Steam Affiliate

[M3]

Hello,
My name is Marcelo and I’m a streamer at Twitch.

I would like to share one ideia that can be good to streamers as Steam.

Please, create a affiliate program for us. That way, we streamers, can sell steam games and grow our revenue and that way, grow steam and publishers revenue too.

Today two guys would like to buy a game that I was playing and ask me for a link to support my channel.

Believe me, this is a good chance to support streamers and grow your market. You’ll have a large num we of streamers send potential buyers to your games!

Thank you for attention!
Marcelo!

[Brujeira]

This again? No. Valve already have a dominant position in PC games distribution. They don't need your help and they certainly aren't going to give you a cut.

[Darren]

I would agree this isn't something Valve would need and frankly I'd much rather support my content creators directly via systems like Patreon instead of with Affiliate programs but I can see that there may come a time that Steam might have to consider such a move.

I would think an interesting way to do it would be to make it an extension of the existing curator system. Such that developers/publishers can approve curators to get a share of revenue for their game if a certain link is followed, or the game is selected via the Steam Curators review. It'd give developers/publishers a lot of control over who exactly is allowed to act as an ambassador for their games, and an alternative to directly paying for videos (i.e. I'll approve you to get a fraction of the sales price of my game from the link you'll put on your video in exchange for you doing the video).

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Amazon/Bezos really doesn't/don't need any more money.

[76561198407601200]

Originally posted by marceloTW:

Hello,
Believe me, this is a good chance to support streamers and grow your market. You’ll have a large num we of streamers send potential buyers to your games!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't people watching streams (yours or otherwise) be likely to purchase the game anyway just by watching? From what I've seen, people will see a stream, think to themselves "Hey this would be a good game to play", proceed to the store and purchase. You are essentially wanting to add a middle man to that and receive a portion of the sales. Besides, I believe streams have patrons who donate to their streams, I suggest you follow suite.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by The Living Tribunal:

Originally posted by marceloTW:

Hello,
Believe me, this is a good chance to support streamers and grow your market. You’ll have a large num we of streamers send potential buyers to your games!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't people watching streams (yours or otherwise) be likely to purchase the game anyway just by watching? From what I've seen, people will see a stream, think to themselves "Hey this would be a good game to play", proceed to the store and purchase. You are essentially wanting to add a middle man to that and receive a portion of the sales. Besides, I believe streams have patrons who donate to their streams, I suggest you follow suite.

Well, and having an affiliate link will link these both together - buying the game and supporting the content creator.
And not everyone uses Patreon or similar and not everyone wants to use these platforms or Twitch's extortive fee "donation" systems, but they will uy the game from Steam, so why not give the content creator a little kickback?

Thing with Steam is: they don't really need this. It's the first address most people look at anyway. And given how bad actors already abuse the market system or just game sales in general, I guess they really don't want to deal with this, too.

[Start_Running]

OP. If you were a streamer with the sort of reach that a dev or steam would consider making an affliate program wioth...they'd be contacting you already.

That's how it works. If you hacve an audience thats worth the money.. they'll get in touch with you. If you don't.. They won't.

The way you're describing it makes irt sound like you're just hoping to score a quick buck by streaming a game that's already been bliown up in popularity ....so No. Do your work. Build your audience, and then you can talk to dev/pubs about affiliation.

[ุ]

People also tend to forget that devs are the ones who set the prices, many aren't going to just write off a few dollars per game copy so someone with only a handful of subs can sell their copies for them. When steam already takes a cut, and does it so much more efficiently.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

OP. If you were a streamer with the sort of reach that a dev or steam would consider making an affliate program wioth...they'd be contacting you already.

That's how it works. If you hacve an audience thats worth the money.. they'll get in touch with you. If you don't.. They won't.

And yet Amazon and other sites have such a programme everyone can apply for ...

Seriously, you can't argue "that's not how things work" when it's literally how things work outisde of Steam.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by cinedine:

Originally posted by Start_Running:

OP. If you were a streamer with the sort of reach that a dev or steam would consider making an affliate program wioth...they'd be contacting you already.

That's how it works. If you hacve an audience thats worth the money.. they'll get in touch with you. If you don't.. They won't.

And yet Amazon and other sites have such a programme everyone can apply for ...

Amazon takes the shotgun approach.. It works because they only have to pay the the successful ones. Thing is. There's a reason why game developers want a more hands on approach to such thing because you don't want to have your stuff affiliated with the 'wrong' sort of personality.

[nullable]

Yeah, if someone wants to play/buy a game you're playing and can't do it without your affiliate link or otherwise you linking them to it, it's only a matter of time before they forget how to breath in and out. And Steam for its part doesn't need to pay people to direct customers to Steam at the moment.

Although I guess I don't know the threshold in which an affiliate program makes sense. But I also have to imagine one of the reasons Steam wouldn't employ one because people trying to abuse those system is a big problem. And people always pitch a fit when they're banned and they had "thousands of dollars" that they were cheated out of. Steam may not want to deal with the fraud and PR fiascos and the benefits may not quite always outweigh the costs.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Originally posted by cinedine:

And yet Amazon and other sites have such a programme everyone can apply for ...

Amazon takes the shotgun approach.. It works because they only have to pay the the successful ones. Thing is. There's a reason why game developers want a more hands on approach to such thing because you don't want to have your stuff affiliated with the 'wrong' sort of personality.

Thing is ... what?
Amazon closes your partner account if they find you are using the links on sites they do not want to be affiliated with. Or whatever hairbrained reason they can think of actually.
Thing is:
Nobody is talking about the link being game develoepr specific but for Steam. Like any other referral programme.
Thing is:
There is no problem to implement a minimum payout. Just like they already do for game sales.
Thing is:
They actually did consider this sometime ago. Gabe Newell was talking about what later became curators. Users curating a list of recommendations in a shop-in-shop where he clearly states that they'd deserve a revenue share when people buy the games via their store.
https://youtu.be/t8QEOBgLBQU?t=2678
Thing is:
You are once again arguing just to argue without having any point to make.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by cinedine:

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Amazon takes the shotgun approach.. It works because they only have to pay the the successful ones. Thing is. There's a reason why game developers want a more hands on approach to such thing because you don't want to have your stuff affiliated with the 'wrong' sort of personality.

Thing is ... what?
Amazon closes your partner account if they find you are using the links on sites they do not want to be affiliated with. Or whatever hairbrained reason they can think of actually.

WHich is...wait for it, a reactive action. Which means said affiliate has already done something questtionable.

Do you think a publisher or dev wants to wait until *after* a streamer recites his Top 10 [redacted] jokes in a stream to pull the plug. Many prefer to do their own vetting for the personalities they affiliate with.

Thing is:
Nobody is talking about the link being game develoepr specific but for Steam. Like any other referral programme.

At which point its more likely to be useless.
That was actually part of the plan for CUrators and well, we saw how that worked out didn't we.

Thing is:
There is no problem to implement a minimum payout. Just like they already do for game sales.
Thing is:

Thing is... no one said anything about that being a broblem. You're speaking to strawmen again. Get your glasses checked.

They actually did consider this sometime ago. Gabe Newell was talking about what later became curators. Users curating a list of recommendations in a shop-in-shop where he clearly states that they'd deserve a revenue share when people buy the games via their store.
https://youtu.be/t8QEOBgLBQU?t=2678
Thing is:
You are once again arguing just to argue without having any point to make.

[/quote]
Yes. And seeing how curators turned out, the plans have apparently been shelved for a bit. And what people state in recorded press pieces doesn't always reflect how they feel or even what they think, just what they believe their target audience will react well to..

Never take anything recorded for public dissemination at face value.

[Supafly]

Why buy from you and give you a cut of the profit when I can buy it elsewhere, likely cheaper, and the creators get more money?

[Crazy Tiger]

You are overestimating your importance in this, OP. Streamers aren't needed to grow Steams market, it does so by itself.

Truth is that this suggestion is more beneficial to you than Steam. Which is not a reason for Valve to implement it.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

You are overestimating your importance in this, OP. Streamers aren't needed to grow Steams market, it does so by itself.

Truth is that this suggestion is more beneficial to you than Steam. Which is not a reason for Valve to implement it.

Espwecially when you condiser that the bandwagon effect is strong in streaming. One streamer streamers. RThere's a strong tendency to go ffor the current *it* game. Which is sort of what makes the notion redundant. if its the current *it* game then well you don't need the extra promotion fronm streamers do you? nif its not well hardly anyone was going to stream it anyway so the benefit is small.

Its only in those moments when you get the right streamer streaming your game at the right time that you get the actual benefit and even there the streamer's benefit quicklty drops off as everyone and their uncle starts streaming it.