Is Steam really anti-developer?

[ハイイロギツネ]

Is 30% anti-developer to you? I notice many people are calling Steam anti-developer.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Wasn't there a recent thread complaining that Steam is too pro-developer and anti-consumer?

I mean, both of them are summary opinions rather than exact positions, and to be fair they're not really mutually exclusive either, but still lol.

[Glass Mother]

Oh ... hi, Tim. Was your icecold alt not enough? :^)

I don't care for the developer as a customer. I care for two things:

When is the release date?
Where can I buy it?

If you decide to release via CGS, then it might as well not exist and negates every of your rights to complain about the "mean" user base. Because you knew exactly what follows.

[TheRandomGuy]

That depends on how you look at it.

If you view Steam as just a storefront and nothing more, then yeah, Developers could say they're being way overcharged. However, Steam isn't just a storefront, Developers on Steam pay 30% to have access to a variety of tools for them, and things that improve the user-experience, such as the Steam Workshop, Forums, Proton, etc., which in turn makes the game more valuable, especially with workshop-enabled games.

Steam's whole business model isn't to reduce costs for Developers, but rather to improve the services they provide in order to make that 30% cut justified.

ᛋᚺᚨᚾᛞᛟᚱ の投稿を引用：

I don't care for the developer as a customer

To be fair, and I know this is doing to sound harsh, that's generally the attitude Gamers have towards Developers. Developers provide and make a product, we buy it, if we don't like it, we don't buy it. Nobody OWES Game Developers anything really. It's not like the bulk of them put us on a pedestal or treat us nice or anything, save for a few good ones like CDPR, which in themselves are a rarity in the industry these days.

In fact I'd dare-say that Gamers and Developers are at-odds with each other nowadays and conflict is so very easy to spark between the two. Just see the recent Ooblet's Debacle, or 2K's Actions recently, you have developers, big and small, who don't care about PC Gamers, so why in turn, should PC Gamers care about them?

[ハイイロギツネ]

I don't have Epic Games Store neither do i intend to buy from the store.

What concerns me is that many gamers are willing to change ship if a favourite game developer or franchise they like becomes an Epic exclusive.

I have an the majority of Game hub forums fight for Epic Games and promote the store because they bought a game from the Epic Games Store.

[Vile]

CalistriX の投稿を引用：

I don't have Epic Games Store neither do i intend to buy from the store.

What concerns me is that many gamers are willing to change ship if a favourite game developer or franchise they like becomes an Epic exclusive.

I have an the majority of Game hub forums fight for Epic Games and promote the store because they bought a game from the Epic Games Store.

People are morons to continue to defend Epic Games. Constant hacking problems and an abysmal half finished launcher. People like me have had problems using a card to buy games while having no problems anywhere else. They also don’t even have a cart system or wishlist.

Steam is hands down the best PC launcher and they constantly improve themselves every year. Maybe Epic should fix their launcher rather than sideline GOG and Steam.

[TwinEdgedBastard]

Hardly imo. The revenue split is Steams only real downside when compared to other stores, but it's kind of made up for with the ability for developers to resell keys.

Steams curation is also arguably a downside but there's the counter argument to make that there's no real metric for what qualifies as a good game or not.

I don't think Valve is inherently "anti-developer", after all it should be in a stores best interest to treat developers just as well as consumers.

Epic is only being seen as a good option for developers who either can acquire an exclusivity deal, or have little faith in their game and believe the stores smaller size will help their game receive more exposure. The former is an unpopular business decision with huge long term downsides for everyone except Epic. The latter won't last forever unless Epic is extremely strict about curation.

Edit: Epic doesn't have the best revenue split so that's why I didn't label it as an advantage.

Another thing I want to mention is that even if you remove the bottom of the barrel content from Steam, developers still have a ton of competition from legitimate games. I sift through Steams releases all the time and I see competent games constantly.

You know what I think is more over-saturated than VNs and asset flips? Turn based strategy and RPG games.

[Trundle]

If devs really worried about the anti- developer, they should focused on Climate change and human rights abuse.

[Xite >X< 👁️👁 🇦🇺]

What they do may seem that way to some people, but a game seller having an antideveloper policy is out of the question.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

ᛋᚺᚨᚾᛞᛟᚱ の投稿を引用：

Oh ... hi, Tim. Was your icecold alt not enough? :^)

I don't care for the developer as a customer. I care for two things:

When is the release date?
Where can I buy it?

If you decide to release via EGS, then it might as well not exist and negates every of your rights to complain about the "mean" user base. Because you knew exactly what follows.

FTFY buddy

Also i care about a couple of things too tbh:
-day 1 dlc=im gone
-p2w/p2p paywall locked content that affect gameplay=pass (unless game is singleplayer like actual dlc maps or storymode).
-EGS exclusive/association=i schleep
-price tag=anything worth more than $50, $60 MAX; to me, is an automatic not worth the price.

Also steam is more of the standard than good /bad. They sorta helped raise the PC games so you can't really compare it unlike other PC game storefronts that came after.

It's like you never compare the founder of a city/town to anyone because he was the first person to lay roots/a solid foundation. You can still compare to older founder to the younger founder though. In that context it sorta has fallen a but from grace but lineant to things like full 18+ worthy rating nudity and H games.

[Glass Mother]

(TF2SP) The Cooler Aya の投稿を引用：

ᛋᚺᚨᚾᛞᛟᚱ の投稿を引用：

Oh ... hi, Tim. Was your icecold alt not enough? :^)

I don't care for the developer as a customer. I care for two things:

When is the release date?
Where can I buy it?

If you decide to release via EGS, then it might as well not exist and negates every of your rights to complain about the "mean" user base. Because you knew exactly what follows.

FTFY buddy

Also i care about a couple of things too tbh:
-day 1 dlc=im gone
-p2w/p2p paywall locked content that affect gameplay=pass (unless game is singleplayer like actual dlc maps or storymode).
-EGS exclusive/association=i schleep
-price tag=anything worth more than $50, $60 MAX; to me, is an automatic not worth the price.

Also steam is more of the standard than good /bad. They sorta helped raise the PC games so you can't really compare it unlike other PC game storefronts that came after.

It's like you never compare the founder of a city/town to anyone because he was the first person to lay roots/a solid foundation. You can still compare to older founder to the younger founder though. In that context it sorta has fallen a but from grace but lineant to things like full 18+ worthy rating nudity and H games.

No. ECS is correct.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

ᛋᚺᚨᚾᛞᛟᚱ の投稿を引用：

(TF2SP) The Cooler Aya の投稿を引用：

FTFY buddy

Also i care about a couple of things too tbh:
-day 1 dlc=im gone
-p2w/p2p paywall locked content that affect gameplay=pass (unless game is singleplayer like actual dlc maps or storymode).
-EGS exclusive/association=i schleep
-price tag=anything worth more than $50, $60 MAX; to me, is an automatic not worth the price.

Also steam is more of the standard than good /bad. They sorta helped raise the PC games so you can't really compare it unlike other PC game storefronts that came after.

It's like you never compare the founder of a city/town to anyone because he was the first person to lay roots/a solid foundation. You can still compare to older founder to the younger founder though. In that context it sorta has fallen a but from grace but lineant to things like full 18+ worthy rating nudity and H games.

No. ECS is correct.

Oh my bad then

Whats ECS?

[secuda]

Not in the slightest, taken it only cost you €100 to post a game in various qualities for a dev, it could be a learning experience. if they dont have the amount of capitall as Blizzard or EA have. Nor recognision in the industry like 2K or Gearbox i am saying its a good starting place.

[gugnihr]

As far as I know, producers and investors in general are anti developer, since they tend to exploit people working for them with abusive amounts of workload. Steam is just a store and I think that usually they deal with producers and publishers not directly with the actual developers anyway.

[Pocahawtness]

These people are just falling for Epic spin.

It is up to the developer to charge the right amount for their product.

How much the store marks-up that price is up to the store.

If the store marks-up the price too much then its unfair to the consumer not the developer.

The developer gets their money no matter what and if they don't get enough that's their fault for not charging enough.

This is the way retail has always been.

[Vile]

｢C❤️A｣ Pocahawtness の投稿を引用：

These people are just falling for Epic spin.

It is up to the developer to charge the right amount for their product.

How much the store marks-up that price is up to the store.

If the store marks-up the price too much then its unfair to the consumer not the developer.

The developer gets their money no matter what and if they don't get enough that's their fault for not charging enough.

This is the way retail has always been.

Yeah people say Epic takes a 18% cut, but look how little they offer lmao. I paid $2 for Limbo rather than free cause the Steam version offers forums, achievements, art work, etc. People gloss over that, lmao. Oh yeah I was also able to add it to a cart. 😂