Are the Devs affected by Steam sales?

[Offgrid]

I've been wondering this for awhile because it seems (and I'm not complaining) that whenever I add a game to my wishlist, it becomes on sale usually within a week or two. When Steam has a sale, are the game developers involved and are they affected by the hit in price? I'm not a rich person by any means, but if I want to support a small indie company, I don't mind paying full price. In most cases it's just a few bucks anyway!

just curious...

[Hassat Hunter]

Yes, devs give the discount price.

They will get a reduced amount of cash during sales (and as always 30% goes to Valve), but this is theoretically made up for with the increased quantity of sales.

Any other questions/questions left? :)

[Satoru]

Developers set the sale prices. This is evidenced by several sale price 'oops' that were reversed later. Most notably was back in the day Terraria went on sale for 75% off during one of the big sales, and was reversed with a few hours. The devs stated they did not intend for the sale to be that large.

http://www.pcgamer.com/terraria-devs-explain-steam-sale-price-hike/

just one example, but gives you an idea of how the system works. Devs can also make their own sale prices, like Weeklong sales, or those not tied to big events, midweek or weekend sales. Midweek/weekend/seasonal sales are curated by Steam but developers submit their sale prices to steam for consideration.

Note if you wish to support a developer, see if they have the game for sale at their own website. Generally those portals charge the dev less money. A Humble widget on a web page as far as I understand is like 5-7%, as opposed to steam's 30% cut (though if you buy from the Humble Store the total cut is 30% with much of that goign to charity). Just check if you get a steam key obviously.

[suksas]

yes. They get more people to buy their game who usually wouldn't bother with it at the base price,thus earning some of the cash instead of none.

[Offgrid]

Thanks for the info! It all makes sense. A few weeks ago I went on Humble to back a game that hasn't been released yet. Didn't know any of that made it to charity, that's cool!

[suksas]

Originally posted by Safety Meeting:

Thanks for the info! It all makes sense. A few weeks ago I went on Humble to back a game that hasn't been released yet. Didn't know any of that made it to charity, that's cool!

You make a choice of deviding money you paid and how much goes to dev's,charity or even humble itself as a tip.

[Offgrid]

Not sure how mine worked then. I bought the game off of Humble, but it was just a flat price of $29 or something like that. No option to offer to charity. Is that something different?

[Zukabazuka]

There have been info about sales where developers said they made more in that sale then up to that point.

[Offgrid]

Originally posted by Zukabazuka:

There have been info about sales where developers said they made more in that sale then up to that point.

That's what I've been seeing! Almost all Top Sellers right now are the games on sale. Better off selling 10,000 for $1 then only 500 for $10!

[suksas]

Originally posted by Safety Meeting:

Not sure how mine worked then. I bought the game off of Humble, but it was just a flat price of $29 or something like that. No option to offer to charity. Is that something different?

I checked it out, and it has the selection at the botom. You probably just used default ones so I think it was like 60%to dev's, 15% to charity nd 25% to humble.

As for the other thing. Not exactly. It's best to sell 500 for 10$ and then sell for 1$ to 10,000 who normally wouldn't buy it.