Such as?
Asking because "Hate" is a very strong word, and honestly I can't think of anything they've done that would elicit that emotion...
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[PC Gamer] Valve faces another lawsuit over Steam's dominance of the PC market (Update: Valve responds)
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Asking because "Hate" is a very strong word, and honestly I can't think of anything they've done that would elicit that emotion...
For me, 30% is just too much, just going on steam now, you see so many new developers and their game be lost amongst piles and piles of crap. Just because they have the biggest user base, doesn't mean steam can highlight every game that comes there way, but that's the only option right, the audience expects every game to be on Steam.
I don't hate Valve, I don't hate any store front, but none of them are our friend here, there there to make as much money as possible from us, but 30% is just way to much for what Steam provides for smaller devs.
I understand his point. But his point about publishers raising costs is absolute bs. They charge the same amount either way and take the extra profits.
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It's PCGamer which literally posts articles sponsored by epic
I jumped into PC gaming about a year ago. I think I've played about 35 games so far and 33 of them have been on Steam. The sales and the features are just too good to pass on. If something new doesn't release on Steam I'm always concidering waiting until it does.
What store front gives you access to millions of gamers with that kind of purchasing power while being as feature rich a Steam ? If you say 30% is too much for what it provides there has to be an alternative offering the same for less otherwise the argument doesn't make a lot of sense.
We're only a decade out from when very few games were released on Steam. Using SteamSpy (gross!), only 325 games released on Steam in 2010. And what do you think devs/pubs complained about then? Valve gatekeeping Steam by only allowing select games on the store.
Valve cannot win here, because everyone expects them to do better, but "better" is a subjective word that's relative to position in the industry and success of games.
I often read that: Games being lost amongst piles of crap.
But people never explain that point. Can anyone point me toward a gem that was robbed by the pile of crap ?
I'll be harsh, but if you're lost amongst piles and piles of crap... Maybe that's where you belong ?
There are games on the store that seem like they should be doing better than they are, based on the few reviews they have and the general quality and genre. But the same can be said for, say, Amazon - there are undoubtedly books that should sell more but don't. That doesn't mean they're crappy, it just means that a) people don't know about them, or b) people who do know about them can't afford them (either financially or in terms of time commitments). That's unfortunately life, and why Valve keep on refining the store.
Then again, my point isn't that those games are shitty. My point is that those games don't get lost because of the bad games, but because of the good games.
Ah, that is true, yeah. The general quality of games has risen so much higher in the past 10 years, especially in the indie space where fears of being lost are greatest.
I feel like if you're an indie dev getting into the market expecting to make money, 30% cut or 0% cut, 90% of the time you're not getting anything either way, it's not like 15 years ago where you could make a crap flash game and get a couple thousand to have it sponsored.
The barrier to entry on the market has been drastically reduced, allowing people to make products that would never have seen mass distribution 5, 10 years ago.
The tools for making games are so much more advanced than they used to be that practically anyone can make a game with little effort as long as they don't burn out on it.
Because of this there are hundreds of games releasing each week, sometimes hundreds a day.
I don't think you can dump your random game on the steam store with no USP, no marketing, no outreach whatsoever and then when it fails blame it on the cut or on valve.
I mean really the cut should be the opposite of what it is now, increase the more sales you have, rather than decrease, but even if the cut started at say 15% or whatever, people would still be complaining that their games aren't selling, people would still be complaining that valve doesn't do "enough" and game publishers wouldn't be lowering their prices because the cut isn't "forcing" them to keep it high anymore.
Hell some would probably start complaining that it's too easy to make games and that valve should increase the barrier to entry because it's giving them too much competition.
The barrier to entry on the market has been drastically reduced, allowing people to make products that would never have seen mass distribution 5, 10 years ago.
The tools for making games are so much more advanced than they used to be that practically anyone can make a game with little effort as long as they don't burn out on it.
Because of this there are hundreds of games releasing each week, sometimes hundreds a day.
I don't think you can dump your random game on the steam store with no USP, no marketing, no outreach whatsoever and then when it fails blame it on the cut or on valve.
I mean really the cut should be the opposite of what it is now, increase the more sales you have, rather than decrease, but even if the cut started at say 15% or whatever, people would still be complaining that their games aren't selling, people would still be complaining that valve doesn't do "enough" and game publishers wouldn't be lowering their prices because the cut isn't "forcing" them to keep it high anymore.
Hell some would probably start complaining that it's too easy to make games and that valve should increase the barrier to entry because it's giving them too much competition.
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1- That's not true
2- But what's the problem exactly? That Steam is too good? lmfao. They aren't doing any monopolistic tactics at all. They're simply the best platform BY FAR, so people want to use it.
I'd imagine Steam probably has some of the best Discoverability tools out of most stores, but I think maybe they should take some step to reduce the clutter of super low effort games. Maybe higher barriers of entry for Steam, perhaps updating the initial payment from $100 to $250+ or something?
If you offer a good service people will buy from you, if you offer a terrible end user experience people will less likely buy from you =/= monopoly.
That is why I'm a Steam customer and will remain so. I've not been conditioned to do anything except use my own initiative for purchases.
That is why I'm a Steam customer and will remain so. I've not been conditioned to do anything except use my own initiative for purchases.
valve taking a reduced cut will never lead to reduced prices for us. even if these developers do release on a platform that takes a lower cut, and even if they do lower their prices to reflect that, they're still gonna find that the vast majority of their games are on steam. there are so many things steam offers us, including:
- an extremely generous refund policy that leads to users being more likely to take risks on unproven games
- fantastic controller support that "just works" - I can use whatever controller I can want, from the dualsense to the switch pro controller, including features like gyro. I can rebind the controller in any way I want to, even if the game itself doesn't support rebinding (or controllers at all)
- remote play, which really is groundbreaking for any co-op game. I can play pretty responsive split screen with whoever I want to over the internet, without them even having to own the game
- a review system that, despite being hated by a lot of people on here, gives us consumers actual recourse vs scummy developers. whenever I see "mixed" or "mostly negative" reviews, I can just scroll on down and take a look at why.
- fantastic discoverability that puts games I often end up really liking right at the forefront. the reason these breakout hits like valheim happen is due to this
I don't think that because there isn't an alternative offering, doesn't mean they have to charge 30%. Sure Valve is extremally successful, but I don't think that their success means they should be allowed to take more. Itch.io is a storefront that while doesn't have the same features, survives just fine with creators choosing how much of their sales they want to give to Itch. I'm absolutely not saying this is the way Steam should go, only demonstrating that you don't need 30% to be successful.
Why does it have to be a choice between gatekeeping and taking 30%, why cant Valve do neither? There's this weird narrative of 'this is just developers complaining, they should be grateful' that I think is harmful, its rough out there and people need to fight for what they deserve to earn.
One example off the top of my head is a game mentioned on a recent episode of Waypoint Radio called Inkslinger. They said how it just got buried in steam and its a really fascinating game that deserves some attention. I'd hope that with its mention on the podcast it would get a few more sales but looking at steam its still sitting at only 4 steam reviews.
These two in particular seem strange. How can you be a "Steam platform" game but not be on the Steam store? Are they actually saying they want to make use of Steam's integrated features like cloud, achievements, events, friends, etc. without a store presence on Steam itself? 🤔
Yeah the clutter of low effort games is a really interesting issue, I have no idea what the best way to handle it would be. Increasing the initial payment is great for first time developers, so that doesn't feel like the right answer to me.
Steam could gave a sort of review board that checks each game before it goes up on the storefront, just to see if its playable and it meets a certain standard, but I'm just spitballing here.
You havent really said why you think the 30% is too much ? Because usually when something is considered too much its because you can get the same deal/service or offering somewhere else for less. Its a free market and no company will just take enough to somehow survive when they are profiting from something they have built up to a powerhouse for decades.
Because if thats your take pretty much everything that is sold or being provided for a sent above its cost should be considered too much. So whats the incentive for Valve, Apple and co. to invest billions into their store fronts and ecosystems when they cant really prfot from it after they established these stores and provided developers easy access to millions of their customers ?
People always complain about Valve and Steam yet no one has manage to outdo them in terms of features and support - maybe someone needs offer something that does what Valve does better for less....then this discussion would make more sense.
Inkslinger on Steam
As an Inkslinger at Brassknee's renowned Wordshop, it's your job to write letters for the citizens of Isle Shammer. But through the veil of work lies forgotten trauma. A voice begins to speak to you in recurring daydreams, telling you about your tragic past in Nomania.
Is it that game ?
If it is, I'm sorry, of course it'll get buried. It seems to have little to no production values. The banner doesn't look appealing. It seems to be rather short (40 to 60 minutes). I'm sure it is an interesting experiment, but it seems to be just that: an experiment.
It has barely 3 reviews from publications.
I don't see a gem being buried by shit here, I see an average experiment lost between many small titles as such.
It might be only 4€, but what can you get for 4-5€ in today's market ?
Cult classics, amazing games, high quality titles.
Itch.io survives because it is not popular. Hell, they cannot implement an easy way to redeem all the games in their super popular Anti-racism bundle because it could potentially shut down their servers for a while. Itch.io is a good place, but it is a hobbyist place, not a place intended for mass appeal and mass use.
There are more than 10 games a day releasing on Steam. Valve cannot make everyone sucesful. It provides the tools for developers to make it more sucesful, but the developers cannot fully rely on just "being on Steam" to bring sucess. You need to promote the game and get the ball rolling for the Steam "help" to start amounting meaningfully.
Like for instance, Inkslinger is in a genre that is very competitive on Steam and just had a sucesful event last week:
LudoNarraCon 2023
Global Digital Festival for Narrative Games: May 4 - 8 — FREE for anyone on Steam!
LudoNarraCon
www.ludonarracon.com
And I cannot find the game being part of it.
Good games will get buried, but that is more related to a problem of having too many good games nowadays. Like these are the top selelrs for the genre "text based" right now:
Hell, Inkslingers made it into the "new and trending" list.
So you want curation?
If you start having to check every game, you will include bias on the approval sector that would fuck up more experimental games or games with quirk themes that might not be up to "standards"
Also, Valve already checks that the first game release of the game is playable / doesnt contain viruses.
Not to say that Valve shouldnt encourage more experimentation and lift some of the stuff that is cool from itch (such as their game jam support).
What people don't seem to get is that the reason most users use Steam is because it's so unbelievably good price wise for consumers. Why would I buy on another platform that's more expensive and requires a different launcher?
PC is an open platform, there's plenty of places to buy from but most of the time I'll want to keep everything together.
PC is an open platform, there's plenty of places to buy from but most of the time I'll want to keep everything together.
Wasn't greenlight essentially that but outsourced to the userbase? Something really needs to be done, at least to remove all the low effort RPGMaker games and MyFirstUnityProject garbage.
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The only point on there that I think might have some validity is 7. Everything else looks like they're just throwing stuff and hoping something sticks.
That was my reading of it, yes.
But how often do you see the low effort games? Looking at the front page, and going through my discovery queue, there's barely any I would say don't deserve to be there. The problem seems to be more a sea of quality games. Standing out amongst that is way more of a challenge.
There's a lot of intrinsic value to being on Steam, from discoverability tools to Steam Controller API to Remote Play. That 30% cut goes into everything related to the store and the platform, and part of that is being seen by people. EA returned to the store not because their Origin play failed, but because Steam's monthly active users is so high that 25m pairs of eyeballs is a lot of potential cash.
So, my perspective (and probably Valve's) is that this is less to do with what people "deserve to earn", and more about the value that Steam brings to the table. When it comes to consoles and mobiles, there's no choice in the matter, but on PC, Valve have to give value for their cut, otherwise devs/pubs don't release on Steam, and they deem that value at 30%.
Wait, you're talking about gatekeeping here, you know that right? Because what your definition of a "certain standard" is vs what mine or Valve's is could be entirely different things? And they have taken steps against games that are literally unplayable (though ironically, they probably can't force larger publishers, like EA, to do anything).
Also, this line of reasoning is literally nothing new:
My emphasis for "real games", because apparently, some devs don't think some other people should get what they deserve.
Yeah and everyone fucking hated it because the barrier for entry was too high.
It should be up to actual paying customers what is and isn't garbage or worth their money, not some review board and not some random indie devs that don't like having competition.
RPGMaker games and "MyFirstUnityProject" aren't stopping indie developers from being successful, their own inability to push their product, release products with limited appeal and products with literally nothing unique about them is what's stopping them from being successful, which has nothing to do with valve.
This would be horrible and developers. They complained about exactly this, when Valve was stricter with what releases on steam. Imagine you work 2 years on you game but then you get told the people at valve don't deem it worthy to release on Steam, so now you are kinda fucked.
The best thing Valve can do is expand their curation feature, so they can show you the games you might like.
• High-revenue games are charged 20% cut, while unsucessful/low-revenue/small games are charged 30%. Absolutely unfair considering this isn't some kind of volume-sale of physical goods where higher quantity costs less, but simply Valve strong-arming small games in the places they relented to big-publishers.
• Support. In order to actually make the inquiry, you have to lie in the self-service support because most options lead to unhelpful pre-made answers instead of the actual support ticket.
• Discord outdid them. Valve's social features remain stagnant and outdated, every active community has moved to Discord, yet it failed as a games-marketplace because... Steam is just too dominant. You can build faster platform, you can build better social platform, you can add more features, you can buy exclusives, offer lower price and better discounts, you can give-away free stuff, you can go DRM-less: Steam is here to stay even if they don't add any new feature for the next 10 years. You cannot beat Steam, this is why they will never willingly lower any fees.
There's something in common between Tim Sweeney and his followers. Claiming something as fact out of thin air.
User Warned: Dismissive Drive-By
Resetera, the community where developers matter until they suddendly don't matter because there's an article going agaisnt Valve or some shit.
Like you said, I think Steam has very good discoverability tools. When you use all of the tools at your disposition, it becomes easy to distinguish between what you want to see and what you want to ignore. When this is done, Steam can really shine.
In fact, those tools are so good that I have seen 6,599 in the discovery queue, I have now 9,539 ignored games, and now all of the games I see in my discovery queue are either "super low effort games" or either games that aren't available yet, because I've already seen most of the games I could be interested in. Which is kinda sad, in some way. But for that to happen, I had to use the discovery queue every day for years, and I had to mention 12 genres I don't want to see in it either (and I even wish I could ignore 5 more genres).
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You're right that's probably the best way, apologies I was thinking out loud but I think some I accidentally came across as sarcastic. If they were to do a sort of quality control test I would want it at a really low barrier, like just check if it plays, there's no malware and then approve.
I think its perfectly valid to criticise a company's practices even if they are a lead in a certain market and when the vast majority of developers say that the features and support don't justify the 30% cut, I would tend to side with the developers and believe them. Both Microsoft and Epic have looked at their revenue split and have seen that they can be successful at 12% so why cant Valve, the company that is raking in the most out of the three?
If its because they need more money to maintain all their systems, maybe they should cut back on stuff like the steam cards, the points store and other addons that are not really needed.
Because there's value that isn't just in the store? Like, with that 30% cut, Valve actually absorbs the behind-the-scenes costs of prepaid cards, which are a big way to pay for Steam games in certain parts of the world (Philippines, for instance).
Edit: https://www.resetera.com/threads/epic-store-and-12-cut.110333/
Whilst the OP itself is missing the tweet, reading the discussion gives context.
Edit 2: Also, you do know that devs/pubs get a cut from Steam transactions (like cards) on the market, right?
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So, your best suggestion is that Valve should cut back on features users like and make an experience worse for people who pay for the games in the first place?
Ummm... good luck to them I guess? There are tons of alternatives on PC, Valve uses the industry standard cut, and they're not the ones moneyhatting exclusives, so I'm really not sure how their argument is gonna fly...
Ah yes, the same cut that Epic shows in court documents is not profitable (look up the thread on it, they specifically say the cut covers variable costs but not fixed costs, and they're soon going to start charging devs payment processing fees on top of this cut).
It will never fail to amaze me that people think losing 500 million dollars in 2 1/2 years and beeing way behind their target means that a project is successful.
Why should you believe developers? All I see from these discussions is a warped appeal to developers as if they're gods that are never wrong.
It seems more like the vast majority of developers have a libertarian view on life, meaning they don't believe any amount is justified. Valve should only be allowed to make the exact amount required to run the most basic services. All the effort, time, and money Valve spent in making Steam into the platform it is holds no value to developers.
While people don't like the idea that maybe the devs could just, you know, fuck off and not use steam, but it is an option. Valve and Steam didn't start in the position they currently hold and they didn't get there by anticompetitive means. Once again it is developers that refuse to put any value on the platform Valve built. If not releasing on steam is a death sentence, maybe it means Valve's cut is more justified.
And no, defending random developers doesn't make you a better person than defending Valve. None of these people are my friends and none deserve my money or attention. They have to earn it and whining about how Valve doesn't do enough doesn't make me care for you at all. Plenty of "small indie devs(tm)" have found success outside of steam.
Uhhh I just took a look at this lawsuit and for some reason I AM QUOTED ON PAGE 19 LMFAOOOO
how tf did they find this post of mine lol, it wasn't even popular
That's pretty funny lol.
LMAO that's pretty hilarious. Congrats on the 5 minutes of fame!Uhhh I just took a look at this lawsuit and for some reason I AM QUOTED ON PAGE 19 LMFAOOOO
how tf did they find this post of mine lol, it wasn't even popular
So your idea is to make the experience worse for the people who pays and plays the games, and this will somehow improve things for developers?
You have achieved apotheosis. Transcend this earthly plane!Uhhh I just took a look at this lawsuit and for some reason I AM QUOTED ON PAGE 19 LMFAOOOO
how tf did they find this post of mine lol, it wasn't even popular