6% of devs think Valve justifies its 30% Steam cut, according to GDC poll

[BeI]

An interesting article from a few days ago, based on a GDC poll. I always thought Steam offered a lot more than other places for their cut, but apparently a lot of devs don't think so (or aren't sure) ?

The organizers of the Game Developers Conference released the results of their annual State of the Game Industry survey today, showing that just 6% of nearly 4,000 respondents believe that Steam justifies the 30% cut it takes from developers. That's compared to 32% who said "No" when asked if it does enough to earn that share, and 27% who said "Probably not." 17% answered "Maybe," with another 17% in the "Not sure / don't know" category. (The study was conducted from November 27 to December 19. Shortly after the survey began, Valve reduced its revenue split on particularly successful games.)

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The survey also identified some interesting dynamics about where developers' business was coming from. Of the developers who sold their games on Steam, 55% reported that Valve's storefront accounted for 75% or more of their sales. Developers on GOG, Discord, Humble, and Kartridge rarely reported those platforms contributing heavily to sales, with only single-digit percentages of developers reporting receiving more than half their revenue from any one of those stores. However, publisher-owned storefronts (36%), developer's direct sales sites (41%), and Itch.io (29%) more commonly accounted for 75% or more of their games' sales

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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ga...evs-say-steam-earns-its-30-percent-cut-survey

 

[TC McQueen]

I mentioned this in another thread, but Valve not providing info on how the dev cut is used to fund stuff like Photon and other user experience/game compatibility features probably contributes to that lack of faith from devs.

 

[Deleted member 23212]

It lets Gabe Newell become a billionaire.

 

[LifeLine]

That money goes into continuously starting and canceling development of HL3.

 

[water_wendi]

Wow at a third flat out saying No.

 

[inner-G]

They don't think it's worth it, but more than half of them do 75% of their sales there... ok

 

[Rodjer]

Why are these devs on Steam if they find the cut to be too high and not justified?
Why don't you leave Steam?
Why don't you sell your game on your website or elsewhere?

 

[Phrozenflame500]

something something revealed preference

 

[Megatron]

This is why we need competitors like the Epic store, as much as the people here bitch and moan about it.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

Nobody ever asks if the console stores' 30% cut is worth it.

Or even worse, the Live Gold/PS+ fee where developers get 0 dollars while having to deal with any server costs (if their game has online features).

 

[Rodjer]

This is why we need competitors like the Epic store, as much as the people here bitch and moan about it.

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Epic Games competition is to select the indies from top tier devs, once they have AAA games, they will be more strict.
The vast majority of these devs won't be accepted by Epic Games lol

 

[Deleted member 1759]

Why are these devs on Steam if they find the cut to be too high and not justified?
Why don't you leave Steam?
Why don't you sell your game on your website or elsewhere?

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This is why:

The survey also identified some interesting dynamics about where developers' business was coming from. Of the developers who sold their games on Steam, 55% reported that Valve's storefront accounted for 75% or more of their sales. Developers on GOG, Discord, Humble, and Kartridge rarely reported those platforms contributing heavily to sales, with only single-digit percentages of developers reporting receiving more than half their revenue from any one of those stores. However, publisher-owned storefronts (36%), developer's direct sales sites (41%), and Itch.io (29%) more commonly accounted for 75% or more of their games' sales.

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lol

 

[Chairmanchuck (另一个我)]

Why are these devs on Steam if they find the cut to be too high and not justified?

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Of the developers who sold their games on Steam, 55% reported that Valve's storefront accounted for 75% or more of their sales.

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[AHA-Lambda]

Again, why is valve the bad guy over the 30% fee when that's what everyone else charges?

 

[GhostTrick]

This is why we need competitors like the Epic store, as much as the people here bitch and moan about it.

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Competitors such as Epic Store wont even allow these devs to sell their games. That's the harsh truth.
And their way of doing business will only lead to more piracy.

 

[Chairmanchuck (另一个我)]

Again, why is valve the bad guy over the 30% fee when that's what everyone else charges?

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I think its from a developers standpoint and lately you hear a lot of devs that whenever they have problems or questions about API they do not hear back from them. On the other hand you have bigger devs who directly get an answer.

 

[tyfon]

I mean, they could just not publish on steam if the feel it's so bad.
No one is forcing them.

If everyone does that then steam would probably have to lower the cut or something.

 

[Dr. Mario]

Again, why is valve the bad guy over the 30% fee when that's what everyone else charges?

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Who says anything about bad guys?

 

[Knurek]

Again, why is valve the bad guy over the 30% fee when that's what everyone else charges?

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Years and years of campaigning on social media and on dev cons by Galyonkin.
Who, somehow, didn't deem it worthy to disclose that he was working on a competitor to Steam.

 

[TheYanger]

Again, why is valve the bad guy over the 30% fee when that's what everyone else charges?

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A) the question wasn't if Steam did MORE than other stores, they may well say other stores don't do enough to deserve it either.
B) If you mean the console manufacturers, they do WAY more, they provide a captive audience and market the shit out of that audience. They take care of all of the process of actually turning someone into a customer. On the PC the audience isn't beholden to Steam, nad Valve does nothing to get a PC cheaply into a user's hands and get them into the ecosystem. They're not really comparable.

 

[Zornack]

Next you'll be telling me people think their taxes are too high.

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

They don't think it's worth it, but more than half of them do 75% of their sales there... ok

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Shit ton of people eat at McDonald's every day but that doesn't mean it's good quality

 

[jelly]

Generally in all manners of life, you want what you have for less or free and don't know how good you had it until it's gone.

 

[SteveWinwood]

Next you'll be telling me people think their taxes are too high.

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buy the lazy government workers won't fix the roads!

 

[Kyougar]

BREAKING NEWS!
"Majority of people think that they pay too much for service xyz"

 

[khamakazee]

Why are these devs on Steam if they find the cut to be too high and not justified?
Why don't you leave Steam?
Why don't you sell your game on your website or elsewhere?

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Some are leaving but the reality is they are a giant. It's like releasing games on a console and having them censored but they don't have much choice if that console sold much more than the others.

 

[Braaier]

Wow at a third flat out saying No.

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And yet most will continue to sell on steam. I think that fact alone says it all

 

[Ladioss]

Access to that 75% sales share is what justifies it.

 

[GLHFGodbless]

I honestly hope the Epic store is a mega success just so all the devs who feel cheated by steam (not microsoft, or sony, or apple, or nintendo, or the 3000 other market places that charge 30%) can all fuck off over there and we can stop hearing about how unjust steam is.

 

[Lothars]

This is why we need competitors like the Epic store, as much as the people here bitch and moan about it.

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If the epic store wants to compete on its own merits than great but as soon as they buy timed exclusivity than it becomes not acceptable.

 

[Parthenios]

I'm unfamiliar with some specifics of Steam. Do publishers sell copies/keys to Valve for $x and then Valve can sell them for whatever price $y they want (like a traditional retailer)?

 

[Ge0force]

I'm not questioning these devs who decide that Valves 30 percent isn't worth it. I'm sure they have their reasons.

But I don't understand why Valve is getting so much shit for this, while consoles are charging the same cut - or even more for retail copies?

 

[Chairmanchuck (另一个我)]

I'm unfamiliar with some specifics of Steam. Do publishers sell copies/keys to Valve for $x and then Valve can sell them for whatever price $y they want (like a traditional retailer)?

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No. You upload your build on Steam, add SteamAPIs if you want for free (CloudSaves, Workshop support, Streaming stuff etc.) and set the price yourself. For every copy sold you get 70% and Valve gets 30% for their services (Downloadservers all over the world, API, Linux-stuff, Userbase) etc.

 

[Crayon]

Clueless.

 

[tyfon]

I'm unfamiliar with some specifics of Steam. Do publishers sell copies/keys to Valve for $x and then Valve can sell them for whatever price $y they want (like a traditional retailer)?

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Steam like the apple store, google play, console shops etc take 30% of the direct revenue.
So if you pay $10 for a game on any of these, the shop gets $3 and the dev/publusher gets $7.

 

[Ge0force]

I'm unfamiliar with some specifics of Steam. Do publishers sell copies/keys to Valve for $x and then Valve can sell them for whatever price $y they want (like a traditional retailer)?

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Not at all. Devs pay Valve 100 dollars to sell their games on Steam. Valve gives the devs 70 percent of the revenue of all game sales on Steam, and doesn't charge for anything else.

Also, devs can generate game keys to sell their games on any other store. Devs get 100 percent of the revenue for games sold this way.

 

[ASaiyan]

The interesting thing is that this exact cut has been taken by Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Google, and Apple for years - all of whom have done far less for their storefronts in terms of access, discoverability, and features than Valve - and there have been no mass complaints.

Then Epic shows up offering more money in exchange for a far worse storefront experience, and suddenly Valve is an evil, greed-addled tyrant...

 

[Duxxy3]

I think some of it might be due to the history of consoles and PC's.

Consoles games have always had royalties. A certain percent or flat amount payed to the console manufacturer. Publishers can't get away from that no matter if they go digital or physical. Whereas on PC there is no hardware manufacturer. There are no royalties. PC publishers aren't paying hardware manufacturers for their R&D or to help subsidize the hardware's price tag.

From a consumers point of view, Valve does a lot. So many things to make the user experience better. But from a developer, or publisher, point of view I could see why they think 30% is too much for what Valve gives them.

I think Valve will eventually lower their cut across the board.

 

[impact]

Again, why is valve the bad guy over the 30% fee when that's what everyone else charges?

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They probably think Sony, MS and Nintendo don't justify the fee either. You just don't have another storefront option on console.

 

[Firefly]

This is why:

lol

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This just proves exactly the opposite. Steam does more than enough to justify their cut.

 

[JD3Nine]

I'm kind of over this bs TBH. If you are a dev that can't even be bothered to learn how Steam works for you, then I just don't care anymore. The comments from devs that go along with this survey are just absurd and full of misinformation.

Good luck is all I can say. I won't be following you to this mythical indie store utopia. If it even exists, it will be heavily curated and you are not getting in.

 

[Parthenios]

No. You upload your build on Steam, add SteamAPIs if you want for free (CloudSaves, Workshop support, Streaming stuff etc.) and set the price yourself. For every copy sold you get 70% and Valve gets 30% for their services (Downloadservers all over the world, API, Linux-stuff, Userbase) etc.

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Steam like the apple store, google play, console shops etc take 30% of the direct revenue.
So if you pay $10 for a game on any of these, the shop gets $3 and the dev/publusher gets $7.

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Not at all. Devs pay Valve 100 dollars to sell their games on Steam. Valve gives the devs 70 percent of the revenue of all game sales on Steam, and doesn't charge for anything else.

Also, devs can generate game keys to sell their games on any other store. Devs get 100 percent of the revenue for games sold this way.

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Thanks.

Thats a pretty unfortunate set up for publishers then. Anytime you are paying a % instead of a flat dollar amount is going to make someone else rich at your expense. Their costs are fixed but yours are not, ouch.

 

[Lashley]

valve the evil bastardz

 

[Era of not Yakuza]

The interesting thing is that this exact cut has been taken by Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Google, and Apple for years - all of whom have done far less for their storefronts in terms of access, discoverability, and features than Valve - and there have been no mass complaints.

Then Epic shows up offering more money in exchange for a far worse storefront experience, and suddenly Valve is an evil, greed-addled tyrant...

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Yes. I would love for Sony to offer the same customer service that Valve has, but they are not on the same level.
Or that Windows Stores was as good as the steam client
but here we are

 

[mutantmagnet]

The interesting thing is that this exact cut has been taken by Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Google, and Apple for years - all of whom have done far less for their storefronts in terms of access, discoverability, and features than Valve - and there have been no mass complaints.

Then Epic shows up offering more money in exchange for a far worse storefront experience, and suddenly Valve is an evil, greed-addled tyrant...

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Some of you guys keep tripping over your own arguments. Epic offers anticonsumer experience (for now). They obviously offer a pro dev experience. (LOL at the guy who mentioned Proton as a boon for devs. On the surface it would seem to be but Linux sku purchases are simply too small even if Proton cuts down the customer service calls and emails in half)

 

[Ichi]

Nobody ever asks if the console stores' 30% cut is worth it.

Or even worse, the Live Gold/PS+ fee where developers get 0 dollars while having to deal with any server costs (if their game has online features).

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Pretty sure devs get $$$ for having their games on ps plus.

allso, this is about Steam.

 

[Deleted member 1845]

Proton is a boon for devs. They now have a Linux version without having to develop a Linux version.

 

[Chairmanchuck (另一个我)]

Some of you guys keep tripping over your own arguments. Epic offers anticonsumer experience (for now). They obviously offer a pro dev experience. (LOL at the guy who mentioned Proton as a boon for devs. On the surface it would seem to be but Linux sku purchases are simply too small even if Proton cuts down the customer service calls and emails in half)

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I mean they dont have to develop an extra Linux version if they planned to develop one.

 

[ASaiyan]

Some of you guys keep tripping over your own arguments. Epic offers anticonsumer experience (for now). They obviously offer a pro dev experience. (LOL at the guy who mentioned Proton as a boon for devs. On the surface it would seem to be but Linux sku purchases are simply too small even if Proton cuts down the customer service calls and emails in half)

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Okay, but explain to me in the long-run how a deliberately anti-consumer experience can really be pro-dev? It's like having the nicest market stand in the world, where everyone would like to sell...and having no customers to sell to, because you built it in the middle of a desert.

 

[BasilZero]

You get what you pay for.