What cut do Valve actually take from devs? Is it really as high as some people think? Lets find out.

[TheClaw7667]

While interesting, the thread title and overall conclusion are a bit misleading. Steam's cut from the storefront (which is what everyone compares with Epic's 12%) is still 30%, regardless of if they are offering the perk of free key generation.

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I thought the point of the thread was to show how misleading Tim Sweeney is when he says he doesn't know why Valve takes such a large cut. As well as to the people here that then parrot the same thing.

My takeway was that if Valve was to lower or match the EGS's 88/12 cut they would no longer be able to allow for free key generation because of how many copies are sold on those sites. They would then have to charge customers payment processing fees, and finally, they would no longer be able to afford to sell the Steam Wallet retail cards that allow people to buy games without a credit card or similar online process.

So when Sweeney says he doesn't understand why Valve takes the cut they do he is either uninformed or just doesn't care about passing on fees to the customers to save publishers money.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

I'm pretty sure games on Steam actually do have to sell their DLC through Steam, but I might be wrong.

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Not exclusively though. You can buy passes and DLC for games from other sites.

Case in point...https://www.humblebundle.com/store/grim-dawn-ashes-of-malmouth-expansion

 

[Sheepinator]

I thought the point of the thread was to show how misleading Tim Sweeney is when he says he doesn't know why Valve takes such a large cut. As well as to the people here that then parrot the same thing.

My takeway was that if Valve was to lower or match the EGS's 88/12 cut they would no longer be able to allow for free key generation because of how many copies are sold on those sites. They would then have to charge customers payment processing fees, and finally, they would no longer be able to afford to sell the Steam Wallet retail cards that allow people to buy games without a credit card or similar online process.

So when Sweeney says he doesn't understand why Valve takes the cut they do he is either uninformed or just doesn't care about passing on fees to the customers to save publishers money.

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You're calling Tim Sweeney "uninformed". Come on. That's shit-posting.

 

[Deleted member 42]

Valve gets 30. The rest is the cost of doing business as they do.

Yeah, I believe they get 5% of each sale while the dev gets 10%. The rest goes to the seller. Which means tough luck for Steam if someone buys a 100 dollar card and buy stuff on the market for it, they lose money while the devs get 10% of it! They break even on CSGO items though.

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Now imagine millions of 5 cent transactions that Valve gets 2 cents off of

Do you see the hustle now? It's literally Office Space

 

[Deleted member 10629]

You're calling Tim Sweeney "uninformed". Come on. That's shit-posting.

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I mean yeah he's informed, he's just being an asshole about it.

 

[Kazer]

You mean the dev who wanted his game on EGS.

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Is that you Tim? A one man EGS defense force. LOL.

Edit: On topic - good shit, OP!

 

[Aureon]

Uhm, sure.
But keys sold through either physical or other digital storefronts also pay a fee to said storefront, so the cut isn't 0% for "Keys sold".
Those keys have to be sold somewhere, and you should at the very, very least assume 5% for payment processing costs and handling.
This doesn't change the math *that* much, but definitely changes it.

Amazon takes 15%, Ebay takes 10, Kickstarter generally takes 10.

Assuming a key has a storefront cost of 0 is incorrect.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Now imagine millions of 5 cent transactions that Valve gets 2 cents off of

Do you see the hustle now? It's literally Office Space

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Is it a hustle when they're upfront about it? They give entire keynote lectures about how they do it:



They talk about how they made so much fucking money by giving Half Life 2 away in this very talk.

 

[7thFloor]

You're calling Tim Sweeney "uninformed". Come on. That's shit-posting.

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Read? That was a conditional statement.

 

[Deleted member 10629]

Speaking from experience with selling my own game through Steam, I chose to sell a bulk amount of keys to a different site. They paid me a lump sum of money which was the equivalent of half the price of my game. So in my case I was only getting 50% of what I selling my game for on Steam but they were guaranteed sales at that point. Steam itself was indeed taking 30%. At the end of the day I just wanted to get the game out to more people so the money was never even a big deal to me. But it is pretty crazy how many sites approach or email you when they see blood in the water. Lots of offers to buy keys in bulk, both from legitimate sites but also from people buying and reselling on their own. There are lots of scams out there, lots of ways for random people and places to get their cut of profits off others people's work. It wouldn't surprise me if certain "self employed" individuals make a living off things off this nature.

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Oh, people certainly do.

When Mexican Steam had that price error on Dark Souls 3 being less than a dollar, people bought HUNDREDS of keys. And they were selling them for $45 IIRC. When people resorted to insult them they just said 'hey you can buy the game for $60 on Steam if you want :)'

 

[Deleted member 1589]

Grow up. That wasn't trolling or bad faith. Your post is though.

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No it isn't. You posted that 100% of MTX and DLCs are sold on Steam. People here corrected you on that.

I'm not sure how you then changed the subject to something else.

Do some research before you post. Someone posted about Nuuvem which you handwave the site as inconsequential.

Really, take some time off from trying to defend yourself from your incorrect assumptions, and do some quick googling.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Uhm, sure.
But keys sold through either physical or other digital storefronts also pay a fee to said storefront, so the cut isn't 0% for "Keys sold".
Those keys have to be sold somewhere, and you should at the very, very least assume 5% for payment processing costs and handling.
This doesn't change the math *that* much, but definitely changes it.

Amazon takes 15%, Ebay takes 10, Kickstarter generally takes 10.

Assuming a key has a storefront cost of 0 is incorrect.

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Not only do I not assume that, but I specifically have a section in the OP which talks about the cut other stores take.

Unfortunately, it's impossible to actually know what games are bought on what third party, so the dev % is impossible to calculate. I wanted to focus in and specifically target the "Valve takes 30%" point that often comes up.

 

[Deleted member 5621]

Lemme randomly throw out other stores that are selling keys, including for DLC
https://www.dlgamer.com/us/search?keywords=dlc
https://us.gamesplanet.com/search?utf8=✓&query=dlc
https://www.fanatical.com/en/search?search=dlc
https://br.gamersgate.com/games?prio=relevance&q=dlc
https://www.savemi.com.au/?s=dlc&post_type=product
https://www.macgamestore.com/search/?SearchWord=dlc
https://2game.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=dlc
https://store.silagames.com/game/664/europa-universalis-iv-indian-subcontinent-unit-pack/
https://www.paradoxplaza.com/crusader-kings-ii-pagan-fury/CKCK02SSK0000054.html
https://www.indiegala.com/store/search?type=games&key=dlc&page=1
https://playism.com/products?filter[name]=dlc

But let's act like they don't exist or are irrelevant because it doesn't fit our narrative, even though our original prerrogative (you can't buy DLC/MTX outside of Steam for Steam games) is false and we have no numbers to back up our moved goalpost.

 

[Ganado]

Valve gets 30. The rest is the cost of doing business as they do.



Now imagine millions of 5 cent transactions that Valve gets 2 cents off of

Do you see the hustle now? It's literally Office Space

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Well yeah, on their own games. Isn't it good that the Valve get 40%? Same way devs for cards that are sold for 0.03, they get a whopping 33% of the sale for nothing! I know, Valve does too. The big loser here is the consumer and well, fuck that loser!

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

Now imagine millions of 5 cent transactions that Valve gets 2 cents off of

Do you see the hustle now? It's literally Office Space

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It takes 50 million transactions at 2 cents to hit 1 million dollars in revenue, so that's extremely margin of error stuff for companies on this scale.

 

[Conkerkid11]

Uhm, sure.
But keys sold through either physical or other digital storefronts also pay a fee to said storefront, so the cut isn't 0% for "Keys sold".
Those keys have to be sold somewhere, and you should at the very, very least assume 5% for payment processing costs and handling.
This doesn't change the math *that* much, but definitely changes it.

Amazon takes 15%, Ebay takes 10, Kickstarter generally takes 10.

Assuming a key has a storefront cost of 0 is incorrect.

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Nobody said that. It's 0% for Steam in those cases though.

OP literally says the cut that Humble and itch.io take.

 

[collige]

Uhm, sure.
But keys sold through either physical or other digital storefronts also pay a fee to said storefront, so the cut isn't 0% for "Keys sold".
Those keys have to be sold somewhere, and you should at the very, very least assume 5% for payment processing costs and handling.
This doesn't change the math *that* much, but definitely changes it.

Amazon takes 15%, Ebay takes 10, Kickstarter generally takes 10.

Assuming a key has a storefront cost of 0 is incorrect.

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You're right, but the point of discussions is Valve's revenue stream, not the developer's.

Not exclusively though. You can buy passes and DLC for games from other sites.

Case in point...https://www.humblebundle.com/store/grim-dawn-ashes-of-malmouth-expansion

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Huh, I didn't know there was key generation for DLC. That's cool.

 

[signal]

If you want proof that Steam is a good platform for consumers you just need to see that users are voluntarily spending time performing free statistical analyses in order to put more Steam-friendly information into the conversation.

The "zero cut steam key" thing is enough for me though. Not many would allow something similar.

 

[Conkerkid11]

If you want proof that Steam is a good platform for consumers you just need to see that users are voluntarily spending time performing free statistical analyses in order to put more Steam-friendly information into the conversation.

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And that the platform has features which allow for these to take place, whereas other storefronts like EGS don't, and we get to hear sales numbers in the form of vague comparisons.

 

[voOsh]

If you want proof that Steam is a good platform for consumers you just need to see that users are voluntarily spending time performing free statistical analyses in order to put more Steam-friendly information into the conversation.

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lol true

Honestly this whole debacle feels like a reality-check for PC gaming. Everyone thinks it's so shit but we're starting to realize it could be much worse.

 

[UsoEwin]

If you want proof that Steam is a good platform for consumers you just need to see that users are voluntarily spending time performing free statistical analyses in order to put more Steam-friendly information into the conversation.

The "zero cut steam key" thing is enough for me though. Not many would allow something similar.

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I'm not convinced that this thread isn't populated entirely by Valve and Epic PR employees.

 

[Deleted member 42]

Well yeah, on their own games. Isn't it good that the Valve get 40%? Same way devs for cards that are sold for 0.03, they get a whopping 33% of the sale for nothing! I know, Valve does too. The big loser here is the consumer and well, fuck that loser!

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No, they created the economy so they control the economy and transaction fee

It takes 50 million transactions at 2 cents to hit 1 million dollars in revenue, so that's extremely margin of error stuff for companies on this scale.

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Breh you goddamn know how many trading card transactions happen a day don't try that lol

Trading cards are not an altruistic venture at all, awesome as they are. They're another way for Valve to wet their beak a lil

 

[Deleted member 10629]

I'm not convinced that this thread isn't populated entirely by Valve and Epic PR employees.

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I wish lol

 

[Nome]

Regardless of the ethics involved in cutting a deal with Epic (which isn't really the issue), the publishers are in fact directly affecting the consumer, negatively so, by removing their ability to chose where to buy and play their games.

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Indeed.

Devs don't know yet which is better. They like that upfront cash but long term it may be worse for them

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Quite possible, yes, but these are all possibilities that anyone making these deals would've considered, and still weighed in favor of EGS at the end.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

I'm not convinced that this thread isn't populated entirely by Valve and Epic PR employees.

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If I was a Valve employee, I wouldn't be using a library which reads data gathered by an Epic employee to create my data.

 

[collige]

If you want proof that Steam is a good platform for consumers you just need to see that users are voluntarily spending time performing free statistical analyses in order to put more Steam-friendly information into the conversation.

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Not directing this at the OP, but fanboys of shittier entities have done far crazier shit in the past. I don't think the "Sub to PewDiePie" campaign was a proof of anything except that PDP fans are crazy

 

[signal]

And that the platform has features which allow for these to take place, whereas other storefronts like EGS don't, and we get to hear sales numbers in the form of vague comparisons.

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That's basically what will prevent me from ever critiquing Steam that much when it comes to the cut discussion. If you're told devs can sell keys elsewhere while still using Steam and its features, it's hard to say something negative in return.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

Breh you goddamn know how many trading card transactions happen a day don't try that lol

Trading cards are not an altruistic venture at all, awesome as they are. They're another way for Valve to wet their beak a lil

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Who is arguing it's altruism? What I'm saying is that it's a tiny, tiny portion of their revenue. Valve's revenue is in the billions per year (it was estimated at 800 million per year in 2011 and steam is far bigger today) so they would have to be getting tens of millions of trading card transactions per day for it to be a meaningfully large chunk of their income. It's a nice passive income but it's very small as a proportion of their overall revenue.

 

[Aureon]

Not only do I not assume that, but I specifically have a section in the OP which talks about the cut other stores take.

Unfortunately, it's impossible to actually know what games are bought on what third party, so the dev % is impossible to calculate. I wanted to focus in and specifically target the "Valve takes 30%" point that often comes up.

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You mention that, and proceed to assume 0% still for the number-crunch phase, though.
At least, i ran the math for the first row in the spreadsheet and that's exactly what showed up.

You also don't have an estimation of how the review% correlates with actual bought%, but had no issue assuming perfectly so.

A 0% assumption is straight up wrong. Assume 8 if low-end, 30 if high end, and make a spread if the values if you want, but as it is, the numbers are practically misleading on purpose.
For example, MHW stands at 17% on your math. That sounds pretty near the EGS cut, doesn't it?
Only, with correct assumptions, the percentage is 21 (low-end) and 30 (high-end).
21-30 doesn't really sound the same as 17, does it? Educated, reasonable guesses would put that specific game (Which had a physical release, much like most of the high-retail games) at around 26%, assuming half physical copies at 30 and half keys at 10%.

The data is misleading, and the fact that you point out why while doing absolutely nothing to address it, doesn't make it any less misleading.

 

[Deleted member 10629]

Not directing this at the OP, but fanboys of shittier entities have done far crazier shit in the past. I don't think the "Sub to PewDiePie" campaign was a proof of anything except that PDP fans are crazy

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It's less 'defending Valve' and more 'EGS is a losing proposition for consumers and devs in the long run'.

 

[Deleted member 1589]

Not directing this at the OP, but fanboys of shittier entities have done far crazier shit in the past. I don't think the "Sub to PewDiePie" campaign was a proof of anything except that PDP fans are crazy

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Lol yeah. Still it's nice that Op's analysis are the good kind.

 

[UsoEwin]

If I was a Valve employee, I wouldn't be using a library which reads data gathered by an Epic employee to create my data.

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Double agent

 

[Aureon]

You're right, but the point of discussions is Valve's revenue stream, not the developer's.

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The point, as i understand it, is "The developer gets a break on the valve cut due to the perk of free key generation".
Which is, indeed, true, but not in the magnitude argued by the OP.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

You mention that, and proceed to assume 0% still for the number-crunch phase, though.
At least, i ran the math for the first row in the spreadsheet and that's exactly what showed up.

You also don't have an estimation of how the review% correlates with actual bought%, but had no issue assuming perfectly so.

A 0% assumption is straight up wrong. Assume 8 if low-end, 30 if high end, and make a spread if the values if you want, but as it is, the numbers are practically misleading on purpose.
For example, MHW stands at 17% on your math. That sounds pretty near the EGS cut, doesn't it?
Only, with correct assumptions, the percentage is 21 (low-end) and 30 (high-end).
21-30 doesn't really sound the same as 17, does it? Educated, reasonable guesses would put that specific game (Which had a physical release, much like most of the high-retail games) at around 26%, assuming half physical copies at 30 and half keys at 10%.

The data is misleading, and the fact that you point out why while doing absolutely nothing to address it, doesn't make it any less misleading.

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I believe you are creating an upper and lower bound for the total share devs take home. I tried to make it as clear as I can that was not what I was trying to calculate.

However, they are still useful numbers, so I'll add something to that effect in the OP at some point.

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

Valve obviously take nothing from those either.

And in that case, neither does the dev. Which fucking sucks.

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I wonder if they should somehow be excluded from your numbers then? Seems kind of akin to a developer saying they lost 60 million dollars because 1 million people torrented their game.

 

[7thFloor]

Breh you goddamn know how many trading card transactions happen a day don't try that lol

Trading cards are not an altruistic venture at all, awesome as they are. They're another way for Valve to wet their beak a lil

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It's great for both parties, Steam gives users a reason to want trading cards in the first place, and publishers/devs get cashflow for a day's worth of design work.

 

[BradGrenz]

The point here was to calculate what Valve take, not to calculate the % figure developers end up taking home.

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This is incredibly disingenuous. Valves "cut" is only meaningful in relation to what the developer makes. At this point all you've shown is by making a lot of dodgy assumption the EGS still comes out as a better deal for developers. No one actually cares if Valve technically collects exactly 30% of all revenue for games redeemed on Steam. It smacks of an attempt to divert and deflect the conversation from the actual concerns.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Are you disputing that the vast majority of MTX and DLC sales on Steam games happens through Steam?

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Er, yes. DLC is a functional part of the game that is distributed much in the same way as the games themselves, including via Steam Keys.

MTX implementation fully depends on the game owner. Steam only takes its cut from MTX purchase transactions implemented through Steamworks, as those are the only transactions it has any say in. I play War Thunder, World of Warships, and (used to play) Path of Exile. None of the things I purchased in those games went through Steam-controlled interfaces. Basically, developers have the option to omit Steam's cut by not using Steam's features. If you go to the game's webpage to buy ingame currency, and use that currency to buy things in-game, Steam sees none of your money.

At least, that was the extent of my understanding after what research I'm equipped to perform at 2AM. yawn

 

[tuxfool]

Anecdotally, I've yet to talk to a dev who doesn't support what EGS is doing. Common sense would also state that devs wouldn't take a deal to sabotage themselves. So clearly it's beneficial.

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There was a Polygon article where a developer was whining that Valve was stealing from them for offering regional pricing.

Please don't tell me developers know what's good. They're people like anybody else and aren't infallible.

 

[Ganado]

No, they created the economy so they control the economy and transaction fee

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So you rather they remove the market so the devs get 0%, only trading allowed? I do get that its a way for Valve to make money but do you really think its feasible to take 0.05 cents from each of those trades? Would you rather like the minimum to be 0.20? If devs doesn't want to fund themselves and Steam, they really doesn't have to put out cards and there is probably a good reason to why Steam doesn't let anyone put out cards anymore even though it was easy cash for Valve.

 

[Deleted member 3294]

This is incredibly disingenuous. Valves "cut" is only meaningful in relation to what the developer makes. At this point all you've shown is by making a lot of dodgy assumption the EGS still comes out as a better deal for developers. No one actually cares if Valve technically collects exactly 30% of all revenue for games redeemed on Steam. It smacks of an attempt to divert and deflect the conversation from the actual concerns.

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Yeah, I'm honestly incredibly skeptical of how the discussion on here about the cut developers get from each sale turned into discussion about the cut stores get from each sale. Unless people here are really misunderstanding things, I'm not really convinced people who try to argue about the cut Valve gets so much are actually arguing in good faith.

 

[JustinP]

I thought the point of the thread was to show how misleading Tim Sweeney is when he says he doesn't know why Valve takes such a large cut. As well as to the people here that then parrot the same thing.

My takeway was that if Valve was to lower or match the EGS's 88/12 cut they would no longer be able to allow for free key generation because of how many copies are sold on those sites. They would then have to charge customers payment processing fees, and finally, they would no longer be able to afford to sell the Steam Wallet retail cards that allow people to buy games without a credit card or similar online process.

So when Sweeney says he doesn't understand why Valve takes the cut they do he is either uninformed or just doesn't care about passing on fees to the customers to save publishers money.

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Valve is more profitable per employee than giants like Apple and Google -- they are not on the edge of breaking even, as you imply while at the same time accusing Tim Sweeney of being ignorant. The 70/30 split is mostly just the standard settled on by various storefronts -- and it's worth pointing out that most of these storefronts setting this standard are platform monopolies (iOS app store, etc).

PC, being an open platform, should naturally have a higher dev cut than those on closed platforms because of competition, no?

And too many people seem unaware that itch.io sets the default dev/store split to 90/10 and lets developers set their own split (even to 0%). And they have plenty of features, always adding more. Biggest reason you don't see more devs prioritizing itch.io is Steam's marketshare dominance mentioned below.

Another point that seems to be missed is that Valve sees value in letting people buy a game elsewhere and redeem on Steam. They aren't doing it to be altruistic (or are they doing it to be evil, it's just business). They get to advertise to you every time you run their launcher. The marketshare advantage they get from having most PC game purchases flowing toward their platform instead of away is invaluable. Which is why Epic is likely following suit -- they're already doing it with Humble. Many people here assume for some reason it's only Humble because Epic are evil control freaks, but the much more likely explanation is that it takes time to roll out more universal features and partnering is how you put things like this on the fast track in the meantime.

 

[Deleted member 42]

It's great for both parties, Steam gives users a reason to want trading cards in the first place, and publishers/devs get cashflow for a day's worth of design work.

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It's a digital economy of which Valve is the master of

That's where their bread is truly buttered and they know it, it's all about diversifying your bonds

 

[Aureon]

I believe you are creating an upper and lower bound for the total share devs take home. I tried to make it as clear as I can that was not what I was trying to calculate.

However, they are still useful numbers, so I'll add something to that effect in the OP at some point.

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Thanks.
It's nice seeing reasonable responses - i was fully prepared to be completely ignored, honestly.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Assuming a key has a storefront cost of 0 is incorrect.

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Taken at absolute value, yes. However it is perhaps a bit disingenuous to hold that as some manner of point against Steam. The costs of handling the transaction will always be there, they are everpresent. There is no way to sell your game without paying them, otherwise you could just as well sell the Steam Key that way.

 

[7thFloor]

It's a digital economy of which Valve is the master of

That's where their bread is truly buttered and they know it, it's all about diversifying your bonds

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Ok Dwight.

 

[voOsh]

It's a digital economy of which Valve is the master of

That's where their bread is truly buttered and they know it, it's all about diversifying your bonds

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Not sure if you're trying to throw shade at Valve for the Steam Marketplace? What's the problem?

 

[Aureon]

Taken at absolute value, yes. However it is perhaps a bit disingenuous to hold that as some manner of point against Steam. The costs of handling the transaction will always be there, they are everpresent. There is no way to sell your game without paying them, otherwise you could just as well sell the Steam Key that way.

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Obviously, but this isn't data in a vacuum - we're comparing the cost of selling on Steam to the cost of selling on Epic Games Store (or Itch.io, or Humble, or any other game portal around, i suppose)
While trying to calculate the value of the perk of free key generation, the value of that perk is definitely dependant on the cost of selling keys elsewhere.

 

[Deleted member 1589]

There was a Polygon article where a developer was whining that Valve was stealing from them for offering regional pricing.

Please don't tell me developers know what's good. They're people like anybody else and aren't infallible.

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I'll probably pop my vein if I read that article.

Regional pricing is for me, Valve's biggest contribution to PC gaming.

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-weird-ecomomics-behind-steam-prices-around-the-world/

 

[Nome]

There was a Polygon article where a developer was whining that Valve was stealing from them for offering regional pricing.

Please don't tell me developers know what's good. They're people like anybody else and aren't infallible.

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Obviously developers make plenty of mistakes, but what they do is what they believe is in their own self-interest.
Also, regional pricing is definitely a risky proposition for some products.