[Polygon] Steam developers speak: Maximum profits for Valve, minimum responsibilities

[dex3108]

There was a time, not so long ago, when every PC developer wanted to be on Steam. Getting your game on Steam — if you could manage to somehow contact Valve and impress the company with your wares — was a golden ticket to sales and success.

Those days are over, according to the 20 developers I spoke with for this story. While selling a game on Steam has never been easier, only a "chosen few" are reportedly lucky enough to have Valve's mysterious algorithm favor them with some promotional screen real estate, or popular enough to get a Valve representative to help them with a support ticket. The rest often feel like they're on their own.

For many Steam developers, this two-tiered and algorithmically curated culture of "one Steam for the popular, and one Steam for the rest" is leading to dissatisfaction, resentment and confusion.

HOW THIS STORY BEGAN
I started receiving emails from developers who wanted to air their concerns about Steam after I wrote an article about the cold, corporate illusion behind the "Good Guy Valve" reputation. I've spent the last few months following up on these concerns, speaking to 20 different developers, from small-scale operations up to well-known "AAA indie" developers, to get a feel for what it is that has made so many of these once-eager Steam evangelists so cautious and bitter.

Very few of those developers were willing to put their names to their criticisms, with one even saying that they were "pissing themselves in fear" about the idea of an off-the-record Discord voice call. Much like the Steam Workshop creator community, which lives in terror at the knowledge that Valve could cut off their income at any time, Steam developers know who holds all the power in the relationship.

Here's what those developers had to say.

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https://www.polygon.com/2018/10/19/17959138/steam-valve-developer-support-pricing-reviews

 

[Mars People]

I dont know how anyone makes money on Steam with the sheer ammount of games both legit and obvious shovelware put up each and every day.

 

[Launchpad]

I will read this whole article but after a quick skim are they really claiming regional pricing to be a bad thing? Not every country has the same cost of living or average pay the US does. So many companies completely screw over these regions by not having proper regional pricing.

 

[Hektor]

I will read this whole article but after a quick skim are they really claiming regional pricing to be a bad thing? Not every country has the same cost of living or average pay the US does. So many companies completely screw over these regions by not having proper regional pricing.

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Just got to that part, it sure reads like it.

 

[GameZone]

It's still the place who I prefer as a custemor though. Steam definitely provide me with the best benefits, to the point where I avoid buying certain games from stores I dislike.

 

[DocSeuss]

It's not a mysterious algorithm, you just need... I think we were told 50,000 wishlists

 

[Muad'dib]

Advertise your game outside of Steam, with the amount of games released on Steam daily, there's no possible way to divide promotional space fairly and equally.

Maybe make the space for new released titles bigger and flashier? Does Amazon usually advertise the products people sell on it?

 

[Launchpad]

"There are people making quality titles that are getting the same level of support as troll games that were made in three days," Michael Hicks, developer of Pillar, Path of Motus and other indie titles told me. "Then Valve takes a 30 percent cut for doing next to nothing. That's my main issue with their whole system."

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Oh boy. This is quite the article.

 

[Danzflor]

I'm really glad this discussions are happening right now, we really needed this reality check after all that's transpired with Telltale, Rockstar and so on. It is crucial more of this comes to light, we need to stop romanticizing gaming so much.

 

[JD3Nine]

20 devs isn't a big enough sample size to support the conclusions this article makes.

 

[Rodjer]

If you don't like Valve rules and guidelines you can leave Steam and go sell your game elsewhere, ad lol at the "Maximum Profits".

 

[dex3108]

I can just say lol at this part.

Essentially, Valve offers developers an almost unworkable choice, and then tells them they have the freedom to do whatever they like. If they don't want their games to be massively discounted in other territories, they do technically have the freedom to spend hours of their time every week checking 40 different exchange rates and manually adjusting 40 different prices. Or they can leave it alone, trust Valve to handle it for them and deal with the consequences.

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And it looks like that may developers from that interview didn't even read Valve guidelines.

 

[Launchpad]

"Walmart wouldn't let anyone put stuff on their shelves, so why should Valve?"

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Oh you sweet summer child.

 

[Cecil]

"Then Valve takes a 30 percent cut for doing next to nothing."

That feels a bit hyperbolic, doesn't it? I can understand the frustration of wanting a more hands on support and activity with certain functions and parts of the Steam platform, but next to nothing, when you get that platform to distribute, sell and maintain your game?

 

[OhSatan]

I will read this whole article but after a quick skim are they really claiming regional pricing to be a bad thing? Not every country has the same cost of living or average pay the US does. So many companies completely screw over these regions by not having proper regional pricing.

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Probably the best use of the statics and algorithms culture of Steam but the capitalist mentality of the people in general can't wrap around "sell for less to sell more".

They assigned a $60 dollar (or whatever) value to their sells projection and they will get that, it's the only number that makes sense to them.

On the other hand Valve is not without sin since they change the exchange rate for the market the moment it moves in real life.

 

[OMEGALUL]

If these developers are unhappy with steam, they should delist their games from Steam and go to another digital store, it isn't Valve's responsible to make them money. Some of the complaints are fucking petty, like this one

"I've flagged negative reviews where someone was saying they wouldn't recommend the game because our online service had its own EULA."

 

[BernardoOne]

"only a "chosen few" are reportedly lucky enough to have Valve's mysterious algorithm favor them "


As opposed to what, the even fewer chosen getting through the mess that was curation?

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Some of the things in that article are totally braindead.

Can't believe they are seriously claiming correct regional pricing is a bad thing. Forced discounts my ass.

 

[Rodjer]

Nearly all the developers interviewed for this piece, when asked if Steam's 30 percent cut of revenue was worth it, answered with a resounding "no."

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lol at this.
If it's not worth you can pull off your game from Steam and go sell it in your website and good luck with that.
30% is lower than the average retail cut but somehow it's not worth.

 

[Launchpad]

I've had a look and only found one actual developer name and game. Without actually knowing what games these people developed this article is useless imo. The games could be total garbage that didn't sell because they're just not very good. Or they could be amazing and this is a very real problem. How can we know?

 

[Elfotografoalocado]

There's one thing that is terribly wrong in the article. It says games are cheaper outside the US. That's a lie. Games are cheaper in the US than mostly anywhere else.

 

[Deleted member 10852]

i dont understand one specific item, english is not my primary language, but some devs are angry because some games are cheaper in south america? or i was reading wrong, please tell me im wrong

 

[His Majesty]

I started receiving emails from developers who wanted to air their concerns about Steam after I wrote an article about the cold, corporate illusion behind the "Good Guy Valve" reputation. I've spent the last few months following up on these concerns, speaking to 20 different developers, from small-scale operations up to well-known "AAA indie" developers, to get a feel for what it is that has made so many of these once-eager Steam evangelists so cautious and bitter.

Very few of those developers were willing to put their names to their criticisms, with one even saying that they were "pissing themselves in fear" about the idea of an off-the-record Discord voice call. Much like the Steam Workshop creator community, which lives in terror at the knowledge that Valve could cut off their income at any time, Steam developers know who holds all the power in the relationship.

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lol

This guy knows how to set the atmosphere alright.

 

[Rodjer]

There's one thing that is terribly wrong in the article. It says games are cheaper outside the US. That's a lie. Games are cheaper in the US than mostly anywhere else.

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Games are cheaper in the US compared to the euro countries, but they are expensive compared to LATAM, East Europe and SEA.

 

[Ja-]

If you don't like the 30% cut valve takes then host your game on your own site. I wonder who are those devs that polygon talked to

 

[imbarkus]

I dont know how anyone makes money on Steam with the sheer ammount of games both legit and obvious shovelware put up each and every day.

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The Delisted Game Collector's group is having a crisis of identity trying to decide if they should value possession of Malware games. Software continues to be commoditized, and its individual value continues to diminish.

Eventually Apple will put out tools right in iMessage so you can design a worthless, template-based, throwaway maze game along with your message so the recipient has to solve the maze to reveal it.

 

[Airbar]

I've had a look and only found one actual developer name and game. Without actually knowing what games these people developed this article is useless imo. The games could be total garbage that didn't sell because they're just not very good. Or they could be amazing and this is a very real problem. How can we know?

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That's actually the crux of it. I get feeling attached to something you made by yourself or in a small team but it is an open market and when the product isn't good, nobody is interested. That's just capitalism.

 

[Launchpad]

i dont understand one specific item, english is not my primary language, but some devs are angry because some games are cheaper in south america? or i was reading wrong, please tell me im wrong

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Nah you nailed it mate. These developers seem to have no idea of anything outside of their US bubble.

 

[Zafir]

I'm not really sure whats with the regional pricing section? Of course you're not going to price your game with a direct conversion in a region that couldn't afford that much. Frankly Valves solution seems 10x better than iOS which as far as I'm aware, doesn't give you any choice at all in it. Last I heard you just choose a price out of a list and it automatically creates the conversion rates. Which stem from being good for some regions, and awful for others (prices end up being 30% more here even though our VAT is only 20% *eyeroll*). Where as you can still choose your own on Steam (that imagine in the article even backs that one up since it has an edit button next to the prices).

The review issues are worth discussing though. Not even just in the context of bug reports - at least those have some legitimacy, but people using them to push a social agenda. That said I'm not really sure what Valve can do to fix them outside of just generally being generally quicker to deal with such problems.

 

[Deleted member 4044]

If you're a small development house now, i don't think Steam is the right avenue to get initial recgonition and momentum. I think you'd be better off working with Nintendo and getting screentime during a Direct or Nindies presentation, or maybe even trying to get a spot on Inside XBox.

 

[Poised Turtoise]

honestly I'd love it if Nintendo stopped releasing so much software and just focused on really bolstering a couple of choice games; it was working great at the beginning of the Switches life span and am not sure why they changed that strategy.... Going by the article and common sense, putting years into your work to have it released along side clearly much lower quality stuff is frustrating. Don't mind Steam being the place where everything gets posted up but would really appreciate better curation on other platforms

 

[Quad Lasers]

Reading the two devs say that Valve's 30 percent cut is worse than Sony/Microsoft because you can't pitch Valve a game or because they just "host a download and take payment" makes this article feel like Polygon accidentally interviewed a bunch of message board users wearing fake mustaches.

 

[Launchpad]

If you're a small development house now, i don't think Steam is the right avenue to get initial recgonition and momentum. I think you'd be better off working with Nintendo and getting screentime during a Direct or Nindies presentation, or maybe even trying to get a spot on Inside XBox.

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Nintendo will run into the same issue shortly. They are releasing an absolute buttload of games every week and it's becoming harder and harder to stand out. At least Steam actually has some curation tools even if they aren't ideal.

 

[Vault]

Luckily Valve isn't run by these idiots

 

[Elfotografoalocado]

Games are cheaper in the US compared to the euro countries, but they are expensive compared to LATAM, East Europe and SEA.

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Not in my experience. Maybe compared to. Russia and South Africa, but not compared to Japan, or even Mexico.
And anywhere south of Mexico, besides perhaps Colombia, has extremely overpriced gaming prices in retail and very little digital support.

 

[Deleted member 4044]

Nintendo will run into the same issue shortly. They are releasing an absolute buttload of games every week and it's becoming harder and harder to stand out. At least Steam actually has some curation tools even if they aren't ideal.

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That's true, but Nintendo would still have Nindie showcases for upcoming games, which would presumably be the time to shine for games that haven't been released yet. There's no real equivalent on the PC side. It's one of the few things I think Nintendo does really well.

 

[Deleted member 426]

Whilst I agree that Steam should do more to curate quality content, what this reads like is people asking for specialist treatment for their own games which they perceive to be of a higher quality. That kind of elitism isn't what steam needs.

Really I think the solution is games media having a much bigger focus on PC. Consoles get loads of support despite PC being a much bigger market. It makes no sense.

 

[Hektor]

The complaints about steam reviews are (with some exceptions) generally valid.
Negative reviews that aren't actually reviewing your product suck, however, they also aren't the reason your game bombs, because every game has to deal with dumb reviews and shitposts, be it on steam or any other website.

Regarding the regional pricing, criticizing that the tools valve gives you can be improved, fine, i can't judge it myself, but it seemed sensible.
That said, if you as a developer don't even know that regional pricing is a thing, you honestly just completely failed at your job of informing yourself about the platform.
Basically every user knows about it, as a dev you have no excuse.

I've had a look and only found one actual developer name and game. Without actually knowing what games these people developed this article is useless imo. The games could be total garbage that didn't sell because they're just not very good. Or they could be amazing and this is a very real problem. How can we know?

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There's two developers by name.
One developer being positive about steam, having launched two very successful games https://store.steampowered.com/app/456670/Hand_of_Fate_2/
The other being negative about steam, having bombed on there https://store.steampowered.com/app/710690/The_Path_of_Motus/

Looking at both those games, i think it's pretty clear why one was successful and the other is not. And it's not "Algorithms"

 

[DSP]

"Then Valve takes a 30 percent cut for doing next to nothing."

That feels a bit hyperbolic, doesn't it? I can understand the frustration of wanting a more hands on support and activity with certain functions and parts of the Steam platform, but next to nothing, when you get that platform to distribute, sell and maintain your game?

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Read the article, compared with other stores that take 30 percent they don't do much. That's what they are saying.

 

[Bjones]

But if it wasn't for steam a lot of indie devs wouldn't make any money.

 

[Launchpad]

That's true, but Nintendo would still have Nindie showcases for upcoming games, which would presumably be the time to shine for games that haven't been released yet. There's no real equivalent on the PC side. It's one of the few things I think Nintendo does really well.

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These things do exist but they are community run. Notable Steam Releases is a really good Twitter to follow for games and I believe they have a YouTube channel too. Valve should be doing more but the community is doing a great job of it imo.

 

[OrdinaryPrime]

Luckily Valve isn't run by these idiots

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Nah it's run by libertarian immoral peeps.

 

[Airbar]

The review issues are worth discussing though. Not even just in the context of bug reports - at least those have some legitimacy, but people using them to push a social agenda. That said I'm not really sure what Valve can do to fix them outside of just generally being generally quicker to deal with such problems.

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The review system legit sucks but I've never found any storefront in any field having a good system. Looking at reviews on Amazon and why some are so low you read stuff like "yeah the product is great, but delivery was garbage". And the example in the article of a dev flagging the legit complaint of someone about an outside EULA is mindboggling. EULAs are not binding in parts of Europe anyway when they are not between buyer and seller.

 

[dex3108]

I'm not really sure whats with the regional pricing section? Of course you're not going to price your game with a direct conversion in a region that couldn't afford that much. Frankly Valves solution seems 10x better than iOS which as far as I'm aware, doesn't give you any choice at all in it. Last I heard you just choose a price out of a list and it automatically creates the conversion rates. Which stem from being good for some regions, and awful for others (prices end up being 30% more here even though our VAT is only 20% *eyeroll*). Where as you can still choose your own on Steam (that imagine in the article even backs that one up since it has an edit button next to the prices).

The review issues are worth discussing though. Not even just in the context of bug reports - at least those have some legitimacy, but people using them to push a social agenda. That said I'm not really sure what Valve can do to fix them outside of just generally being generally quicker to deal with such problems.

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Does Sony or MS provides platform for support? They don't even give you forum for each game.

 

[TC McQueen]

I'm not too surprised that developers feel like Valve's cut is a terrible deal, not only because of the issues they raise in the article itself, but Valve's tendency to not announce they're working on a thing until they drop it on everyone out of the blue means that any meaningful "okay, so that's where my money's been going" mental connection between that and the cut Valve's taking from them. Stuff like Photon - getting Windows games to run on Linux - is great for both developers and players, but since Valve doesn't let them know about stuff like that (even though they're going to be major beneficiaries), there's literally no reason for them to think that any money Valve's taking from them has provided any sort of value in return.

 

[Vault]

Valve made Russia one of Steams biggest markets by making prices sensible.

People would just pirate if the prices were the same as US and Europe

 

[Deleted member 4044]

These things do exist but they are community run. Notable Steam Releases is a really good Twitter to follow for games and I believe they have a YouTube channel too. Valve should be doing more but the community is doing a great job of it imo.

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I think one of the unspoken motivations behind the article is that Valve outsources a ton of its work to the community. From TF2 items and weapons to content curation, they will try to get away with not doing something themselves if they can. The article just does a really bad job of conveying that among some takes that seem naive.

 

[bobnowhere]

There are heaps of good games getting buried, no doubt about that. But they are not getting buried under shovelware, they are getting buried by other good games.

 

[scitek]

Oh boy. This is quite the article.

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The comparisons made a little further down to Sony and Microsoft seem OK to me. If they do provide a contact, and Valve doesn't, then I can understand their frustration. But they are certainly treating a lot of things Valve provides as if they're nothing.

 

[IronicSonic]

20 devs isn't a big enough sample size to support the conclusions this article makes.

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It is If the themes the devs are talking are common and each interview add less and less information. In qualitative research this idea is known as "Theoretical Saturation"