Gaben is one greedy mofo

[frostdiamond]

Today's post on PC GAMER reminded me that Valve takes a whopping 30% cut from developers for simply offering a distribution platform.

30% of ANYTHING is significant. Back in the days when games were sold on shelves in boxes of CDs and DVDs, there was no way the packaging and disc production cost would amount to 30%.

I know many of you don't like or even hate EGS with a passion (for reasons I don't understand), but apparently Epic only *shrug* takes 20% which seems more reasonable in comparison.

I'm not here to promote EGS as I still 20% is STILL a lot to pay for a distribution method. Now if only someone could come out with another platform that charges say, 10% or even 5%; I'd imagine developers, large or small, would throw products at said platform like there's no tomorrow and PERHAPS us gamers would even end up paying less for games.

[nullable]

"Valve takes a whopping 30% cut from developers for simply offering a ton of technology, service, and customer base most developers can't hope to implement on their own."

Also no one is making developers sell games on Steam. Your outrage over something developers choose to do is quaint. And you don't have any experience or point of reference to define what Valve's services are worth anyway. Not valuing a service doesn't mean it's priced wrong, it just means you're not the target demographic.

[WolfEisberg]

Първоначално публикувано от Trollhammer:

I guess that every developers being able to generate Steam keys to be sold where they want while Valve not earning anything on it isn't worth 30% either...

Steam's competitor does the same exact thing while still only charging 12%

Why can they do that? because bandwidth is a negligible cost for companies like Valve.

[nullable]

Първоначално публикувано от frostdiamond:

Competition is good thing for consumers. Not sure why the fanbois are defending Steam's 30% when THEY are the ones that would benefit finally should Valve be forced to take a lower cut.

There is already competition. Other stores already take a smaller percentage and games aren't cheaper on those stores. A low percentage doesn't mean the savings will be passed on to the consumer. If users are willing to pay $59.99 for a game developers will gladly sell it at that price whether they're getting 88% or 70%.

[WolfEisberg]

Първоначално публикувано от sfnhltb:

Първоначално публикувано от frostdiamond:

Competition is good thing for consumers. Not sure why the fanbois are defending Steam's 30% when THEY are the ones that would benefit finally should Valve be forced to take a lower cut.

The customers would get nothing (and most likely neither would the developers), but it would be a windfall for the large publishers no doubt, as if they weren't swimming in the majority of the cash the industry makes in the first place.

When you run a business the first part you understand is if the customer is willing to pay $60, they are willing to pay $60 whatever your costs are because they are irrelevant to the customer, so a cost reduction is pure profit (after tax), and passing on cost reductions to your customers is like throwing money away. You only cut prices to compete with another vendor who is undercutting you and taking business away from you.

Customer would get something, more money going to the developers would mean the developers could invest more into their development of games, which can lead to better games from the developers, better games for customers.

[Start_Running]

Първоначално публикувано от frostdiamond:

Today's post on PC GAMER reminded me that Valve takes a whopping 30% cut from developers for simply offering a distribution platform.p

WHich is less than what retail stores typically take. Waaay less. And yeah Valve takes a 30% cut to cover the overheads used . You know the storage space, the bandwuidth, the payment handling, the api toolkits, the forum space.. yeah. All those things cost money.

30% of ANYTHING is significant.

Yes and its apparently less than what the developer would normally have to pay to emulate all the features and functionalities of steam themselves. Heck Steam has actively saved them money by creating features like Play Together and Proton, which aside from saving developers the cost porting games to linux or redoing the multiplayer code for their game to allow online play, has also actually opened up new markets for their product and given a new lease on life to certain games...

Back in the days when games were sold on shelves in boxes of CDs and DVDs, there was no way the packaging and disc production cost would amount to 30%.

And yet thos retailers stores could take as much as a 50% cut. 30% could have been considered a small cut in those days.

I know many of you don't like or even hate EGS with a passion (for reasons I don't understand), but apparently Epic only *shrug* takes 20% which seems more reasonable in comparison.

And they aren't actually making any money from the store. The EGS has been operating at a rather massive loss since it started. If EPic really wanted to help devs they;'d lower the license fee on their unreal engines. But nah.

I'm not here to promote EGS as I still 20% is STILL a lot to pay for a distribution method.

Thats because like 80% of the gaming population you are rather oblivious to the costs associated with things and the value of the services priovided. I mean EGS doesn't even offer the same features as STeam intemrms of QOL they only recently got themselves a freaking shopping cart. , and their API doesn't actually provide any increaed utility for developers.

Nothing for better multiplayer, nothing for linux. No integrated workshop/modding...
Yeah when EGS can charge less because quite frankly it does less. ANd the joke is the 30% cut is actually variable. With enough sales that cut drops to 20% ;-)

Now if only someone could come out with another platform that charges say, 10% or even 5%; I'd imagine developers, large or small, would throw products at said platform like there's no tomorrow and PERHAPS us gamers would even end up paying less for games.

Yeah and the question is how long would it take for that platform to basically go belly up. Because as pointed out EGS isn't actually making ,money. If it weren't for the fortnite and Unreal Engine license fees the store would have gone bankrupt already.

[⚡ Fl1tS ⚡]

Първоначално публикувано от Cheetara:

Customer would get something, more money going to the developers would mean the developers could invest more into their development of games, which can lead to better games from the developers, better games for customers.

Right, because if there is one thing you can count on it is that developers only care about their customers. Let's put all our faith in Todd Howard.

[Aachen]

Първоначално публикувано от Cheetara:

Customer would get something, more money going to the developers would mean the developers could invest more into their development of games, which can lead to better games from the developers, better games for customers.

So, are you meaning to imply that developers with deeper pockets inevitably release better games than those who lack such resources? That seems to be questionable.

[WolfEisberg]

Първоначално публикувано от Aachen:

Първоначално публикувано от Cheetara:

Customer would get something, more money going to the developers would mean the developers could invest more into their development of games, which can lead to better games from the developers, better games for customers.

So, are you meaning to imply that developers with deeper pockets inevitably release better games than those who lack such resources? That seems to be questionable.

Yes, it can happen, and does happen, but not 100% of the time since there is no guarantee for anything. Think about it. Think about your most favorite game, now, do you think that game would be 100% exactly the same in every single way if the developers had less money to make that game than what they did spend on it? Of course not. So this means if developers can get more money they can spend more into their development of future games.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Първоначално публикувано от frostdiamond:

Today's post on PC GAMER reminded me that Valve takes a whopping 30% cut from developers for simply offering a distribution platform.

30% of ANYTHING is significant. Back in the days when games were sold on shelves in boxes of CDs and DVDs, there was no way the packaging and disc production cost would amount to 30%.

https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-sad-state-of-digital-software-distribution/

In this case, Valve is the distributor, so they're getting a healthy cut of the sale price (rumor says 50%). That's still a fantastic deal compared to retail software sales, where the authors will be lucky to get 10% of the sale price.

They get even less from retail, even to this day.

And if they have a publisher, they may not even get anything from the sales as the publisher paid for the game's creation.

So from 10-20% from the sale at retail to 70% of the sale on digital, they made a huge jump.

Having worked retail in the past, I've see how much they pay for software. It was typically under 40% of the retail cost, in most cases, with some being even less. The only exception were things like OS software (Windows and commercial versions of Linux) where more was paid by the retailer.

Първоначално публикувано от frostdiamond:

Competition is good thing for consumers. Not sure why the fanbois are defending Steam's 30% when THEY are the ones that would benefit finally should Valve be forced to take a lower cut.

Because they wouldn't benefit (at least not in regards to the store's cut).

Look at the profit increase going to digital alone. It was said that game prices would go down as they wouldn't have to pay for packaging and shipping of the product, yet they never went down. If developers got a larger percentage, then they would simply pocket it, not pass it on. This has been show time and time again with any kind of retail.

Първоначално публикувано от Cheetara:

Steam's competitor does the same exact thing while still only charging 12%

Why can they do that? because bandwidth is a negligible cost for companies like Valve.

Actually, Valve does a lot more. Including giving away keys to developers to be sold on 3rd party sites, where Valve gets nothing from the sale.

I suggest you take some time to read up on it:
https://partner.steamgames.com/

[FatalError]

Epic only takes TWELVE %, not 20. GOG takes 30% too, but drm free.

Gaben's true greed is more in the monetization of trash community items, steam points, oh and spamming the store with literal porn. The kind of content that would get a user banned in 2 seconds is 100% fine for steam as long as they can make cash off it.

now excuse me while I throw up.

[( ( < < <🤖> > > ) )]

30% is a small price to pay for a captive audience...
with network marketing involved... and who is to say
that price isnt in the price your paying anyway...

not to mention the cross promotion... most people
will see a game on steam and see if its cheaper on
3 or more other games sales site... can you get it
that good anywhere else....

do you really think a can of cola cost more than 5c to make.. and whats the price your paying..

i buy a game and my friends list finds out about it...
you look at a game and see who you know is playing it..
you dont get that in any real store and its better and
cost less than junk mail in your real letterbox..

Steam can probably give estimated sales for their cut as well
with all the analytics they capture from us to devs also..

greed is so subjective... and charity can be a good tax deduction

[Aachen]

Първоначално публикувано от FatalError:

Epic only takes TWELVE %, not 20. GOG takes 30% too, but drm free.

Gaben's true greed is more in the monetization of trash community items, steam points, oh and spamming the store with literal porn. The kind of content that would get a user banned in 2 seconds is 100% fine for steam as long as they can make cash off it.

now excuse me while I throw up.

Please link some of Gabe Newell’s pornographic spam.

[FatalError]

Първоначално публикувано от Aachen:

Първоначално публикувано от FatalError:

Epic only takes TWELVE %, not 20. GOG takes 30% too, but drm free.

Gaben's true greed is more in the monetization of trash community items, steam points, oh and spamming the store with literal porn. The kind of content that would get a user banned in 2 seconds is 100% fine for steam as long as they can make cash off it.

now excuse me while I throw up.

Please link some of Gabe Newell’s pornographic spam. :sheepchomp:

yeah nice try I'm not getting banned for this LOL. not today.

[Aachen]

You’d be banned for linking to the store?

[FatalError]

Първоначално публикувано от Aachen:

You’d be banned for linking to the store?

knowing the absolute state of steam mods, most likely yes, go figure. But it's not like you can't find it in 2 seconds on your own. You know exactly what i'm talking about.