How much money do developers earn from point-shop exchanges?

[◢ k r i s ◤]

I can't find documentation to confirm any of this yet at https://partner.steamgames.com/

[Eldin]

I don't think that developers get anything from that because we aren't purchasing points. We're purchasing games.

But I don't know. Better wait for someone who knows do devs get anything from this and if they do, how much do they get.

[nullable]

$0 because the points aren't real money. It's a fictitious currency generated based on actual currency spent. It has no value, so nothing to share. The developers get their share of game sales. And maybe people behaving weirdly about points generates more games sales... so that would be a benefit.

[◢ k r i s ◤]

That's what I suspected. That kinda sucks for the developers...

[nullable]

Originally posted by ◢ k r i s ◤:

That's what I suspected. That kinda sucks for the developers...

To get zero percent of zero? Yeah, big loss... We should give them 70% just like regular store purchases.

[J4MESOX4D]

Originally posted by ◢ k r i s ◤:

That's what I suspected. That kinda sucks for the developers...

Why? They are here to make money from games. Sure, if they create some market items they can make a bit of extra money but if a dev is relying on such extra income then they can't be in a very good state. Many developers simply ignore this aspect.

[Eldin]

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

And maybe people behaving weirdly about points generates more games sales... but that's about it.

That's true. Some people (including me) haven't been planning on buying anything this sale.
But because we'll get animated avatar/border/background, we'll buy something anyways.

I'm planning on buying Darksiders 3 so I can get enough points to buy that animated blue border and animated mini background.
If these points didn't existed I wouldn't buy anything this sale.

[◢ k r i s ◤]

So what incentive is there for developers to keep making wallpapers and emoticons then? I thought all the incentive for that was from the Steam Economy on the Community Market? Was I mistakened about that?

I realize a lot of items on the Community Market sell for 3 or 4 pennies so people assume it's all just chump-change, but it's really not all like that and I've been able to buy a few games from the amount of wallet credit I'd accumulate from selling rare wallpapers and emoticons on the Community Market in the past. I doubt that could happen anymore with a change like this (especially if trading-cards somehow get dragged into the point-shop system too). I'd always figured that minor revenue was the only lucrative reason developers contributed to the Steam-Economy/Community-Market.

[Chompman]

Remember that some items require you to have the game before you can buy them with points and this can be a great way to advertise certain artwork and their game also.

Not to mention getting points requires you to spend money so some may buy games for the points they need also

[nullable]

Originally posted by ◢ k r i s ◤:

So what incentive is there for developers to keep making wallpapers and emoticons then? I thought all the incentive for that was from the Steam Economy on the Community Market? Was I mistakened about that?

Yes, you're partly mistaken. I mean for example, what's the incentive for creating achievements? Or anything that isn't strictly modified. I know let's make achievements a $1 DLC on top of the game... if everything is a stream or revenue and only exists if it pays for itself.

And creating media like that is something companies have been doing for ages. I mean for example https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/jedi-fallen-order/media they just give it away. I can pick nearly any game out of a hat and go to it's home page and find all sorts of knick-knacks and it's not like the Steam Community Market spawned these things or enables them.

It's just part of the overall marketing they tend to do. And it's not like these things are so labor intensive that the Steam market needs to subsidize them or they'll fade away.

And the community market only takes 5% and I'm not sure how that is split up. I mean maybe if your game is in top sellers list your marketable knick knacks might trade at high enough volume to talk about real money. But otherwise it's just low effort stuff you do to support your game in addition to the game itself. I mean it's not like developers have to produce a constant stream of cards, wallpapers and other knick knacks. It's just a set of tasks many of them do once for a Steam release (and even that's optional) and maybe during an event here or there (if they want to participate). And if those events are generating you a ton of revenue a couple of wallpapers or a new set of icons/stickers or whatever isn't exactly breaking the bank or causing anyone to lose money.

Originally posted by ◢ k r i s ◤:

I realize a lot of items on the Community Market sell for 3 or 4 pennies so people assume it's all just chump-change, but it's really not all like that and I've been able to buy a few games from the amount of wallet credit I'd accumulate from selling rare wallpapers and emoticons on the Community Market in the past. I doubt that could happen anymore with a change like this (especially if trading-cards somehow get dragged into the point-shop system too). I'd always figured that minor revenue was the only lucrative reason developers contributed to the Steam-Economy/Community-Market.

Do you imagine developers are being forced to participate in the point store? If they were going to lose significant revenue I think they'd pass. I think you're probably letting your imagination run wild a little bit imagining all the ways Steam might be abusing helpless (hapless?) developers.

[MIBA | GuardiaN begiservers.info]

-_-

[nullable]

After talking to the wife who has a background in licensing and such, she mentioned something that seems plausible. The developers are providing some art assets, but it's actually Steam making all these knick-knacks, with permission. Which would explain why cards have a certain consistency to them. And why the buy in for that stuff is pretty universal across so many games from big budget to one guy indie games. In that case Valve would be free to do what they want. Developers still benefit because a healthy vibrant store that has these things arguably sells more games. The developers didn't do the work and for a lot of the generic marketables like wallpapers and stuff aren't a huge cash cow for most individual games.

[Eldin]

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

After talking to the wife who has a background in licensing and such, she mentioned something that seems plausible. The developers are providing some art assets, but it's actually Steam making all these knick-knacks, with permission. Which would explain why cards have a certain consistency to them. And why the buy in for that stuff is pretty universal across so many games from big budget to one guy indie games. In that case Valve would be free to do what they want. Developers still benefit because a healthy vibrant store that has these things arguably sells more games. The developers didn't do the work and for a lot of the generic marketables like wallpapers and stuff aren't a huge cash cow for most individual games.

Developers are making cards.
Steam provides templates and instructions how to create cards.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/tradingcards#

[◢ k r i s ◤]

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

Yes, you're partly mistaken. I mean for example, what's the incentive for creating achievements?

Steam Exp, just like badges, I guess? I'm not an achievement hunter, but I'm aware that some people collect achievements so I imagine it's an ego boost that can incentivize a game purchase for some players? I'm not really sure why developers include achievements, to be honest.

Badges contribute to exp too, but there isn't nearly as much pride or accomplishment associated with badges compared to achievements I think (unless we're talking about Foil cards, but badges generally seem like fodder for Steam level which is where some users pride themselves - especially the level 1k+ crowd). Despite that, badges are the most common way for people to level up on steam (and was relevant to the accessibility of wallpapers and emoticons before the Point Shop).

With that said, what's your opinion on how the trading-card economy will be affected by this new point-shop addition?

Also, the templates and guidelines for wallpapers and card-art can be found here.
To me, it always appeared incentivized for developers to participate, especially after they gated it off and required the product to first reach some threshold of confidence before allowing the developer to request trading cards be made available.

edit: oh, Eldin linked to the docs already

[nullable]

Well my first thought was right/close then. The other scenario just wasn't out of the realm of possibility and there's multiple ways things could be done. So I was just trying to keep an open mind. The flip side being is Steam would need a sweatshop of artists to keep up with all the games released on Steam if they were doing all that stuff internally. Thanks for clearly that up Eldin.

[nullable]

Originally posted by ◢ k r i s ◤:

With that said, what's your opinion on how the trading-card economy will be affected by this new point-shop addition?

Well trading cards aren't on the point shop, so for the time being very little?

But in a what-if scenario, on some level if I want to make a badge and it's going to cost me $0.20 worth of cards or like 300-500 points (assuming 100 points per card) I mean I suppose it depends. Do I have the points? Am I going to spend $5 buy a game, to craft the badge, or $0.20 on the market? Sure I have a choice, but that's not the end of the world.

I think Steam's user base is so large that there's probably not much to worry about. Lots of people don't bother with the market. But if they've got points laying around maybe they'll spend points. And maybe getting people to engage is the point because it helps increase revenue by a few percentage points.