Steam Money Politics

[Crippled Herald]

dollar base, We have become unable to play, Steam doesn't care You earn money thanks to players! Millions of players should boycott! He doesn't think about poor countries like us. Dollar is a big money for us. 1 dolar It corresponds to the number 25. What are you thinking?

[Komarimaru]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Everyone is Invited:

well the actual % is subjective, but the basic formula is easy to understand, it is simple marketing

take for example other major online company's which rely on advertising to promote growth, it is the same thing. revenue is generated regardless of what it comes from.

but it is subjectively easy to say that steam doesn't care about its human factor because its not needed,


the review system is automated - that is sold
the data is collected - that is sold
Games are Advertised - that is sold
Users are Branded to buy buy buy - that is sold
Hardware is manufactured in bulk - that is sold


Any company wanting to do business on steam pays a price to have access to many features that involve steams population of users and as such its population of automated users as well.

its again just simple marketing, steam is not just a game play software it has become a major video game marketing tool to control popularity of video games.

So... no sources, and... wow... no understanding of how things work. That's more akin to a fantasy idea compared to what is actually going on.

[Ganger]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Tito Shivan:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Ganger:

The human factor is no longer part of the discussion

Spoiler: It never really was.

I guess so come to think of it.

[( ( < < <🤖> > > ) )]

what steam does is all here... no need to make stuff up...

https://partner.steamgames.com

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Everyone is Invited:

well the actual % is subjective, but the basic formula is easy to understand, it is simple marketing

take for example other major online company's which rely on advertising to promote growth, it is the same thing. revenue is generated regardless of what it comes from.

but it is subjectively easy to say that steam doesn't care about its human factor because its not needed,


the review system is automated - that is sold
the data is collected - that is sold
Games are Advertised - that is sold
Users are Branded to buy buy buy - that is sold
Hardware is manufactured in bulk - that is sold


Any company wanting to do business on steam pays a price to have access to many features that involve steams population of users and as such its population of automated users as well.

its again just simple marketing, steam is not just a game play software it has become a major video game marketing tool to control popularity of video games.

I wanted the sources for your exact percentages of Steam sales, revenue and how much of it was from the users. And what source states Valve sells your data and to whom.

...not subjective answers guessing at what these values are.

[76561199559798421]

yes they are subjective to change cause the market changes, i am using the fact that steam takes a 30% cut from its game developer sales, as reference that they are making about the same 30% profit in the industry from the game sales that the company makes.

see how that works? it would be unfathomable to consider that steams game sales is 90% of its profit, useing the 30%/30% is just logical for a company like steam whos main focus isn't on game sales but on game marketing, game branding, hardware marketing.

take for example steam helped brand VR to everyone, steam is also helping to brand Handheld pc once again to the market place, this goes beyond just selling it, as it takes year to brand idea's into peoples minds. Steam is making some profit off this branding by companies that seek to profit from it, there is no doubt that microsoft did not pay them big when VR happened. its unfortunate that VR Greed turned the industry into negative numbers. they should of majorally discounted or given VR games away for free to promote the first 2 years of growth like google had done with mobile apps until the marketplace was large enough to support everyone, then you slowly increase the prices.

[Crippled Herald]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Ganger:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Start_Running:

Well thats rather entitled of you to think that someone else should 'take a hit for you' just because

Im not a entitled person personally, I work for my money, pay my taxes and im generally a good citizen. But recently im getting more and more angry with big corporations and their greedy practices and corporate double dealings. The human factor is no longer part of the discussion, it's all about money, bottom lines, share value, share holders and greed.

I admit, I have been watching far to much social media and reading articles on this subject and many others and it just seems to me, there out to grab as much money as possible from you and are willing to betray their own values and moral in doing so but yet we have legions of fans that will protect and defend them.

Guys... Social media is starting too screw up my mind with the endless information im receiving on a daily basis from all sides of the coin. Sometimes I think ignorance is bliss.

You are right, no, research is definitely important.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Everyone is Invited:

yes they are subjective to change cause the market changes, i am using the fact that steam takes a 30% cut from its game developer sales, as reference that they are making about the same 30% profit in the industry from the game sales that the company makes.

see how that works? it would be unfathomable to consider that steams game sales is 90% of its profit, useing the 30%/30% is just logical for a company like steam whos main focus isn't on game sales but on game marketing, game branding, hardware marketing.

take for example steam helped brand VR to everyone, steam is also helping to brand Handheld pc once again to the market place, this goes beyond just selling it, as it takes year to brand idea's into peoples minds. Steam is making some profit off this branding by companies that seek to profit from it, there is no doubt that microsoft did not pay them big when VR happened. its unfortunate that VR Greed turned the industry into negative numbers. they should of majorally discounted or given VR games away for free to promote the first 2 years of growth like google had done with mobile apps until the marketplace was large enough to support everyone, then you slowly increase the prices.

It's not a flat 30% for all titles. Most of them, sure but there are plenty of AAA games that sell enough for a higher cut of the sales.

And this does not even count Market sales revenue. Even CS2 Market items generated $40 million the day it launched in cases and keys alone.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Ganger:

Im not a entitled person personally, I work for my money, pay my taxes and im generally a good citizen. But recently im getting more and more angry with big corporations and their greedy practices and corporate double dealings. The human factor is no longer part of the discussion, it's all about money, bottom lines, share value, share holders and greed.

Corporations are nothing more than completely amoral entities (that shouldnt exist but thats another discussion) with no other responsibility than to provide a return to shareholders. Their one responsibility is basically mandated by law.

"The human factor" has never mattered.

Ursprungligen skrivet av cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

And this does not even count Market sales revenue. Even CS2 Market items generated $40 million the day it launched in cases and keys alone.

:summercat2023:

Thats actually pretty amazing.

[Ganger]

Ursprungligen skrivet av ardal aep dahy:

You are right, no, research is definitely important.

Seriously, my head is being fed and over loaded with B.S information I hear on social media, youtube and other forms of media. It's getting to the point now that I have limited my own exposure to many of political, social and current events and podcasts to before 7pm.

After 7pm I will switch to documentaries or/and gaming channels to watch that don't include any current events and issues that are taking place. This way I can chill, relax and whine down for the evening.

[Start_Running]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Everyone is Invited:

its been discussed that steams actual users only make a small % of its revenue, and that a majority of its revenue like all companies is advertising and data mining sales in the form of names, identities , and game related data collection.

You use the word user, when the key word is Customers. Yeah. Users don't account for much of the revenue. CUSTOMERS however account for the bulk of the revenue.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Everyone is Invited:

keep in mind that millions are spent on marketing games, even when those games fail to profit or draw in players those marketing millions are still spent.

Which is honestly a drop in the bucket compared to the actual developmebnt costs. And that little reality is why so many, many, many studios go bust. Even if you make a good, game a great game, there's the grim reality that it still might not make enough, and even then it still has to fund the NEXT development project, AND cover the losses of the last stalled, , or poorly recived game.

It's why many developers have learned to keep themselves small and tio reuse as much as they can from project to project

[76561199559798421]

that 40million could of been just marketing infused money, meaning that steam used some of its own money to boost several 1000 new steam accounts which recent investigation into some of the game reviews going on seem to show a higher influx of review fraud from 2k or 3k to 9k or 10k daily upticks, this is all steam influencing the user reviews with automated accounts.

as for csgo 2 i play it all the time, i see no reason why someone would want or need 100k items or millions of csgo items, it more likely against just a steam farm used to try and increase market value of owned csgo items while making the game look more influenced an appealing, i have played csgo(2) for years and CS 1.6 at the beginning of time.

its silly to consider anyone into fps shooters are going to go mental over weapon skins that don't change the game play. personally i would challenge any of you in a csgo2 match , i don't cheat i don't need to cheat, i know how to play the game and im not to shabby at it vs the cheaters that i constantly see and report.

i don't need skins to show off that i can't play the game, or to try and cover im a hack. i notice al lot of cheaters sport the skins to pretend they are good players.

off the point though, as expressed valve obviously dumped a good bit of money into releasing csgo2 and why not all the money they give steam goes right back to them.

all i am saying is i agree the human factor doesn't matter to steam, CSGO alone proves that they can manipulate numbers and generate any amount of automated accounts to give the impression of real users.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Start_Running:

Which is honestly a drop in the bucket compared to the actual developmebnt costs. And that little reality is why so many, many, many studios go bust. Even if you make a good, game a great game, there's the grim reality that it still might not make enough, and even then it still has to fund the NEXT development project, AND cover the losses of the last stalled, , or poorly recived game.

It's why many developers have learned to keep themselves small and tio reuse as much as they can from project to project

not so some major release games spend more on marketing the games then the actual development costs, in fact just recently you can see that starfield spend about 100% of its development costs in marketing expensives, Cyberpunk 2077 did the same thing.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Everyone is Invited:

...snip...

Still none of that pesky thing called "proof".

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” – Christopher Hitchens

[76561199559798421]

you don't need proof to dismantle the obvious market manipulation used by companies to sell things to unknowing customers. Understand these things happen and are likely to continue to happening at every opportunity.

when someone asks for proof its just a clear sign they worried about the proof getting out, if proof was shown they would just say it was false proof , its a never ending argument, so don't worry about proof, use your common sense in understanding that if it can be conceived it can be implemented and if it can be uncovered someone will always ask for proof to hide it.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Everyone is Invited:

you don't need proof to dismantle the obvious market manipulation used by companies to sell things to unknowing customers. Understand these things happen and are likely to continue to happening at every opportunity.

when someone asks for proof its just a clear sign they worried about the proof getting out, if proof was shown they would just say it was false proof , its a never ending argument, so don't worry about proof, use your common sense in understanding that if it can be conceived it can be implemented and if it can be uncovered someone will always ask for proof to hide it.

So, just a theory and nothing more?

[LeftIsBest-James]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Fushigiri:

Ursprungligen skrivet av LeftIsBest-James:

It's all due to trade agreements.
The EU has a trading block that demands Valve use the same 'price' for all it's member countries.

Valve lost a massive case for this a few months ago.

what are you talking about? valve was sued because it did geo- blocking on steam keys, meaning if you bought a cheaper key from another eu country valve blocked you from activating it in your own country where it would cost more

valve was greedy and tried to implement cross- border restrictions and got sanctioned for it

look at any other store front , they are selling games at different price in various eu countries

tapping the sign:

Ursprungligen skrivet av LeftIsBest-James:

I'm fine with cheaper prices for different Trade Agreements.

But EU-member states share a single Trade Agreement:
- this has been done to death in https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/3874842132559957232/
"Valve rekt in court AGAIN - Valve loses fight over geoblocking"
- the US-TradeDept tried. Apple tried.

The concerns of 3rd countries like Turkey & Argentina are individual and valid.
But people deliberately misunderstand and extrapolate this to other cases (EU being the biggest one). Call it .. bad-faith interpretations.