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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
It's undoubtedly a rather large barrier for small indies who don't have a breakout hit (which is what games like Stardew Valley and Hollow Knight are), but yeah, independent "AA" studios can certainly pass it quite easily. And that's really important for me personally, since that space is where a lot of my favourite games are made. That will also make their long-tail sales just a bit more meaningful.
Very well said.
So basically the situation is:
For some developers things will stay as they have always been and how the competition handles it as well
For the rest things will get better
And that's......bad?
For some developers things will stay as they have always been and how the competition handles it as well
For the rest things will get better
And that's......bad?
It's redundant in a thread about sales. It shows Activision was able to reach a large amount of gamers. It's irrelanvent to the discussion if they stayed or left after playing
As a company you are supposed to coddle and reward financial partners that make you the least amount of money, apparently.
Not even that, it is at worse things will stay the same, at best things will get better even for those that don't get the lower cut since they will likely end up with a bigger market to sell games to because of this, or those bigger devs might charge less for a game (ok probably not but they could), which in turn means there is more money to be spent on other smaller games as well.
Yeah, Should be the other way around, imo.
Valve should make their cash by charging for keys that go to key resellers/other stores. They don't see a penny from those sales and cover all the cost.
You can't be f*cking serious... You actually want them to cancel one of their most pro-consumer decisions?
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Basically this. As of now they have lost both EA and Activision and I cannot imagine Ubisoft will be too far behind. Bethesda were probably hoping F76 would increase the visibility of their own launcher but we all know how that went.
I think Ubisoft would have jumped ship a long time ago if they had any intention of doing so. Uplay has been around for a long time.
Sony, MS and Nintendo also take 30%.
And now Valve takes less for succesful games.
Sony Microsoft Nintendo apple Google and CD Project all take 30%.
Valve is technically now the best storefront because if your indie resonates with a large audience you can make more money.
Hosting, tonnes of free development tools, automatic Linux support (for most games), a forum for community feedback and participation, developer support, I could go on.
These are all things which, were the publisher were to do it themselves, would cost a fair amount of money.
It's also the same cut that GOG and all the console manufacturers take. So, why is it such a problem when Valve does it? Especially when many of them do much less than Valve.
So like...a republican...
Tbh idk why that's the policy. Shouldn't it be less for the baseline and as it gets more successful you tax them higher...
Yeah, Fuck Valve for being the only one to charge 30% while doing close to nothing , They should learn from Origin, GOG, Sony, MS , Nintendo. that work their ass off to earning that 30%.
Valve is trying to get big publishers to stay on the platform not leave to create their own. Valve doesn't tax they're not a government.
Because large publishers are threatening to leave. Valve are doing what they can to keep them around.
It would be nice if Valve were to help out indie studios really struggling to make enough, but you would have to be completely ignorant to not see why Valve have been pressured into giving extras to AAA publishers.
Please tell me what any of those do to earn their 30% which Valve does not. Go on.
Excellent. Hopefully it will mean some bigger publishers come back. Besides the obvious money savings, having an impartial, third-party handle distribution separately from publishers (and a privately owned company, at that).
To the indies: keep making good games that sell. Or sell to thirsty-ass switch owners.
To the indies: keep making good games that sell. Or sell to thirsty-ass switch owners.
Im pretty sure if its less for the baseline you would see even more shovelware, since people just pay the 100$ and release 50 other hentai puzzles and earn more.
The new policy is done to entice big pubs to stay on Steam instead of releasing games exclusively for their own launcher.
Valve doesnt care if "My first Unity game" is on Steam or not. They (and I am also pretty sure consumers) care if the newest Elder Scrolls is on Steam.
I guess its sarcasm.
I'm not really seeing the issue here, for most titles nothing changes, and a few will earn a bit more for the dev/publisher. And Steam already gives great benefits and features for the cut they take.
Clearly, Sony and Microsoft need to charge developers more in order to pay all the accountants they need to handle the monthly payments they force gamers to make in order to be allowed to play online and use other features which are free on Steam.
The 30% has always been negotiable. Usually it's industry standard to sign an NDA of sorts so you won't ever know what deals are cut behind the scenes for various publishers and developers.
We already know console platform owners often assist with marketing budgets which is no small amount of money. The contract cut for that will no doubt be different than one cut for a game they have less investment in doing well.
I think it's more interesting Valve announced it in this way given the target audience for their message.
We already know console platform owners often assist with marketing budgets which is no small amount of money. The contract cut for that will no doubt be different than one cut for a game they have less investment in doing well.
I think it's more interesting Valve announced it in this way given the target audience for their message.
Sony & MS take 30% and do less for the developers than Valve do.
At least try and hide your bias.
I'd say creating and selling hardware, often at a loss is more than what Valve does. Sure they have forums and refunds but I'd think that's much cheaper than subsidizing hardware creation and distribution.
None of the console manufacturers are currently selling their hardware at a loss. This hasn't been the case since the start of the 360/PS3 era.
They don't even create as much hardware as they used to, either. They are all modified variants of off the shelf APU's from AMD, or in the case of the Switch, the Nvidia Shield.
So much wrong with this, I don't even know where to start.
Lol. When you have nothing of note to argue you say something like this.
Console makers spend billions creating, marketing, and selling their platforms - often at a loss. Yet a piece of software on a PC takes more risk / does more?
Come on now son.
lmfao, console makers don't make consoles at a loss, and they sure as shit don't do it for other developers either.
None of the platform holders sell at a loss right now, and Valve works on a lot of hardware. Try harder.
Good job also ignoring all their R&D on major driver and API improvements and initiatives like Proton.
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Type of shit?
This whole construction that Valve hasn't done or doesn't do anything for the cuts really must stop.
People seem to take extensive developer tools and a pretty faultless worldwide distribution/update system for granted now.
Reicepts please. Also include console marketing budgets and R & D.
I'll be waiting.
Receipts for them operating at a loss please. Also include console marketing budgets and R & D.
I'll be waiting.
This would devastate the entire PC gaming market. It would kill off many of these smaller retailer sites and key sites and it would lead to people buying less games overall because prices would be higher. Ultimately pubs would rather people pay $35-45 for a game at launch than $0.
At nearly every dev conference, Valve is usually considered the worst storefront by far for smaller devs, mostly due to the number of overall releases. This won't impact that, it's entirely unrelated. The tools valve offers usually don't really make up for that (as they usually don't impact these games much), that's why smaller devs are often not very happy with this here.
The best storefront currently for smaller ones is probably the switch, due to the number of releases. May change in the future. As long as it's not gog, I'm happy enough any of them works.
Not a single one of those show them selling hardware at a loss.
source for this "every dev conference"? Actual stats? Because as someone who actually follows them, that statement couldn't possibly be more incorrect.
Trying to curb the scourge of launchers and make their launcher the hub again. Can't blame them I guess. Makes sense.
Bummer for smaller developers but of course it is.
Bummer for smaller developers but of course it is.
Sure. By now I'd expect they are making a slight amount of money due to time and scale, that's manufacturing 101.
Like is it really not known that consoles do the razor blade approach to making money? That's wild new news to ya'll?
You do know they make the real money from the 30% right? Rest is PS+, Live etc with first party thrown in for good measure - meaningful for Nintendo and slowly becoming a thing for PlayStation.
Console manufacturers take not only 30% for games directly sold through their online storefronts like valve, they also take a cut for retail copies, something valve isn't doing with retail copies / steamkeys
Console manufactures also make profits via paywalling online services, something valve isn't doing.
Console manufactures also make profits through hardware and periphery sales, something valve is doing, but at a vastly smaller scale.
But of course platform warrior will ignore these kinda things when screeching.
Console manufactures also make profits via paywalling online services, something valve isn't doing.
Console manufactures also make profits through hardware and periphery sales, something valve is doing, but at a vastly smaller scale.
But of course platform warrior will ignore these kinda things when screeching.