[Polygon] Steam developers speak: Maximum profits for Valve, minimum responsibilities

Deleted member 12790 · Oct 19, 2018

A Tinge of Twinge said:
11 bit studios

1С Publishing

505 Games

Adult Swim Games

Annapurna Interactive

Armor Games

BUKA Entertainment

Chucklefish

Coffe Stain Publishing

Curve Digital

Daedalic Entertainment

Deck 13

Devolver Digital

Digital Tribe

Double Fine

Fellow Traveler

Finji

Good Shepherd Entertainment

Headup Games

Herocraft

HypeTrain Digital

Humble Bundle

Indiegala

Kiss Ltd.

Midnight City

Meridian4

Mode 7

Nicalis Inc.

Nkidu Games

No More Robots

Paradox Interactive

Positech

Raw Fury

Rising Star Games

Sliterine Ltd.

Square Enix Collective

Starbreeze Studios

Team17 Digital Ltd.

Tripwire Interactive

tinyBuild Games

Versus Evil

Wadjet Eye Collective

I feel like the bolded (Adult Swim Games, Annapurna, Chucklefish, Digital Devolver, Double Fine, Paradox) have been successful, at least to some extent, or are capable of building their brand, though there are still a lot of games that I can imagine these publishers may not feel comfortable with making an effort to fit under their brand but would benefit from brands, at least as strong as these, though preferably stronger, that have the right identity and/or leadership which would feel comfortable taking them on.

Just like to add that literally every studio on this list went to both Steam Dev Days, specifically so Devs could mingle and get in contact with them. I walked away from Dev Days with a suitcase full of business cards, many of whom I still keep in contact with. I remember, at the first Dev Days, the Adult Swim people were basically just walking around the lobby, going up to random people and being like "So pitch me your game"

In fact, I saw a contract get signed right out side the main conference room on some dude's backpack.

Knurek · Oct 19, 2018

Hektor said:
With how much exposure Blossom Tales had by now thanks to Jim Sterling videos, Polygon Articles and Resetera.com posts, as the go-to example of "supposedly good games that bombed on steam", you'd think the games sales on steam would've picked up by now tbh

Well, the last time the game had a discount (middling 25% off at that) was in June of 2017.
They haven't even bothered to set up regional prices for their other game, meaning it cannot be bought by roughly 10% of Steam users.
The devs might as well set the price to €999, will have some more exposure due to another batch 'lack of sales on Steam, loads of sales on the almighty Switch' articles.

Ge0force · Oct 19, 2018

Rondras said:
Like I have said 10000 times already. Valve wont change until Gabe Newell leaves the company, he sucks, he doesn't know how to run a company and it shows. He might be a "visionary" in terms of games/tech but he just made money with pure luck and cheap prices. If something else was there before Steam, Steam now wouldn't be a thing.

Let's hope maybe Uplay,Origin,etc open their doors to some more devs so then some indie devs(good ones) can sell their games properly and get the money they deserve.

Aside of that... dont expect nothing from Valve, advertise as much as you can(send review codes,etc)

This is pure shitposting. Do you really believe that Steam became the biggest ecosystem for gaming because of "pure luck"?

And please, humor me and give me a list of features that Origin and uPlay do better than Steam? Ubisoft doesn't allow 3rd party stuff at all, and indies trying to get their games on Origin didn't even get a response from EA...

oneils · Oct 19, 2018

Airbar said:
The way it is presented though it seems like malicious intent on Valves part is implied. Which makes no sense. They have as much of an interest in selling as many copies as possible as the dev does. So you either invest the time to write a script - which wouldn't take long, seeing they just programmed their own games - to get the currency values like each Wednesday to correct the current regional pricing they set or you go with Valves system.

They still could have made it anonymous by way of the devs providing sales data. It's still a shit metric but I mean I can cobble together a stickman moving around on a grey plane and put it up for sale on Steam for $50 and complain afterwards that nobody is buying my gem of a game. It's just the way capitalism works sadly.

yeah, i didn't understand the complaint that it would "take hours" every week to manage regional pricing. Aren't these devs programmers? Can't they figure this out pretty easily?

chobel · Oct 19, 2018

OmegaX said:
CSH developers had a prior agreement with Sony so they couldn't get the game on Switch until they fulfilled it. Nintendo didn't have that many dev kits around the time the Switch launched so they weren't going to give one to a dev that was going to sit on it for so many months.

Do you have a source for this? Because I really doubt CSH had a deal with Sony. Also the devs themselves said otherwise

"I get that it was just a port, but after spending months getting stonewalled by Nintendo when we were trying to get permission to release on Switch, going "fine, we'll play by your rules" and getting a publisher so we could get approved"

chobel · Oct 19, 2018

--- Sorry for the double post ---

TheEchosOfTheCyborg said:
Xbox Live in the near future if rumors hold through

What rumors?

EsqBob · Oct 19, 2018

Launchpad said:
I will read this whole article but after a quick skim are they really claiming regional pricing to be a bad thing? Not every country has the same cost of living or average pay the US does. So many companies completely screw over these regions by not having proper regional pricing.

Looks like only 1 guy knew about it, and he says the same as Valve: it seems to make sense to charge less in countries where people can pay less, it should lead to more sales and therefore more money. The other guys then were informed by the reporter, and they didn't like it.

Not trying to defend Valve overall, but on this point they are totally right. I live in one of those countries where the Valve suggests big discounts and we are much poorer than people in US and Europe. If you charge for a game here the same fraction of an average salary as in those countries, the discount would be even bigger. Before games got more affordable everyone would pirate. It seems completely plausible that developers will make the most money with the Valve suggested price.

Plus, Valve's interested are aligned with the developers here, they also want the game to make the most money because Valve will make the most money. They could let the very smart guys (let's be real, probably smarter than the developers) from Valve decide the price conversions, or they could have read the contract they agreed to, and then learned that Valve also allows them to charge whatever they want. Yes, they would need to spend 10 minutes on Google converting USD to 40 other currencies to charge the same everywhere. Polygon makes it seem like it's such a big deal. Bunch of whiners.

They also complain that if they decide to charge the same everywhere and the exchange rate changes, they could end up giving a discount and there is no way to change the price after that. But the exchange rate in unpredictable, it could also happen that they end up charging more than the US price. And it would be very bad for sales to have the price change every day. Costumers would not think it's fair. They would start returning the games to buy them again if the price got reduced. It would be worse for everyone. It was like that in the past, and Valve decided to switch to the current system.

OmegaX · Oct 19, 2018

chobel said:
Do you have a source for this? Because I really doubt CSH had a deal with Sony. Also the devs themselves said otherwise

I remember they said that on the thread were they deleted all those posts. The one post you are referencing doesn't contradict that. They wanted the dev kit since around Switch launch date but they weren't going to release the game on that period. So they were passed over.

I found this on GAF so I may be banned for posting it: "We do have a very brief console exclusivity window with Sony. Again, this is mostly a moot point since the exclusivity window is so short & we'd have to spend time porting the thing anyway."

You can google search the quote. I think Nintendo didn't like that.

chobel · Oct 19, 2018

OmegaX said:
I remember they said that on the thread were they deleted all those posts. The one post you are referencing doesn't contradict that. They wanted the dev kit since around Switch launch date but they weren't going to release the game on that period. So they were passed over.

I found this on GAF so I may be banned for posting it: "We do have a very brief console exclusivity window with Sony. Again, this is mostly a moot point since the exclusivity window is so short & we'd have to spend time porting the thing anyway."

You can google search the quote. I think Nintendo didn't like that.

OK, let's say I buy this why they didn't get devkits at a launch. So how about why they didn't get one 6 months later? https://www.resetera.com/threads/wolfgame-zeboyd-games-noa-turned-us-down-again-for-dev-kits.9758/

Veidt · Oct 19, 2018

A Tinge of Twinge said:
I feel like the bolded (Adult Swim Games, Annapurna, Chucklefish, Digital Devolver, Double Fine, Paradox) have been successful, at least to some extent, or are capable of building their brand. Though there are still a lot of games that I can imagine the publishers I bolded may not feel comfortable with making an effort to fit under their brand but would benefit from brands, at least as strong as these, though preferably stronger, that have the right identity and/or leadership to feel comfortable taking them on.

Several publishers in that list have had major hits though, not just those six. Team17 has Overcooked and The Escapists as million sellers; tinyBuild has a string of successful titles with Speedrunners, Clustertruck, Punch Club and Graveyard Keeper; Curve Digital scored big with Human: Fall Flat (over 4M copies) and have several 200k+ selling titles; Fellow Traveller has Orwell and Hacknet (both million sellers); Coffee Stain has Deep Rock Galactic doing really well.

Looking at the future, Humble is signing some pretty interesting stuff like Disco Elysium and The Occupation, Versus Evil seems to be focused on building a strong catalogue of RPGs (they recently released Banner Saga 3 and Pillars of Eternity II), 505 Games had some big hits such as Brothers, Portal Knights and Abzu, they now seem to be going more into the high range of AAs with games like Control, even though they still publish smaller stuff like Laser League.

Good Shepherd is owned by Devolver and seems to sign titles that don't fit Devolver's brand (they recently published Phantom Doctrine). Raw Fury seems to be particularly interested in games with a distinct visual style (such as Sable, Mosaic and The Last Night). Then you have publishers like Slitherine and Wadjet Eye, who are very comfortable in their respective niches (strategy and adventures, respectively). So there's a lot to pick from nowadays in the indie space.

Lashley · Oct 19, 2018

Rondras said:
Like I have said 10000 times already. Valve wont change until Gabe Newell leaves the company, he sucks, he doesn't know how to run a company and it shows. He might be a "visionary" in terms of games/tech but he just made money with pure luck and cheap prices. If something else was there before Steam, Steam now wouldn't be a thing.

Let's hope maybe Uplay,Origin,etc open their doors to some more devs so then some indie devs(good ones) can sell their games properly and get the money they deserve.

Aside of that... dont expect nothing from Valve, advertise as much as you can(send review codes,etc)

lmfao

what is this post?

Pixieking · Oct 19, 2018

However, there's a catch. What many developers don't know is that Steam is discounting their games for them in these other markets — selling their game at a rate in euros, rubles, won and so on that works out to be anywhere from 30 percent to 60 percent off the original U.S. dollar price. That's an enormous discount, and it's one that many developers may not even be aware is happening.

No, here's the catch: Living in Malaysia, the standard edition of AssCreed:Odyssey is RM209. I did a weekly shop yesterday for two that amounted to RM220, and that bought us meat, veg, soy milk, fruit squash, and desserts.

In a country that has low wages relative to other countries, pricing your game the same as other countries leads to less sales, not more. And that's fine, but don't write an article pretending lower prices are "discounts" when they're just taking into account what the majority of the population earn. Because that comes across as shockingly unaware.

OmegaX · Oct 19, 2018

chobel said:
OK, let's say I buy this why they didn't get devkits at a launch. So how about why they didn't get one 6 months later? https://www.resetera.com/threads/wolfgame-zeboyd-games-noa-turned-us-down-again-for-dev-kits.9758/

"Cosmic Star Heroine looks good but it's not a priority; maybe later"
It sounds to me that Nintendo already had many other deals in place with bigger indie titles already. Getting a publisher was the smart choice for all because those dev kits were getting more mileage that way.

MasterSummerSmith462 · Oct 19, 2018

Sure Valve could put more work into identifying and blocking shovelware but otherwise you gotta do your own advertising and hype. If your game is truly deserving, it'll have a fan base.

Pixieking · Oct 19, 2018

MasterSummerSmith462 said:
Sure Valve could put more work into identifying and blocking shovelware but otherwise you gotta do your own advertising and hype.

Yeah. I wonder how many devs/pubs would sell a physical game and expect Game or Gamestop or EB to promote it, without doing any other PR or hype. :/

Paz · Oct 19, 2018

I disagree with a lot of the anonymouse takes in the article, though I think some of their ideas about building in bug reporting systems and such would be very valuable. Also most of the takes in this thread are bad/reductive but anyone expecting nuance from folks who can only see the systems from the opaque outside would be making a grave mistake, there are so many moving parts when it comes to finding success on Steam and much of how everything works is completely invisible to the outside world. It's not as simple as making a good game or as simple as 'doing marketing', the universal constant though is that as a developer you need to generate a bit of snowball effect and then Steam will help carry you from there because it becomes in their interest to do so (They make money when you make money, they make more money long term when their users are happy, promoting games that find some success and make users happy is their goal).

As usual Morgan Jaffit is very logical and thoughtful in his comments. That guy is an Australian treasure.

And people pining for the good old days of steam are just those who see themselves on the winning side of its winners/losers model, I'm reasonably sure if my game (decent metacritic, overwhelming positive user reviews) had ended up on old Steam I'd be a millionaire but at the same time it might not have ever even made it to the platform. I don't know if Valve really earn their industry standard % but if you're comparing them purely with the other alternative storefronts and platforms they certainly don't come off lacking, so if folks really believe they don't deserve their % then it's probably the industry standard that really needs to change in this new world of open markets.

sph3re · Oct 19, 2018

dan2026 said:
I dont know how anyone makes money on Steam with the sheer ammount of games both legit and obvious shovelware put up each and every day.

Yeah, it's really surprising anybody is successful. If you've got 20 minutes to spare, check out Mike Rose (game journalist and developer/publisher) talk about how well Steam games sell

Valdega · Oct 19, 2018

The article makes some good points about the user review system. It's definitely abused. It's pretty common to see reviews from people who have played a game for less than an hour. It's also common to see bad reviews from people with specific technical issues or for political reasons that have nothing to do with the game's quality. HITMAN 2016 got a lot of bad reviews for being episodic and requiring an online connection. Torment got a lot of bad reviews because inXile didn't deliver on all of the stretch goals. A lot of games get bad reviews because of DLC or microtransactions. Hell, some games have gotten bad reviews simply because they didn't support a specific language.

What Steam really needs is a better way to filter out useless reviews. I don't want to see reviews from people who have barely played the game, for example. I also don't want to see reviews that are only one or two sentences long.

Pixieking · Oct 19, 2018

Valdega said:
The article makes some good points about the user review system. It's definitely abused. It's pretty common to see reviews from people who have played a game for less than an hour. It's also common to see bad reviews from people with specific technical issues or for political reasons that have nothing to do with the game's quality. HITMAN 2016 got a lot of bad reviews for being episodic and requiring an online connection. Torment got a lot of bad reviews because inXile didn't deliver on all of the stretch goals. A lot of games get bad reviews because of DLC or microtransactions. Hell, some games have gotten bad reviews simply because they didn't support a specific language.

What Steam really needs is a better way to filter out useless reviews. I don't want to see reviews from people who have barely played the game, for example. I also don't want to see reviews that are only one or two sentences long.

Yeah, all of this is true. But it's also true of Amazon - the number of 1 or 2 star reviews from people complaining that their package was smashed about during transit is ridiculous. It's like, yeah, that sucks, but that's not Amazon's fault, and it's not a review of the product. Another review I read, looking for lipstick for my wife, was "Didn't like the shade - 1 star". Like, okay, that's also valid, but not a reason to give a one star review.

I feel both Valve and Amazon need more refinement in reviews. For Steam it would be immensely useful to have boxes related to technical features, gameplay, DLC, controls, difficulty, and then a strict enforcement of rules that said that if you didn't write about controls in the control box, your review was hidden until you corrected it. This would help in determining who is just review-bombing, who actually played the game for longer than 2 hours (rather than idling), and give useful information to prospective buyers, A feature to filter by word-count, though open to abuse, would also mean the lazy "Would not buy" "reviews" could be ignored.

Deleted member 679 · Oct 19, 2018

A lot of people mention how good games aren't competing against crap content, but against a bunch of other good games, and while I agree, I think another thing that needs to be said is that they're also competing with games people already own.

Building a massive backlog with sales was pretty common among PC players, and now I own more games on Steam than I'll ever have time to play in my entire life, even just counting the ones I actually wanted, not just bundle stuff. My wishlist has over 200 games as well.

I don't even waste time browsing Steam to find out about games, I have and want more games than I could possibly play. You need to REALLY catch my attention to make me want to spend money at this point. You need to put in the effort, a random Steam recommendation will just get ignored by me, no matter how good the game actually looks. I'm not exactly looking for more random stuff to buy, I have plenty of stuff.

Pixieking · Oct 19, 2018

Gbraga said:
A lot of people mention how good games aren't competing against crap content, but against a bunch of other good games, and while I agree, I think another thing that needs to be said is that they're also competing with games people already own.

Building a massive backlog with sales was pretty common among PC players, and now I own more games on Steam than I'll ever have time to play in my entire life, even just counting the ones I actually wanted, not just bundle stuff. My wishlist has over 200 games as well.

I don't even waste time browsing Steam to find out about games, I have and want more games than I could possibly play. You need to REALLY catch my attention to make me want to spend money at this point. You need to put in the effort, a random Steam recommendation will just get ignored by me, no matter how good the game actually looks. I'm not exactly looking for more random stuff to buy, I have plenty of stuff.

Yeah, I've even stopped (mostly) buying games as birthday and Christmas gifts, because everyone I know has hit a combination of "enough games to last a lifetime", "work 8 or 10 hours a day" and "wants to do things other than sit in front of a computer or TV". It's not just competing against people's backlogs, it's competing against going out with friends, going out with your significant other, traveling to other countries, reading books, getting involved with politics, getting a degree or professional qualification... The list goes on and on.

I would be interested in seeing in-depth data of new Steam user growth vs purchasing habits of old users vs purchasing habits of new users vs time those two groups spend actually playing games. I would expect that data to help all interested parties (devs, pubs, professional and armchair analysts) move on from "Steam sucks they don't deserve their 30%" to a broader view of gaming's place in the world.

ekurisona · Oct 20, 2018

https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...cut-is-fair-says-ceo-of-larian-studios.71001/

hobblygobbly · Oct 20, 2018

If you are in the business of selling a product around the world and can't grasp the concept of regional pricing and that Steam does it, which is one of its major advantages as it's not common place for that to be done for you or the data to be so readily available, then there's a lot going wrong with your business strategy in the first place. The gall to call Steam "discounting" your game because it prices games accordingly to the average wage people earn in countries for their storefronts, how can you expect someone in a country where the average wage is 1/4 or less of the U.S to pay a 1:1 dollar conversion? How can you operate a business and not understand this? End-users of the platform even know this.

chobel · Oct 20, 2018

OmegaX said:
It sounds to me that Nintendo already had many other deals in place with bigger indie titles already

LOL! By the time CSH was out on Switch was filled with trash games. So "bigger" games my ass.

Rondras · Oct 20, 2018

Ge0force said:
This is pure shitposting. Do you really believe that Steam became the biggest ecosystem for gaming because of "pure luck"?

And please, humor me and give me a list of features that Origin and uPlay do better than Steam? Ubisoft doesn't allow 3rd party stuff at all, and indies trying to get their games on Origin didn't even get a response from EA...

I don't see you explaining why they became so big aside of literally having 0 competition in the digital market. Everyone after them is doing things way better than them when they are literally the ones dominating the market and with more money... so,if you are not gonna explain your point then dont even reply. Don't waste our time.

Hektor · Oct 20, 2018

Rondras said:
Everyone after them is doing things way better than them

LOL

sprinkles · Oct 20, 2018

Rondras said:
Everyone after them is doing things way better than them when they are literally the ones dominating the market and with more money... so,if you are not gonna explain your point then dont even reply. Don't waste our time.

So everyone else but Valve has introduced Steam In-Home Streaming, Family Sharing, Steam Input for all sorts of console controllers, Proton for Steam Linux, OpenVR, Trading Cards, a personalized Store front page and whatever more I am forgetting right now?

chobel · Oct 20, 2018

Rondras said:
I don't see you explaining why they became so big aside of literally having 0 competition in the digital market. Everyone after them is doing things way better than them when they are literally the ones dominating the market and with more money... so,if you are not gonna explain your point then dont even reply. Don't waste our time.

We making shit up now?

sprinkles said:
So everyone else but Valve has introduced Steam In-Home Streaming, Family Sharing, Steam Input for all sorts of console controllers, Proton for Steam Linux, OpenVR, Trading Cards, a personalized Store front page and whatever more I am forgetting right now?

Gifting, refunds, user tags, Early Access, Steam Workshop...

.exe · Oct 20, 2018

Rondras said:
I don't see you explaining why they became so big aside of literally having 0 competition in the digital market. Everyone after them is doing things way better than them when they are literally the ones dominating the market and with more money... so,if you are not gonna explain your point then dont even reply. Don't waste our time.

Steam API and user/sales data tracking, the best search engine on any digital game storefront, Proton, VAC, pricing and sale autonomy, patch autonomy, integrated forums and mods, a huge audience, the best controller support out there, the marketplace and mod support, the community hub, achievements, user reviews, Steam curators, the discovery browser, cloud save support, big picture mode, VOIP, streaming services, support for games in progress, and many other features that others will name. Tell me, which competitor does all of this again? They became big because they offered and are continuing to offer the most comprehensive digital distribution platform out there, bar none. There are valid criticisms to be had, but you're just transparently hating for the sake of doing so instead of trying to have a meaningful discussion.

Real Hero · Oct 20, 2018

Rondras said:
I don't see you explaining why they became so big aside of literally having 0 competition in the digital market. Everyone after them is doing things way better than them when they are literally the ones dominating the market and with more money... so,if you are not gonna explain your point then dont even reply. Don't waste our time.

cheap games, steam is great.

Pixieking · Oct 20, 2018

Rondras said:
I don't see you explaining why they became so big aside of literally having 0 competition in the digital market. Everyone after them is doing things way better than them when they are literally the ones dominating the market and with more money... so,if you are not gonna explain your point then dont even reply. Don't waste our time.

1) Can we not have just one Steam/Valve thread that doesn't devolve into "Steam are shit because of [misinformation], [platform war], [ignorance] (delete as appropriate)?

2)

Everyone after them is doing things way better than them

Battlenet has a shit regional Friend system, and doesn't allow crossplay between continents. EA Origin doesn't have an inventory system or cards (which are literally free money). GOG hasn't made waves in Linux gaming. In fact, no company has done as much for Linux gaming as Valve. They created a custom controller that works with almost any PC game, and have allowed the community to design configs for it. They've contributed to the Vulkan graphics API.

People need to acknowledge that Valve does way more than others in the PC space, even if they're not perfect. To do otherwise shows bias and an unwillingness to acknowledge facts.

tuxfool · Oct 20, 2018

Rondras said:
Everyone after them is doing things way better than them when they are literally the ones dominating the market and with more money.

You're going to have to clarify who "Everyone" is.

werezompire · Oct 20, 2018

I will say that although getting a front page promotion is indeed extremely competitive and the kind of thing you're most likely only getting if you're successful already or have the backing of a major publisher, Valve does have staff that is willing to work with smaller developers to help promote their games. Like for example, with our latest game, we wanted to send out a bunch of discount coupons for our new game to people who already owned one of our games so I contacted their dev support team and someone got back to me quickly & set that up for us.

Avitus · Oct 20, 2018

Steam is what it is; a take it or leave it storefront that you don't absolutely have to use.

The total abdication of responsibility re: damn near everything is just the sad part. We're long past the point where the part of Valve that manages the money hose that is Steam needed to be separated from Valve the developer. A company as wealthy, successful, dominant, and private as Valve shouldn't act as they do.

m0dus · Oct 20, 2018

I think, regardless of how you feel with regards to Valve's responsibilities towards developers, having a responsive, personalized support system in place for them would go a long way toward quieting many of these complaints.

Aztechnology · Oct 20, 2018

Lol I don't like monopolies, which is why I have no issue with other storefronts and am not one of those Steam only people. However, Valve is hands down one of the best marketplaces just in general. Obviously, like everyone else I wish they were still developing and did a little more again in terms of events, community involvement and other investments and such. But they're still pretty great, and a large part of that is the fact it's not a publicly traded company
Honestly I'm pretty happy we even have a company like valve in the game industry in general.

Aztechnology · Oct 20, 2018

m0dus said:
I think, regardless of how you feel with regards to Valve's responsibilities towards developers, having a responsive, personalized support system in place for them would go a long way toward quieting many of these complaints.

Games and developers are their business. They should have a much better support system for them. It's hard to argue that.

Pixieking · Oct 20, 2018

Aztechnology said:
Games and developers are their business. They should have a much better support system for them. It's hard to argue that.

Yeah, it's been remarked in the past that their hiring policies aren't conducive to having top-tier support in any way. It's like they aim for perfect mechanical systems - they know what they look like, even if they haven't got there yet - but have no idea how to "design" perfect human-interaction systems.

It makes me think that all the staff should do a temp Christmas retail job at minimum wage - as that would give them insight to customer service - followed by temp administration work inside a company or governmental organisation, as that would give them business-to-business insight.

Frozenprince · Oct 20, 2018

Andres said:
Path of Motus looks like a game that never would have been on Steam under the old curation.

And dude wants $15 for it.

I get having pride in your work. That's respectable. But read the market and realize your game not selling at a specific price point usually means either the product is bad or the price point is bad.

MasterOfPastures · Oct 20, 2018

This article is a mess. The review section and issues are perhaps the only legitimate 'graphs worth discussing.
And, having grown up in South America AND now living in Europe, fuck off a dick with this "forced discount" crap. Straightforward conversion of prices, without taking into account what the purchasing power of the country is, leads to piracy and no sales. Be glad your game can even be sold internationally.

Madjoki · Oct 20, 2018

Frozenprince said:
And dude wants $15 for it.

I get having pride in your work. That's respectable. But read the market and realize your game not selling at a specific price point usually means either the product is bad or the price point is bad.

Rough market situation on similar games by tags (2D, Indie, Platformer), under $15:

https://steamdb.info/instantsearch/...st[appType][0]=Game&priceRanges[price_us]=:15

He has to compete with ~715 games

and 38 of those have user ratings over 90%.

That's impossible combination unless you've something special.

Ge0force · Oct 20, 2018

Rondras said:
I don't see you explaining why they became so big aside of literally having 0 competition in the digital market. Everyone after them is doing things way better than them when they are literally the ones dominating the market and with more money... so,if you are not gonna explain your point then dont even reply. Don't waste our time.

Steam became so big because it's the preferred ecosystem for the majority of PC gamers. Valve has done plenty of things (first) to earn this:

- allowing devs to self-publish their games without annoying policies or mandatory exclusivity
- offering devs a full set of features (steamworks, drm, vac etc) but NONE of these features is mandatory
- allowing devs to generate FREE game keys to sell on their own website or competing 3rd party keystores. This didn't only give us cheap games, but also wonderful stuff like Humble Bundles
- devs are allowed to integrate their own client or ecosystem (uPlay for example)
- easy mod support through workshop
- early access
- fully automated refunds for EVERY game
- regional pricing
- they support DRM-free games
- family sharing
- universal controller support
- cross-buy and cross-play between every popular OS (Windows, Mac, Linux)
- user reviews
- personalized store page
- personalized discovery queue
- wish list
- developer pages
- curators to find the games you may like instead of Valve deciding what's a good game and what isn't
- Steam Link
- Big picture mode
- Steam controller to play PC games on the couch
- Offline mode
- Steam sales
- Trading cards
- Free cloud saves
- ...

Pretty sure I forgot to mention many other great things that Valve has done for PC gaming.

Now please, go ahead and tell me what exactly uPlay or Origin are doing better than Steam. I can't wait...

Valdega said:
HITMAN 2016 got a lot of bad reviews for being episodic and requiring an online connection.

That's a coincidence. I got Hitman with this months humble monthly, but couldn't play it this morning because the servers are down.

BernardoOne · Oct 20, 2018

Valdega said:
The article makes some good points about the user review system. It's definitely abused. It's pretty common to see reviews from people who have played a game for less than an hour. It's also common to see bad reviews from people with specific technical issues or for political reasons that have nothing to do with the game's quality. HITMAN 2016 got a lot of bad reviews for being episodic and requiring an online connection. Torment got a lot of bad reviews because inXile didn't deliver on all of the stretch goals. A lot of games get bad reviews because of DLC or microtransactions. Hell, some games have gotten bad reviews simply because they didn't support a specific language.

What Steam really needs is a better way to filter out useless reviews. I don't want to see reviews from people who have barely played the game, for example. I also don't want to see reviews that are only one or two sentences long.

I really really love HITMAN 2016 (in fact im probably the person in this forum with the most hours on it :P) but the launch day was a shitshow, it was literally unplayable for most of it. Thankfully the HITMAN 2 is coming with offline mode from the get go.

ArnoldJRimmer · Oct 20, 2018

I will agree with one thing, it IS harder to garner attention as a PC exclusive title, but this has been true of PC exclusives for a loooong while. Mainstream media is much more likely to talk about and hype some mediocre console title than a good PC exclusive. That has been changing a lot as mainstream media has kind of given way to youtubers and "influencers", but even there, having a big publisher or being backed by Sony or MS would mean a ton.

Of course it's super hard for an indie to get that kind of backing from the big console guys, but it's almost impossible for that to happen to a PC exclusive. Valve is never going to back you financially, and publishers nowadays, even though most have PC exclusive IP, need a title on every platform they can put it on.

iceblade · Oct 20, 2018

Pixieking said:
Yeah, I've even stopped (mostly) buying games as birthday and Christmas gifts, because everyone I know has hit a combination of "enough games to last a lifetime", "work 8 or 10 hours a day" and "wants to do things other than sit in front of a computer or TV". It's not just competing against people's backlogs, it's competing against going out with friends, going out with your significant other, traveling to other countries, reading books, getting involved with politics, getting a degree or professional qualification... The list goes on and on.

I would be interested in seeing in-depth data of new Steam user growth vs purchasing habits of old users vs purchasing habits of new users vs time those two groups spend actually playing games. I would expect that data to help all interested parties (devs, pubs, professional and armchair analysts) move on from "Steam sucks they don't deserve their 30%" to a broader view of gaming's place in the world.

This is so true. That recent comment by the Nintendo person (I forget whom) about not competing with Sony but competing for time is a very valid one, and I think someone from Netflix has said similar things as well. After a certain point it becomes less appealing to buy games on Steam (and I think elsewhere) when you start to look at the many other games you've acquired and never played, and like you say there are only so many hours in a day to pack everything in. It's one reason why I've become so in favor of portability in consoles, as it allows me to play in places (and chunks of time) I wouldn't be able to otherwise, but like you say that usually comes at the cost of another hobby.

Ge0force said:
Steam became so big because it's the preferred ecosystem for the majority of PC gamers. Valve has done plenty of things (first) to earn this:

- allowing devs to self-publish their games without annoying policies or mandatory exclusivity
- offering devs a full set of features (steamworks, drm, vac etc) but NONE of these features is mandatory
- allowing devs to generate FREE game keys to sell on their own website or competing 3rd party keystores. This didn't only give us cheap games, but also wonderful stuff like Humble Bundles
- devs are allowed to integrate their own client or ecosystem (uPlay for example)
- easy mod support through workshop
- early access
- fully automated refunds for EVERY game
- regional pricing
- they support DRM-free games
- family sharing
- universal controller support
- cross-buy and cross-play between every popular OS (Windows, Mac, Linux)
- user reviews
- personalized store page
- personalized discovery queue
- wish list
- developer pages
- curators to find the games you may like instead of Valve deciding what's a good game and what isn't
- Steam Link
- Big picture mode
- Steam controller to play PC games on the couch
- Offline mode
- Steam sales
- Trading cards
- Free cloud saves
- ...

Pretty sure I forgot to mention many other great things that Valve has done for PC gaming.

Now please, go ahead and tell me what exactly uPlay or Origin are doing better than Steam. I can't wait...

The one thing I can think of that Origin has (though I haven't used it myself) is play-as-you-download. But like you say there's a long list of features they've innovated on themselves (Proton), or pulled from others (achievements) and they keep adding to and improving the platform, especially recently. They do have a reputation for being opaque, but they have done a lot to make it comfortable, and even desirable to have games on Steam and just buy everything there. For me it's playtime tracking, fast (and easy) downloads, and having most games I'd want to play available. I also like the overlay. IMO it definitely isn't luck that got them to where they are.

m0dus · Oct 20, 2018

Valdega said:
The article makes some good points about the user review system. It's definitely abused. It's pretty common to see reviews from people who have played a game for less than an hour. It's also common to see bad reviews from people with specific technical issues or for political reasons that have nothing to do with the game's quality. HITMAN 2016 got a lot of bad reviews for being episodic and requiring an online connection. Torment got a lot of bad reviews because inXile didn't deliver on all of the stretch goals. A lot of games get bad reviews because of DLC or microtransactions. Hell, some games have gotten bad reviews simply because they didn't support a specific language.

What Steam really needs is a better way to filter out useless reviews. I don't want to see reviews from people who have barely played the game, for example. I also don't want to see reviews that are only one or two sentences long.

I can provide a small example of this frustration. Again, anecdotal, based on our experience. It is NOT a condemnation of steam or valve, merely a mild example of these frustrations from a developer standpoint:

So a few months ago this review popped up:

We'd made no changes to the game for months, certainly no changes to the throwing system. This person also posted in the support forum, where we were troubleshooting this issue with a couple other people who had experienced it (it was random and rare). I enlisted one of the main programmers to take time out of his day to try and troubleshoot the issue with me.

Within a couple days, we found a solution - turns out a recent steam VR update had nerfed throwing for a couple of players. THIS person was part of the discussion, and acknowledged the fix worked for them.

We responded to their posts in the forum, and responded to the review as well. I've actually asked this person to reassess their review as the game works for them.

Here is where the frustration stems:

-the user has no interest in changing or removing the review (it's the only review in his account). This is despite us taking the time to personally address his concern.

-we have no way of removing the review or flagging it as a resolved support issue.

Now, For the most part we have been lucky - the vast majority of our reviews have been positive, helpful, and kind, and the one or two negative reviews we've received were on point and actually helped us tweak certain elements for a better experience. I can say without hesitation that the fan support on steam has been wonderful, small though the base may be.

But being unable to filter chaff like this is frustrating. There are certainly worse examples of this as well:

It was early enough in the games release that we actually tracked down his argument via a google search, which was with someone else not affiliated with any of us. We tried explaining it to him, but he'd already fucked off and was long gone. Flagged it, finally got a response from a mod which basically said "deal with it and move on".

So there are definitely areas, I think, where this system could be improved or served by dedicated support.

Doskoi Panda · Oct 20, 2018

Rondras said:
I don't see you explaining why they became so big aside of literally having 0 competition in the digital market. Everyone after them is doing things way better than them when they are literally the ones dominating the market and with more money... so,if you are not gonna explain your point then dont even reply. Don't waste our time.

instead of writing out the bolded you could have just posted "I don't know what I'm talking about at all, guys" and saved yourself a little bit of time and trouble

Saucycarpdog · Oct 20, 2018

Pixieking said:
Battlenet has a shit regional Friend system, and doesn't allow crossplay between continents. EA Origin doesn't have an inventory system or cards (which are literally free money). GOG hasn't made waves in Linux gaming. In fact, no company has done as much for Linux gaming as Valve. They created a custom controller that works with almost any PC game, and have allowed the community to design configs for it. They've contributed to the Vulkan graphics API.

People need to acknowledge that Valve does way more than others in the PC space, even if they're not perfect. To do otherwise shows bias and an unwillingness to acknowledge facts.

Not to mention Origin doesn't have controller compatibility. I thought about buying the mass effect trilogy at one point and was gonna play with a 360 controller until I found out there was no controller support.

There's a lot of services people take for granted on Steam.

Madjoki · Oct 20, 2018

iceblade said:
The one thing I can think of that Origin has (though I haven't used it myself) is play-as-you-download.

Steam actually supports this, though the implementation is worse than Origin/uPlay. Problem being you actually need to launch game so game can tell what to download next.
As a consequence, no one (afaik) uses that.

Historically, Steam (probably) was first to support this, back in 2004 with release of Half-Life 2, though that implementation was removed with Steam Pipe update.

Ge0force · Oct 20, 2018

m0dus said:
I can provide a small example of this frustration. Again, anecdotal, based on our experience. It is NOT a condemnation of steam or valve, merely a mild example of these frustrations from a developer standpoint:

So a few months ago this review popped up:

We'd made no changes to the game for months, certainly no changes to the throwing system. This person also posted in the support forum, where we were troubleshooting this issue with a couple other people who had experienced it (it was random and rare). I enlisted one of the main programmers to take time out of his day to try and troubleshoot the issue with me.

Within a couple days, we found a solution - turns out a recent steam VR update had nerfed throwing for a couple of players. THIS person was part of the discussion, and acknowledged the fix worked for them.

We responded to their posts in the forum, and responded to the review as well. I've actually asked this person to reassess their review as the game works for them.

Here is where the frustration stems:

-the user has no interest in changing or removing the review (it's the only review in his account). This is despite us taking the time to personally address his concern.

-we have no way of removing the review or flagging it as a resolved support issue.

Now, For the most part we have been lucky - the vast majority of our reviews have been positive, helpful, and kind, and the one or two negative reviews we've received were on point and actually helped us tweak certain elements for a better experience. I can say without hesitation that the fan support on steam has been wonderful, small though the base may be.

But being unable to filter chaff like this is frustrating. There are certainly worse examples of this as well:

It was early enough in the games release that we actually tracked down his argument via a google search, which was with someone else not affiliated with any of us. We tried explaining it to him, but he'd already fucked off and was long gone. Flagged it, finally got a response from a mod which basically said "deal with it and move on".

So there are definitely areas, I think, where this system could be improved or served by dedicated support.

I understand how frustrating this must be for you and other devs. I'm not sure how to solve this. If Valve would allow you to remove these reviews, you would get a shitstorm for manipulating the system by removing negative reviews. I guess the only thing you can do is respond once to the review that the throwing mechanic hasn't been altered. Let the readers of the reviews make their own conclusion.

What Valve can do is to suspend people from reviewing if they abuse the review system. But the question is where they should draw the line.

[Polygon] Steam developers speak: Maximum profits for Valve, minimum responsibilities

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