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Valve changes revenue sharing for Steam to allow successful developers to earn bigger percentage cut
- Thread starter Dusk Golem
- Start date
I know why they are doing this, it doesn't mean I can't wish also indies got some help.
A chance to sell games on the most popular store around and reaping the benefits of their server infrastructure and services is their "help".
I swear this is starting to remind me of when they asked 100 bucks to access Greenlight and people cried that "Some devs can't afford even that".
In the sense that it seems to come from the same misunderstanding: the idea that Valve is out there to help "garage games", when their goal is actually having on their store games that can be successful.
There's also value in having your product on sale where it can actually sell the most.
Not sure why this gets constantly ignored and people talk about the MARKET STANDARD 30% cur as some sort of intolerable abuse.
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Technically an indie might get more money from your sale this way, but I'd much rather you bought on steam which contributes to metrics and increase the chances of snowballing visibility, plus you can leave a positive steam review that gets counted in the main counter that way (key reviews only show up when filtered).
I think a lower bound will actually be useful, if nothing else to try and deter all the Asset Flips off the steam store (Put some effort in if you want a good cut).
But I know full well there is many a game that is good that no one probably has heard of due to bad circumstances or lack of budget to market the game so I don't think this is a working scenario.
And the boundaries sorta imply they have to be among the best if you want a good cut. Go look at their best seller list form the previous years. I assume you need a Bronze minimum to get some of these benefits.
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/2017_best_sellers/
Even really big successful Indies from last year like Night in the Woods, What Remains of Edith Finch and Pyre didn't even crack Bronze.
But I know full well there is many a game that is good that no one probably has heard of due to bad circumstances or lack of budget to market the game so I don't think this is a working scenario.
And the boundaries sorta imply they have to be among the best if you want a good cut. Go look at their best seller list form the previous years. I assume you need a Bronze minimum to get some of these benefits.
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/2017_best_sellers/
Even really big successful Indies from last year like Night in the Woods, What Remains of Edith Finch and Pyre didn't even crack Bronze.
OP
OP
I don't mean to call some people out, but the heart of it really is just "console warring", since Valve has the biggest PC platform with Steam, thus 'attacking' Valve is a way to try and do "smear campaign" things on PC gaming. THAT'S NOT TO SAY that no one should ever take issue with Valve and critique things, having a voice and vocalizing issue and concern is all fair with free speech on a forum and all that, and to try and make the voice be heard. But it's adamantly clear even here on Era with Valve threads that not everyone is arguing in good faith and are more just contesting due to having 'personal stakes' in the matter.
Like I can see arguments about the cut and how it favors AAA over indies, but even before this change Valve was following an industry standard, and actually does a lot for that cut, and continually add more and more to their platform to make it appealing for developers & consumers, all while helping PC gaming grow as a whole. They do far more good for indies than not even, no indie is forced to be on Steam of course, but there's definitely incentives to want to be on Steam for indies. Valve is a business, and doing bushiness moves is fucking obviously what they're going to do. They're trying to make money, not be a charity run for the health of the industry or whatever some seem to be in argument of. But as they perform well as a business, they do a lot of things they don't necessarily have to for the help of the PC gaming industry and climate, which does benefit them of course but also benefits more than them. both developers and consumers.
But for many people, they just like to repetitively hammer in any leverage they have to complain and try to be dismissive of what they've done because it's not their platform/company of choice, or whatever.
I'm sure now we'll see all these companies go back to allowing Steam as an option.
we won't because it was never about the 30% cut. It was just about trying to reduce steam's marketshare which is why you can buy Origin games on other sites that DO take a 30% cut
The thing about AAA publishers is that they don't truly need it. EA does fine, and Activision has shown (with the latest CoD) that they're fine without it too.
Ubisoft is building up their own storefront, and Bethesda has its own launcher. That only leaves T2 and the Japanese publishers without an alternative.
That 75%/25% split is possible for mid-tier games that are successful - an average price of $20 at 500k sales gets you there which isn't ridiculous for a popular $40 game. You're not hitting those figures with a small indie title unless you've got a hit on the level of something like Undertale or Dead Cells though which is a level that even most popular indie games don't reach. And you're not hitting the 80%/20% split short of a AAA blockbuster or the next Minecraft.
100%
Can't have any PC thread with Valve mentioned without the plebs crying about the cut, when Sony & MS charge the same.
Lets of course also completely ignore the upper bound cost from the console platform holders in this discussion too, as they would never dream of being so greedy.
/s
In my eyes this is the opposite of a good thing.
You take more money from people that make less and less from the ones that make more? i mean... what?
You take more money from people that make less and less from the ones that make more? i mean... what?
Bah, that's like giving multibillion dollars companies tax breaks in my eyes.
"We have to cut them some slack even if they are the ones that most can afford it because we want to keep them willing to stay here/invest/whatever"
This honestly has huge implications for the gaming landscape. PC players are becoming more valuable to 3rd parties. This could have long term consequences for the console business.
literally everything a company does is done expecting it will make them more money at some point. even all the 'nice' things they do like donating to charity or giving stuff away is done to improve their reputation, market to a certain demographic or increase brand loyalty.
It's not just Valve/PC threads, which are embarrassing enough. System Warring is present everywhere. Sales threads are often just an excuse for people to pretend like they're stockholders in their favorite companies. There are entire threads where people salivate over developers getting bought out, because it's another get in the war. Game of the Year discussions are often a not-so-subtle opportunity to win for their favorite platform-holder. Graphics threads are the same thing, and hit their worse at the start of a new generation.
It's disgusting.
Agreed.
Some people don't get business analysis is multi dimensional, one thing impacts another and with the data Valve has access to they can get some good ideas on the value add of big publishers beyond an initial purchase.
And who has the leverage? Who drives customers to Steam and in turn drives significant user engagement.
It's the successful games. An arbitrary reduced cut of eg 20% isn't healthy for competition within the ecosystem of third parties relying on Valve taking 0% and maintaining their own margin of 30% for their own costs / profitability. Larger distributors surely could compete. Go lower than that for a platform as large as Steam, and I'd guess they run into competition law issues. Neither option is healthy for their ecosystem.
And of course Valve want to earn and maintain significant revenue themselves (dumb argument in these threads)
They do this already (as did Steam) but not on a well defined basis or universally. What Valve have done now is make very clear set of lines in the sand. This is aimed as they say, at the devs of big games "further aligning their interests with Steam and the community", ie ensuring they continue to support Steam (along with whatever else they want to do)
Absolutely. System warring, fanboyism, and corporate worship are problems which manifest themselves in a lot of ways here. Not just Valve/PC threads.
Valve/PC threads however, are often unreadable because of it.
games with less sales should probably pay less since every $ might count for the developer, also they generate less traffic so probably Valve is investing less on that for them...
like 10% sounds a lot fairer in my mind than 25%...
but I understand, they are seeing more and more big publishers with their own platforms to avoid the Steam tax.
like 10% sounds a lot fairer in my mind than 25%...
but I understand, they are seeing more and more big publishers with their own platforms to avoid the Steam tax.
OR... You reward people that make you more money and literally nothing changes for the worse for everyone else?
I never not laugh at this - these poor shmucks own like 6 versions of their favorite console, 0 shares of stock and act like they are on the development team for first party development.
It's embarrassing how much pride they take in being a low level retail customer
That guy is joking btw. He is a PCera member.
This didn't take long.
I know it can be difficult to tell when this forum gets a lot of serious comments from people saying similar things.
The Windows 8 and 8.1 store revenue share was sort of like this - it started at 70/30 but went to 80/20 if you did over some amount of revenue (much less than $10M though, I think it might have been $50k?). This was changed with Windows 10 to match the 70/30 ratio used by Windows Phone 7/8, and more recently changed again to be 95/5 or 85/15 in the case of non-games, but still 70/30 for games.
Let me predict that this is the last post you will make in this thread, because its a shit post and you are not going to explain why it is too much when it is the industry standard.
This move is also applicable to indies. As long as their game exceed that threshold.
I guess Steam was beginning to see their dominant position in the PC space as being under threat. If people have a bunch of launchers installed, there's more chance that sales go to the other launchers instead of Steam.
I'm not sure if i'm happy with this change as it will discourage competition. If every game is on Steam, there is no need to have multiple launchers and then Steam is able to take advantage of their monopoly over the market.
Yep. This is to entice the bigger players to stay on Steam. That's great and all but it would be good to see the indies get some love too.