-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Valve changes revenue sharing for Steam to allow successful developers to earn bigger percentage cut
- Thread starter Dusk Golem
- Start date
They often offer far more than the competitors to consumers and to devs. SteamAPIs for devs for a lot of different scenarios (Cloudsaves, Achievements, Modding, Controllersupport etc.).
And what they offer to consumers has been posted in this thread over and over again.
On the other hand on BNet I literally have region-locked friendlists and region-locked progression. Wanna play Hearthstone with an American friend? Fuck you. All your progress for NA starts at 0.
Want to join a friends game in an Origin game? Cant jsut right-click on him and join that game.
Want to play a Ubisoft game you only have on uPlay on your TV? Cant just start a BPM-like service on your TV even though the client has controller support.
Want to family share with any other client? Sorry. Cant do that.
Heck. Even comparing it to consoles nowadays I cant even play free online on consoles and have to pay Sony, MS and Nintendo to play P2P onlinegames...
Sorry for derailing a bit,but speaking of that famous 30% cut,i wonder how much AAA blockbusters like RDR2 actually pay,on let's say PSN,especially if they have marketing partnership with Sony in this case.I bet that number is less then 30% but those are classified and complex business arrangements so we never gonna find out i guess...
I dunno if it well. If someone launches say, World of warcraft through Stream, Does that mean all the microtransactions(Monthly fee, premium pets/mounts) give Valve their own cut?
Like...it's not a small amount of money Blizzard would be losing. And the games that they've released on B.net, are games that feed off microtransactions like that. Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, WoW, Black Ops, Destiny...
Even if at minimum Valve was taking a 5% cut, that's still a massive amount.
No. You can release your game on Steam and let it launch through another launcher like uPlay, but enjoy using SteamAPIs for certain stuff like Achievements, Streaming etc.
In that case only the initial purchase on Steam would give Valve 30%. MTX, Gamepasses etc. if sold only in the other launcher or inside the game would be on uPlay or BNet.
Ubisoft is doing that with AC since a few years. Achievements and game on Steam, everything else through uPlay.
Yeah bud, I didn't answer any of your arguments because this thread has answered them a thousand times over.
Nobody here is arguing about what's best for AAA publishers, because none of us are AAA publishers. What we're talking about is the health of the market and what's good for consumers, because the vast majority of us on here are consumers. Of course it makes more sense financially for a AAA publisher to make their own launcher right now, and that's exactly what Valve's move is fighting.
For a 30 percent take - which, again, is a STANDARD across the industry, and the burden of proof is on you if you're going to accuse that of being "extremely high" - you get access to Steam's suite of features, which includes regional pricing, one-click mod installation and management, fully remappable controller translation, a full VR platform and storefront, cloud saves, achievements, anti-cheat, the fact that your game is stored on their servers, uses their bandwidth, and they pay for and manage server uptime, and oh my God how many times do I have to list all this shit across this thread. Now Valve is offering that entire suite of features for a smaller take for people who reach some not-particularly-unachievable sales figures. It takes a ludicrous amount of energy to spin that as literally anything except a good thing, but here we are!
Multiple launchers is good for AAA publishers? Cool. I don't give a shit. I buy and play video games, and I want the people who make the video games I buy and play to be on a healthy platform where they can be financially successful. Multiple launchers is nothing but a bad thing for the average consumer and the average consumer is going to respond in kind by not buying PC games anymore.
Yes, Valve takes 30% (or whatever) of MTXN too and you can't provide other payment options than Steam Wallet in-game. (But you could still sell content directly on sites or as codes, something that Rockstar does with GTA V / Cash cards for example).
I'd assume this is reason why Destiny and BO4 skipped Steam and went to B.net, those games are heavily geared towards in-game spending, while Sekiro is still going to be on Steam, because it doesn't have microtransactions.
(It seems it some point Destiny was planned for Steam based on Bungie accidentally enabling sales of in-game transactions)
If I'm not mistaken, microtransactions don't have to go through Steam, but DLC/expansion packs/season passes do (which is why EA originally left Steam for their own client, they didn't want to sell Crysis 2 DLC map packs on Steam).
EDIT: Or maybe microtransactions do have to go through Steam, trying to search about how Assassin's Creed games handle it, seems like the Steam versions use the Steam wallet? Which implies that Valve would get a cut, right? Or is it optional to use the Steam wallet for that?
Last edited:
True. Plans changed I suppose(regarding destiny)
Sekiro is going to steam because FromSoftware is not Blizzard or Activision tbh. They don't have their own platform to sell from.
Hmmm. Wonder what kind of publishing deal they have? I doubt it's one like they have with Bungie, where they can force Bungies hand and make them publish it on B.net(Thus the mistake with the MTX showing up on Steam, Activision probably stepped in and forced them to put it out on b.net)
Dark Souls series is still best selling on PC (Steam) as far as i know so my guess is that FromSoft doesn't want to risk changing anything and Activision is not ready to pay possible difference in sales.
It's not like every game from Activision will end up on B.net. They released the Crash Bandicoot Collection on Steam, and will probably continue to do that with every non-online AAA game.
Oh, I don't expect it. It's definitely a big "if".
Yeah. Microtransactions are required to use Steam Wallet, although if these revenue cut tweaks fail to have the desired effect, I can see Valve relaxing that to at least some degree.
Last edited:
"We're billionaires now. Have some of our scraps. They're utterly devine!"
But really, glad to see the developers earning a higher percentage since they make the actual content.
But really, glad to see the developers earning a higher percentage since they make the actual content.
There's still a lot of value in how the content reaches the consumer.
This is unbelievable. It's this still the mods opinion on Era?
Valve doesn't dictate the DRM (or lack thereof) used by games on its platform. Many games on Steam are in fact DRM free.
I guess it depends on how much it costs to have your own platform. You have to also consider if they're losing sales by not being on the biggest platform on PC.
.
Last edited:
Sekiro is a From IP, they funded the game for themselves, they partnered with Activision to publish, market and distribuite the game in NA and Europe.
For the asian market they have a different publisher, in Japan, it's self-published by From.
It's like The Witcher 3 and CDPR, they have Warner Bros for NA, Namco Bandai for EU, a different publisher for Russia and Japan.
I know but this such a small portion that it's a meaningless point.
There's a reason you find so often the same game on Steam at launch costs less than on a DRM free platform and it's but because the Devs are also making the game DRM free on Steam.
That's not a knock against steam specifically but how much it's used
Absolutely. Ideally all PC games would be available DRM-free, at the same release date and on all available services so that consumers could choose where to buy their games from based on provided services, price and extras. That would be actual competition.
On the other side,very popular games like Fortnite,League of Legends or Minecraft (before MS bought them) proved that they don't need Steam,or anybody else for that matter,to be huge commercial success.
People still talking about publishers leaving Steam is absurd.
Blizzard had a launcher before Steam, EA is the only that completely left.
Bethesda will end up publishing RAGE 2, DOOM Eternal and Wolfenstein on Steam
Take-Two will do the same with RDR2 and 2K Games
Ubisoft games are still on Steam
All japanese publishers are still on Steam
Warner Bros is still on Steam
The games that left Steam in the last years are Destiny 2, Black Ops 4 and Fallout76, the first two because Activision Blizzard had already a launcher and a network already working, the latter was expected, all multiplayer focused titles were first launched on Bethesda launcher and later ported to Steam, see TES Online, TES Legends and Quake Champions.
Blizzard had a launcher before Steam, EA is the only that completely left.
Bethesda will end up publishing RAGE 2, DOOM Eternal and Wolfenstein on Steam
Take-Two will do the same with RDR2 and 2K Games
Ubisoft games are still on Steam
All japanese publishers are still on Steam
Warner Bros is still on Steam
The games that left Steam in the last years are Destiny 2, Black Ops 4 and Fallout76, the first two because Activision Blizzard had already a launcher and a network already working, the latter was expected, all multiplayer focused titles were first launched on Bethesda launcher and later ported to Steam, see TES Online, TES Legends and Quake Champions.
But it's a risk.
Not every game can luck into an audience, or justify the marketing to push people into services. Uplay is doing ok, but it took a lot of work to get there and steam still commands a sizable percentage of the audience.
Straight from the horse's mouth. For those who don't know him, Jeff Vogel has been in the business of development (and distribution) of computer role playing games for decades, even when the genre was considered dead.
Battle.net Launcher wasn't a thing before Steam.
Steam was released in 2003 and Battle.net Launcher was released in 2013. Before that every Blizzard game had their own standalone launcher / patcher build into them.
I really don't understand why Ubi gets brought up so often. Instead of preparing to leave Steam they actually started to implement more Steam features into their games (achievements, trading cards).
They aren't actually if you want them to have a competitve feature-set but most of Steam's competitors sure are built cheaply. It's painfully obvious for me as a customer/consumer who uses these products daily which of them puts in real effort (Steam), puts in some effort from time to time (Uplay, B.net, tho the latter is an exception anyway, since it only handles very few games), barely cares (Origin) and who take glee in the eternal suffering of their customers (Microsoft, Bethesda). We live in a service-centric society and Steam is giving me the best by far, that should be worth something to pubs/devs. Because it leads to me spending money more freely without any concerns while with all the other stores, even the serviceable ones, there's always some reluctance. So what devs/pubs are getting for 20-30% is me giving them money without second thoughts. My library is in the thousands and it's reasonable to assume I would never have noticed and then bought a big chunk if the games were only available somewhere else.
Amazon taking only 2% for anything? Somewhere Jeff B. is laughing. And even the rest, how could they survive on such slim margins? Doing business is messy and filled with pitfalls, that's why companies pay others good money to do their dirty work.
Having said all that it wouldn't have hurt to throw indies a bone and reduce the percentage for the first few thousand $s of revenue. Wouldn't of course stopped the salty tweets from certain devs who seemingly spend more time on Twitter than making games but you can't win 'em all.
Last edited:
Battlenet was launched in 1996 with Diablo and Starcraft II followed in 1998.
Every other Blizzard title, since Starcraft was available on Battlenet, WoW was the only exception.
What is this rubbish. You really think 5% is going to cover payment processing, infrastructure, development costs and allow Valve to make a profit?
Last edited:
The guy that made Steamspy mentioned earlier this year that Ubisoft was next when it comes to publishers leaving steam (he's totally not biased as someone that works for Epic), maybe it's from there that some people assume that Ubisoft is leaving Steam?
If you meant unified platform in that sense, sure.
They just didn't have convenient launcher for access before 2013 and it BNet being website driven was a chore.
That's totally false, Ubisoft biggest upcoming game is The Division 2 and guess what? It's available on Steam, steamspy owner is just salty and biased.
If Steam was really doing such a shit job with the 30% cut they were getting you'd think someone would come in and eat their lunch but as of yet no one has managed to do it. I mean if it is so easy you'd think there would be someone willing to offer a similar store while demanding a fraction of the fees Valve is asking for. Sure the store would take a while to get going but eventually it would be making money and then it will only be a matter of time before it becomes the preferred store for new games.
5% vs 30% - You'd be dumb to put your game on Steam when you can be saving so much money while getting the security, visibility, community infrastructure and dev tools that Steam is offering. And yet there hasn't been one yet or at least one that can match Steam.
5% vs 30% - You'd be dumb to put your game on Steam when you can be saving so much money while getting the security, visibility, community infrastructure and dev tools that Steam is offering. And yet there hasn't been one yet or at least one that can match Steam.
It blows my mind that people actually think Steam should do what they're doing for free or significantly less than what Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Apple, and Google charge on their digital stores.
How many people remember PC gaming before Steam? Because it was awful.
Hell, just look at the alternative stores now. Steam is still easily the best platform. I dread the day I have to use 10 different garbage launchers.
How many people remember PC gaming before Steam? Because it was awful.
Hell, just look at the alternative stores now. Steam is still easily the best platform. I dread the day I have to use 10 different garbage launchers.
The people who shit on Valve don't play on PC, they're console warriors.
All of this talk of how Steam should do business or confusion over what kind of services they provide make me wish they had another Steam Dev Days lined up. The ones they did always provided tons of great information on how the platform worked and ideas on where Steam and the game market in general is going. A lot has changed since the last one only a couple years ago.
For many games, we are already at this point.
However, I simply won't bother with those services and their games when they have so many issues or actively prevent me playing in the ways I expect easily - no matter what games that means I miss.
Been doing this for since for years and although it's a shame, it is really easy to do considering just how many amazing games there are on better services than I have time to play as it is. I rather spend my money on more meaningful things.
Sadly, none of the publisher-centric nor game specific services have any interest in doing anything beyond the bare minimum in terms of features, stability, usability, support or protections / guaranteed perpetuity nor future proofing / innovating over time