Just because there’s an outdated industry standard doesn’t mean it should be perpetuated, let alone supported, for eternity. Valve’s server hosting costs on a per-installation basis have fallen substantially since they first launched Steam, so there’s no reason why the 30% cut is still necessary; even 20% would leave them a sizable profit margin. I’m not a fan of the Epic Game Store for bribing companies to not release their games on Steam for a set amount of time, and choose not to use it as a result, but it’s time that the 30% industry standard be dropped. In purchasing a game I want to support continued development of that franchise, and $15 of a $50 purchase going to the storefront is not only excessive and inflationary, but harms developers as well.
I guess you wouldm’t be complaining if they never improved efficiencies then, since decreasing costs should apparently be passed on to distributers. Shame on them for improving their business sonthey could use those profits to create the steam deck and other benefits for gamers instead of propping up the profits of game companies!
Should game companies lower their proces based on volume of sales when they make ‘enough’ profit?
Valve could still operate as it currently does, including having sufficient profits to account for R&D and long-term costs, at a lower cut of platform sales (as another commenter mentioned, Gabe Newell’s billion dollar yacht collection is demonstrative of the platform’s profitability, especially when one considers how much it costs to maintain ships). Products such as the Steam Deck make money for Valve too, as Steam Deck users (myself included) statistically buy more games on Steam as a result. I don’t support profiteering efforts by game publishers either, such as the Factorio price increase attributed to inflation, $70 game releases attributed to inflation when digital releases have reduced their costs, and micro transactions in general. In any case, however, given that cost increases are always the consumer’s responsibility, cost decreases should not simply be a means for companies to bolster their profit margins.
I am fine with someone who set up and runs a successful business that is in no way predatory and is a benefit to employees, consumers, and the companies that use their product to have an excess amount of money. They are doing capitalism the right way and actually earned the benefits.
Games going up to $70 are not becsuse of the 30% cut. They wouldn’t go down if that percentage dropped either. I play multiple games that were always sold at $40 or less as full games and they have been massively profitable.
So it’s not predatory to let games become more expensive while also reducing running costs? Because if you run the numbers it means they’re just increasing their profits by charging the same % and forcing devs and publishers to increase the cost of games to compensate for development costs increasing. The only winner here is Valve, maybe you should start defending your own interests instead of defending the interests of a billionaire.
30% is the standard. And it’s absurd. They all do it because they all have their own walled garden territory, and it doesn’t benefit any of them to lower prices.
You’re telling me that Steam does 30% of the effort to create and publish a game?
They distribute games, which is something in addition to creating and publishing.
Whatever percentage they use is based on an average across wildly different games. A large game with frequent updates doesn’t need to pay steam for the work on steam’s end each update. They don’t need to pay for each tine someone downloads their game, or for the ongoing costs to upgrade steam over time to continue supporting their game. They have a set percentage per sale so they can easily calculate how many units they need to sell to break even.
If the game’s sales die off they don’t need to pay for steam to continue support. At any time they can use the popularity of a new release to renew interest in past releases without any extra requires work. When game sequels blow up, the publisher doesn’t need to do anything to get sales money from new sales of the prior versions. The prior games are just there, waiting to make the publisher money.
How much value do you think any distribution platform provides?
He can go fuck himself with a 6" railroad spike.
At least Gaben is pushing the Linux gaming community forward!
BUT 30%!!!
Yeah, that 30% means I can ditch Windows. At least it’s being used for good and not just* yachts.
30% is the standard, including for physical media on retail stores, and physical stores require all the overhead of stocking with the negatives of losing sales if demand is higher than supply.
Anyone who actually complains about steam’s cut is either misinformed or lying.
Just because there’s an outdated industry standard doesn’t mean it should be perpetuated, let alone supported, for eternity. Valve’s server hosting costs on a per-installation basis have fallen substantially since they first launched Steam, so there’s no reason why the 30% cut is still necessary; even 20% would leave them a sizable profit margin. I’m not a fan of the Epic Game Store for bribing companies to not release their games on Steam for a set amount of time, and choose not to use it as a result, but it’s time that the 30% industry standard be dropped. In purchasing a game I want to support continued development of that franchise, and $15 of a $50 purchase going to the storefront is not only excessive and inflationary, but harms developers as well.
I guess you wouldm’t be complaining if they never improved efficiencies then, since decreasing costs should apparently be passed on to distributers. Shame on them for improving their business sonthey could use those profits to create the steam deck and other benefits for gamers instead of propping up the profits of game companies!
Should game companies lower their proces based on volume of sales when they make ‘enough’ profit?
Valve could still operate as it currently does, including having sufficient profits to account for R&D and long-term costs, at a lower cut of platform sales (as another commenter mentioned, Gabe Newell’s billion dollar yacht collection is demonstrative of the platform’s profitability, especially when one considers how much it costs to maintain ships). Products such as the Steam Deck make money for Valve too, as Steam Deck users (myself included) statistically buy more games on Steam as a result. I don’t support profiteering efforts by game publishers either, such as the Factorio price increase attributed to inflation, $70 game releases attributed to inflation when digital releases have reduced their costs, and micro transactions in general. In any case, however, given that cost increases are always the consumer’s responsibility, cost decreases should not simply be a means for companies to bolster their profit margins.
I am fine with someone who set up and runs a successful business that is in no way predatory and is a benefit to employees, consumers, and the companies that use their product to have an excess amount of money. They are doing capitalism the right way and actually earned the benefits.
Games going up to $70 are not becsuse of the 30% cut. They wouldn’t go down if that percentage dropped either. I play multiple games that were always sold at $40 or less as full games and they have been massively profitable.
So it’s not predatory to let games become more expensive while also reducing running costs? Because if you run the numbers it means they’re just increasing their profits by charging the same % and forcing devs and publishers to increase the cost of games to compensate for development costs increasing. The only winner here is Valve, maybe you should start defending your own interests instead of defending the interests of a billionaire.
Steam is not making the games more expensive, the game studios/distributors are increasing the prices so they can make more profit.
You’re the one that ends up paying for it though, games could be cheaper, instead Valve just increases its profits.
I am getting my money’s worth.
Ok, that’s just idiotic…
Ok, then let me be an idiot while you go through whatever distributor you think gets the ‘right’ amount of profit.
30% is the standard. And it’s absurd. They all do it because they all have their own walled garden territory, and it doesn’t benefit any of them to lower prices.
You’re telling me that Steam does 30% of the effort to create and publish a game?
They distribute games, which is something in addition to creating and publishing.
Whatever percentage they use is based on an average across wildly different games. A large game with frequent updates doesn’t need to pay steam for the work on steam’s end each update. They don’t need to pay for each tine someone downloads their game, or for the ongoing costs to upgrade steam over time to continue supporting their game. They have a set percentage per sale so they can easily calculate how many units they need to sell to break even.
If the game’s sales die off they don’t need to pay for steam to continue support. At any time they can use the popularity of a new release to renew interest in past releases without any extra requires work. When game sequels blow up, the publisher doesn’t need to do anything to get sales money from new sales of the prior versions. The prior games are just there, waiting to make the publisher money.
How much value do you think any distribution platform provides?