Humble Store sells Steam keys, so 0% to Steam, I think 10% to charity, 15% to Humble, while using Steam's infrastructure for all distribution and the like.
Just checked a purchase on the Humble Store and it notes 5% goes to charity (* PayPal Giving Fund's administrative fee and applicable sales taxes, VAT, and payment processor fees (which typically average 6 to 7% across all transactions) are deducted from the donation )
Those 3 provide a commercial platform that allow easy access gaming to millions.
This is never going to be the case. A lot of steam keys are sold via other websites... And valve gets a big fat 0% cut on these.
I remember a post by a dev explaining the difference some years ago where physical releases ended up taking about 50-60% of the sales price (all costs included throughout the entire process) and could take up to 6 months before you started to see a return, whereas digital (Steam) only took 30% and you'd get your money the same month it was sold.
The platform cut is smaller in retail than digital. Publishers get less because there are more cuts in physical form (manufacturing and retail costs).
This is the post I had in mind, what is the distributor fee something the console manufacturers also charge?
All of these names create a platform for the games. Apple iOS or whatever Iphones use, Google with android, the other 3 with their platforms they researched, developed, and sell at a loss or for Nintendo a bit of a profit(?). Apple and Google do not have much of a risk in their platform anymore, but for the consoles, they can end up with a bad generation like Dreamcast, or for new contenders for a piece of the easy gaming device pie it can fail horribly. Steam? A windows app that serve games, no hardware or OS, though they are working on a Linux OS, though their Steam Machines thing may be over. If they had their own OS, and hardware that would be more worth the fee.
Yeah... You also have to get permission and buy dev kits from the 3. It's how it works. They also have to certify your work for it to be released on their platform as well. If they don't like it, they can reject it and have you fix the issues they have with it (Sony started censoring things iirc. Like nudity or something.).
No, the boxes that play the games don't make much of a profit (again I think Nintendo manage to have it making an ok profit from the start). They usually sell at a loss in hope that the owners buy many games. Games are where the money is for them. Printer and ink cartridge situation. Nasa or Saddam Hussein buying up a ton of PS2's for experiments was a horrible situation for Sony, and the people that bought a ton of PS3's. All those systems not buying games. The same with Playstation Vita, so many people bought the system, but not many games. Good emulator apparently.
heh, steam isn't needed to make PC games. Steam is a storefront. The same games on steam could be put on any other store without steam's drm and work on your PC and Windows just fine. Publishers go to steam for exposure. For example, MMO devs that had their own stand alone launcher, and wanted to get a more exposure/users went to steam which then would take 30% from every microtransaction from the user that tried the steam version, even if they stopped using the steam version (David Brevik, said it was worth it). Black Desert wouldn't even let you share the same account if you got the steam version, that was a way around being locked to the Steam fee.
This is the best post in this thread. This loyalty to publishers narrative has gotten really tiresome since this began.
Like I said in an above reply, for some devs being on Steam's store is worth it for the exposure to it's community of players. Valve seem to have a way of making it's ecosystem attractive. I bought the darn Steam Controller not knowing I had to keep steam open to use it (they got me there), and then people are into card collecting, buying cheap codes from other storefronts that lead you back to Steam.
About the first comment here. Just because AMD or Dolby, or Samsung made different parts of a product doesn't mean they basically did it all. It has to be cooled, it has to be made to run apps, it has to have protection to prevent piracy, there's more to it than who makes the tires, or the screws.
I did not say they didn't do anything " ", what the heck? I'm glad they are branching into Linux, and I'm super happy Google Stadia is using Linux. Anything to make sure Windows isn't the only place we have to play PC games. All it takes is for Microsoft to do something stupid, but hopefully with Google putting it's whole service on Linux that will shift developers to move over.
I know some games don't require steam to run in order for you to launch it, but you are still on steam to enter the code, have your information tracked, and have your eyes on steam. It's not a bad thing it's well done.
Valve has been developing Linux into a gaming-compatible OS (they funded and supported all the recent rapid progress in that direction), they continuously add features to Steamworks (of which DRM is not even a tertiary purpose), they have matchmaking and content delivery servers across the world that they (will, soon) let developers use for free, they are responsible for the best controller input API in the industry, and the most flexible virtual reality infrastructure that they are also developing their own hardware for (Valve Index, with what was formerly known as Knuckles controllers), they have developed their own game streaming API that they're now expanding to worldwide over-the-net operation, and the Steam Big Picture Mode is an OS-within-an-OS that allows you to operate most if not all of Steam's functions with just a controller, including while streaming from your PC to your smart TV or phone/tablet. And they made the Source engine. This is not even taking the actual Steam storefront and its constant improvement into account.
They'll probably just make it so 12% is their minimum cut and devs can give them more in exchange for features and services.
Seriously, I was so jealous. It seems like they can't do it on Windows. We have some stuff though.
I only mention that because it seems people think Valve gets nothing out of it. I wish more PC games were available on other stores than Steam, but they are comfortable with only offering a Steam version, and Steam only is better than nothing for sure. Hopefully in the future they will put their games on steam + other stores by default.
