The other launchers aren't Steam competitors. The upcoming Discord Store might be.
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"Steam is not your enemy. 30% cut is fair" says CEO of Larian Studios
- Thread starter abracadaver
- Start date
The other launchers aren't Steam competitors. The upcoming Discord Store might be.
Oh shit you're right, I forgot that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo just give me for free their consoles, so I don't have to buy one for 299-499. Forgot that they also give me their controllers for free, and that 3rd parties making their own controllers pay nothing to them. Also forgot that console manufacturers just give away their 1st party games, and they let developers sell their games on 3rd party sites for free. Incredible how I also forgot that console companies give dedicated servers for free to devs and don't charge a dime to their users to play online games.
Let's be honest, Sony Microsoft and Nintendo are literally Buddha, Dalai Lama and Mother Theresa combined in company form.
Yeah, funny how that happened... Discord might have a real shot at this one if they play their cards well
It is really fair.
It is a basically number reached across to the industry to cover maintenance cost, development costs and have profit... anything lower you will probably suffer to not go bankruptcy.
It is a basically number reached across to the industry to cover maintenance cost, development costs and have profit... anything lower you will probably suffer to not go bankruptcy.
Yes, but the original quoted sentence is more of a reference to public shareholders. It makes no sense in the context of Valve where one person has ownership of a private company that was never publicly traded. It may have made more sense back when Harrington was involved
True, consoles have costs that Valve doesn't have, but they also have revenue streams that Valve doesn't have: paid online subscription, branded accessories + licenses to other companies, revenue from 1st party games etc. Also, console manufacturers get a cut of EVERY game sold for their console, both digital and retail. Valve only takes 30% if the game is sold in their own store on Steam; devs are allowed to generate free game keys to sell on their own website, as part of a bundle or in competing 3rd party keystores without having to pay Valve anything.
If we add that publishers have to pay for retail disks and that Valve does plenty of hardware and software R&D as well, I think that 30% is justified.
Don't forget the Pope ;)
Origin has a long way to go. I'm charged in Euros. I live in the Caribbean. No other global store does this without any option to change it.
You are absolutely correct. Unfortunately, there are so many incredibly silly people about.
As a Linux user, Valve is basically my best friend in the gaming industry.
Considering at least a million people, based on those who open up to the store page, will see your game the day it comes out, the fact that you can see your friends playing a game, sales... Steam provides a platform that generates sales that probably far outweigh any platform to make that 30% more than worth it. I also never understood why Valve always gets the shit for this considering 30% is a pretty common number in regards to digital sales like Microsoft Store, PlayStaiton Store, Origin, Uplay...
Technically those companies take more than 30% from royalty fees and further fees for specific services in different cases eg ad space, cloud use etc - all of which Steam provides as part of its own cost (or doesn't charge for in the case of royalties)
All of these companies have decided credentials business models to justify this, but it is very hard to argue against Valves 30%, which is only from direct store sales, whilst it takes 0% from keys devs choose to sell on their own or via 3rd parties
All these businesses
Considering steaminput, steamplay, community, matchmaking features, cloud service, and a lot of other stuff steam provides as a part of it's service the 30% is entirely reasonable. Any other platform would charge 30% and still double dip on the consumers for providing the rest of the features that steam does.
Problem with this narrative is that Early Adopters get screwed even more.
All of this. I have some problems with Steam but this certainly isn't one of them.
Correct me if I am wrong but just to put this in perspective, this would be like if Sony allowed third parties to sell digital PS4 games on the Microsoft store and not see a single cent from any sale. That's kinda huge and a big incentive for Valve to make their prices competitive at the same time. They can't compete with grey market key sellers but they can offer decent prices vs other digital stores while not adding restrictions and what not.
Just dipping in to say you can absolutely have shares—and shareholders—in a nonpublicly traded private company in the US. I don't know why some think you cannot.
There have been a few games in the past that you could not buy through Steam itself but only as retail versions that then had to be activated on Steam...
EA could ad their games to Steam but only sell them through Origin as Steam-Keys if they wanted, in theory... but I guess thats more for small pubs and Valve would stop EA from doing that in that special case...
Neither does Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. And for the Hardware stuff, this is unrelated to the digital cut.
Why are you assuming that Newell owns 100% of the shares? Do you have a source for this?
Private company usually still have more than 1 shareholder unless it's very very small.
The difference with public company (public company does not have to be listed by the way) is usually there is a cap in number of non-employee shareholders for the company to be classified as private.
I hope this thread educates some users here. Valve topics are tiring at this place. I don't really get why either. Valve does so much for PC gaming.
I agree it's too high. The margin is insane. But your point about the console manufactures doesn't hold.
What huge hardware R&D? The cost of putting low-end pc hardware into a closed box that they then sell with a profit?
They also get more from an online sell than a traditional retail sell.
On top of that they have an online fee.
Everything else solely depends on the company, using money hats as a justification for higher cuts is crazy.
70% of sales revenue on Steam is probably far more than 100% of revenue outside Steam honestly
If Steam only took 30% of the initial sale and didn't take an additional cut on all DLC sales, yeah maybe.
But DLC sales are enormous now and publishers aren't as willing to give up 30% on those sales.
I find these discussions on "fairness" so tiring. If Valve would lose developers because their cut was so high, and other platforms offered was Valve could offer them, while having a lower cut, then guess what, they'd change their business model pretty quickly. They don't, because they don't need to.
It's telling that devs never have an issue with this, it's only concern trolling from armchair analysts.
It's telling that devs never have an issue with this, it's only concern trolling from armchair analysts.
There's a lot of people claiming so. Not a lot of them are actual devs though.
Everyone takes a cut on the DLC sales too.
Well that is what is publicly known at least, is that Gabe and Mike founded the company upon leaving MS. And now it's just Gabe. Unless there is some evidence that shares exist and someone else has ownership. Could be that they do and are shared amongst staff, but I don't think anything is public knowledge.
Yep and if not for Steam they wouldn't still exist today:
The pros that steam offers outweigh the "con" of the 30%.
In this very thread we have people saying that console manufacturers should take 50% of a copy^^
That's the thing. Most people here don't care about PC gaming which makes it easier for them to be ignorant.
Except steam does too. in Australia, Steam's pricing is in USD despite the fact there technically is Au specific regional pricing. So back when the AUD was strong you'd see games selling for 80 or 90 USD. Dumbest shit I've ever seen.
Sure, but on PC the publishers have an option to open up their own stores. They don't have that option on console and mobile. Which is why Ubisoft, EA, ActiBlizzion, Bethesda and Epic have made their own platforms. In my opinion, if steam didn't take 30% of DLC those other platforms might not exist.
Your game gets the attention of 125+ million users instead of 0, thats kinda the point of a platform as steam.
Discord's library will be heavily curated and not nearly as all-encompassing as Steam's, so I don't think it intends to compete in any way.
Ubi, Activision and Bethesda still sell their games on Steam, though.
That's a lot of people for a storefront with a hell of a lot of games
(My issue with Steam is more with it's awful curation of titles across its storefront than the price cut)
it better be good
No, I mean, other stores charge in US. I've come to expect that, as I don't expect every single currency in the World to be covered like that. So I can accept that.
But Euros?
Have you ever used Steam? It provides more services than all console makers combined, and doesn't charge its customers a subscription for that. Valve also doesn't charge a licensing fee to develop games for Steam, just a 30% for every copy sold through their store. There are no devkits either, so that's another cash influx they aren't getting.
As for the hardware, those consoles aren't free. Those losses you mentioned are part of any business; if thet can't bear them they should budget accordingly or maybe think of going third party. It's not up to devs to subsidize their hardware efforts and first party games.
Seriously, half of the stuff you mentioned are things done purely to earn console makers more money, with zero benefit for anyone else. None of that should matter to third party devs, and it certainly doesn't deserve a higher cut.
It's fascinating.
And when you're done play Divinity Original Sin (if you haven't already), it's even more fascinating. I'm on a second playthrough now on PS4 (my first was on a PC) and I'm still figuring out new shit.