You know what also justifies Valve's 30% cut? Their outstanding efforts in getting games to run on Linux, and the overall impact that this had on the Linux community.
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Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
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My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
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I don't think I'd be running Linux as my only daily driver if not for this. I was slightly dreading switching because I feared spending hours trying to fix broken games, but it's been astonishingly straightforward (which facilitated me learning to live in Linux in a way I hadn't been able to when was dual booting with Windows)
Since the headline blew it, the game mentioned is called Cosmoteer.
Currently 20% off!
I know this whole thing is probably just an ad, but it's working on me lol
Is this controversial? You're paying for the storefront.
You aren't even paying anything, you literally just give them a cut of your turnover when you don't sell anything they carry the costs of it.
You give them a cut of the turnover on their site(steam). Important distinction. A developer can generate steam keys for free and sell them elswhere, as long as the price is the same as on steam.
30% seems rather high
but... when they handle payments, refunds, advertising (within their application) and game download costs (server infrastructure?), etc etc etc. it doesnt seem that crazy.
at least, for a lot of indie developers, not having to worry about those things, might easily be worth those 30%
Not to mention the reviews, community hubs, workshop, video streaming and recording, controller support, cloud saves, family sharing.
30% may be a lot, but it's not like they're just sitting on it.
EA and Ubisoft don't offer (most of) those features with their launchers where they do get the full proceeds.
Not to mention Steam/Valve uses a significant portion of their resources to develop Proton.
Putting pressure on Microsoft is PRICELESS.
I remember PirateSoftware talking about the remote play online co-op on steam, I think I found it here:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Iu4kpM692vI
Definitely doesn't seem to be sitting on it. Hell man, I have re-bought some games on other platforms just to re-play it on my Steam Deck.
I can't defend/accost the 30% simply due to my lack of knowledge in the industry.
A couple of times, Steam Achievements have been a deciding factor in me not pirating a game. I know it's dumb but ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
I'd say it's very reasonable. Steam is EXPENSIVE. If you know anything about bandwidth, it's the insane cost. They don't do many exclusivity deals, and they even let you sell steam keys elsewhere with 0 cut for steam without giving users a degraded experience.
For it to "even out" they'd only have to increase your reach ~50%.
They do way more than that. And they give you an inherent legitimacy that putting it on your own site doesn't. It's not just handling refunds; it's the certainty as an end user that you'll get one hassle free.
Without Steam (or another retailer with similar traits), selling an indie game would be closer to a pipe dream than really hard. In almost all cases (and this seems to apply even to AAA publishers as most of them come back), the 30% they're taking is money you wouldn't have without them.
I think there are a lot of people who weren't around for, or don't remember, how buying digital titles was before Steam got quite so popular.
It was pretty rare, and the overwhelming majority of indie games were released for free. There just wasn't many good ways to get the word out, and most ways of taking payment were costly enough to set up that it was rarely worth trying to get some meager amount of pay if you were just a one man show with no external financial backing.
Anyone who is old enough to remember trying to buy digital copies of games pre-Steam knows how much value Stream brings to the table.
If it's not on Steam, I don't even consider it.
What about GOG and its DRM-free games? What about Itch.io and its exceptionally low cut and pretty much completely open-door policy? There are other services that are good. Origin, UPlay, Epic, and other stuff sucking does not mean they're all bad.
A few indie devs who hated the idea of storefronts because of the bad taste of Apple self published only on their website. When they finally (after years) switched to steam, every single one of them shared how they got like a multiplier of sales.
One indie dev shared how he made more in revenue in a month on Steam than he did in a decade of self publishing.
That's life-changing.
Apple is the same deal, though. There's a reason there's a lot more solo devs/small teams making money on iOS than Android. Their ecosystem doesn't do all the work for you, but it absolutely provides a lot of help. You might not like, for example, the Human Interface guidelines, but the enforced consistency in behavior makes a lot more people a lot more willing to buy things.
In this thread:
Steam is bad because they are a company that makes money. They would be better if they made no money and all games were advertised at their expense. Oh and I must post my game on Steam because it's their fault no one else has bothered to even try and make a truly viable alternative.
I have not much against steam.
But gog is a more than viable alternative to steam.
Let's not act as if there's no alternative when itch.io or gog exists.
Has steam more features? Yes. Is better for some things? Yes. Is the only viable alternative as a game store? No.
I like GoG. I like that they push companies to remove DRM. I like that I can make offline backups of my games.
I prefer GoG over Steam when possible, but Steam is still infinitely more user friendly, and if the game in question is heavily multiplayer-focused, I’ll probably pick Steam over GoG just to use Steam’s multiplayer infrastructure.
GOG has had games that fail to maintain parity with Steam releases.
GOG requires workarounds on Linux moreso than Steam.
The first is not totally GOG's fault but they should take action. If GOG is truly about preservation, they should make Linux a priority.
My second biggest gaming library is GOG. I love them in theory but Steam wipes the floor with them in terms of who gets my business in part because of those.
the only ones that conplain the 30% cut are bilionaries companies
I have mixed feelings on it.
When I was putting out games, publishing on Steam would mean a guaranteed 1 million impressions on the "New releases" list. That's incredible exposure for an indie title, which often succeed or fail on exposure alone.
But 30% can be a lot for those same indie teams, especially combined with taxes. You can put years of work into a title and lose half the money it earns to groups that didn't directly contribute at all. It can easily be enough money that long-term support or follow up games just aren't viable. It can be your entire outsourcing budget or a whole employee for a year.
And after that initial exposure, you're not getting much for your perputual 30%. The value of Steamworks can vary greatly game by game so you could end up paying $30k for $100 of bandwidth and minor marketing through things like sales and rich presence.
I would much prefer to see something like "30% after the first $X in sales". Their cut would kick in only after they've demonstrated their value as a platform and small teams wouldn't have to watch a company with billions of dollars take a very large bite out of their very small pie.
Then generate the steamkey(for free) and sell them elsewhere! Steam is toatally Ok with that, as long as the price is the same.
Of course it's worth it, there's no question about it. Depending on the case it might probably be worth it if Steam took 95%.
For me, the question remains if 20% were "enough" for Steam and still make a shitload of money, or even 10%. Of course we can't know but it seems likely.
95% is closer to what board game publishers take - best I've seen is 10% for the designer
Granted they have a lot more to lose
From that perspective seems Steam is perfectly fine
Ah, Cosmoteer. Extremely fun for like 10 hours, then you realize there is nothing left to do. I guess that dev has made a fortune off of it though, so hats off to that guy.
Honestly that sounds fine. It's okay if a small game is only entertaining for 10 hours provided the price is reasonable. We shouldn't expect every game to be an infinitely replayability mill
It confuses the hell out of me that we don't say that about any other media.
"This movie that I spent $18 per person on only lasts 97 minutes what a rip off."
I mean, most of us who recognize that that's shitty value just don't go to theatres.
It's why they're dying.
I agree. But people should be aware that even though "1.0" released in 2022, Cosmoteer has been around since 2011. It's far from being the worst example of a game in eternal early access, though I would say it isn't one of the better ones.
wasn't portal just a mod? very short game, but has some of the most memorable moments in all of gaming
portal was its own game, but it had a very unenthusiastic release. stanley parable and gmod were mods
Its still being updated and you can play for looong when you like building ships until your CPU melts.
Just a few days ago, I wrote a comment about how you would theoretically try and become a significant competitor to Steam, and one of the points I raised was that Steam's storefront and recommendations are very generous (compared to others). It makes a huge difference that even indie games can appear on the front page regularly, both improving user and dev experiences. Players find games that they enjoy, while devs pay a very small amount to get effective, targetted advertisements.
I found weird ass games like Age of Decadence because of steam. I dount I wouldve found that lovingly crafted load of slavic jank without steam, or atleast it wouldve been until Warlocracy made a video on it.
It's also just the standard for selling your game on a big storefront.
It absolutely is.