reduction in what i receive; i also have a few apps on Google Play, and they take the same proportion; alas, none are selling enough; i can only imagine its so high due to laws in the country of the service provider, eg: USA in the case of Steam and Google (unless i'm incorrect, obv); plus, due to Brexit, USD to GBP has recently fell about 20%; WTF; i'll Twit to the dumb Trump and get him to change the rules !!--))

30% is actually pretty low. If you wanted to sell the game directly from your site, and accept credit card payment, you'd wind up paying as much, if not more. You would have to open a merchant account with a bank (which is subject to it's own fees), then you would have to pay a fixed fee for access to the API, then things get messy. YOu would be chaged a pertransaction percentage of about 10% in addition to aq monthly flat rate fee. meaning you'd still be paying if you made no sales.

Paypall is a little better but, they too charge a flat rate of 10%. Which is less that Steams, but remember Steam provides services beyond simply processing tyhe transaction. You want to care to look up how much a good dedicated or even shared server costs?

If you were selling physical copies ytou'd have an even harder time. Typically what the store pays for a copy of a game os 30-50% less than the retail price, depending on the order amount.

[maddma]

ok! "... is better than 100% of nothing" !-)