Valve gives top-selling games a bigger slice of the sales revenue

[Cmdr-Wotherspoon]

Valve currently keeps 30% of the income from sales made through the Steam store. From now on, titles that sell more than $10M will pay a reduced 25% to Valve, and the really big titles, selling $50M or more, will only pay 20% of revenue to Valve. DLC is included in the calculations, so $10M is quite achievable. Source: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...ig-game-developers-keep-more-of-their-profits

I wonder if this will significantly improve fDev's revenue through the Steam store?

 

[Shadowdancer]

Please, please, big publishers, don't use the ability to sell your stuff yourself without giving us money!

I think that sums up the process behind that decision.

 

[moorison]

I think that sums up the process behind that decision.

I agree. There are probably more publishers thinking about establishing their own system and the "available on steam"-attribute might not be as appealing as it once was.

 

[Fishy]

I think that sums up the process behind that decision.

Please, please, big publishers, don't use the ability to sell your stuff, push it automatically in front of millions of customers, make it appear based on games played/wishlist/browsing categories, promote it worldwide during regular sales periods, give it a unified cloud save, mod and guides infrastructure, tie a screenshot collection infrastructure with cloud support and web publishing features, make it use a networking API that allows an integrated social network to automatically start friendlist games, link it to a review/forum infrastructure, allows regional pricing, setup a refund system that doesn't throw you under the bus in country XYZ, support key selling to third parties to allow external resellers, automatically manage updates while supporting multiple branches, offer download through high bandwidth servers all across the world, support the currently popular gamification trend with cards, badges trophies and achievements, add an overlay that supports progress tracking, text and voice chat, make things friendly to couch/controller/TV setup, support per-game controller remapping and cloud profile sharing, integrate a media player for soundtrack playing, support gifting and family sharing, include a streaming infrastructure, develop a mobile app tapping into as many of the features as possible... yourself without giving us money!

I'm amazed at how those parasitic middlemen even make a living when all it takes is files on a web server with a paypal link to get the same features and quality of service. [noob]

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Please, please, big publishers, don't use the ability to [...] ... yourself without giving us money!

Those are certainly all potentially useful features, but for big companies they don't particularly need the marketing side of it, it's not exactly difficult to handle your own ecommerce (and unless you only sell through Steam and other resellers you're going to have to do that anyway), and the rest of it is unlikely to be worth paying 30% (or even 20%, I expect) for. There's a bunch of nice-to-have features for customers there ... but are people really not going to buy "hype of the month" because it doesn't have those? (Specifically, are 20%/30% of people not going to buy it because? - that's the cost-benefit analysis they need to do)

For small/medium publishers that sort of intermediary service is almost essential because they'd often spend just as much on their own marketing and sales upfront as they do on "pay as you sell" with Steam. For large ones? Probably not worth it.
(But Steam needs the big ones to get the customer base to make it worthwhile to the small ones, of course)

 

[Jezzah]

30% wow.

Gouging at its level best there.

No wonder they don't make games anymore.

Gouging gits.

 

[Fishy]

I don't know what it's worth, and Valve is apparently revising that. Like any other company, they'll charge what they can get away with. But they're doing so by adding value, which is what middle-men tend to do. Forgetting Steam for a second, GoG is also providing some of the features listed in the post above, as well as contributing to the modern OS support and encouraging drm-free practices. We have a good thing going right now, but the current trend of self-publishing because game X is big enough to be able to afford it is imho a straight negative for customers. There's no way the price we're charged is going to go down when they get rid of all competition, and in the process we'll lose the added value because they'll have zero incentive to provide it when stores like Steam/GoG are driven to it to justify their business as being more than a glorified paypal button.

 

[Chris Simon]

Sure, why supporting small developers by lowering the cut. Support the big devs with millions in revenue. Cool.

One more reason to not buy games on Steam for me.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Please, please, big publishers, don't use the ability to sell your stuff, push it automatically in front of millions of customers, make it appear based on games played/wishlist/browsing categories, promote it worldwide during regular sales periods, give it a unified cloud save, mod and guides infrastructure, tie a screenshot collection infrastructure with cloud support and web publishing features, make it use a networking API that allows an integrated social network to automatically start friendlist games, link it to a review/forum infrastructure, allows regional pricing, setup a refund system that doesn't throw you under the bus in country XYZ, support key selling to third parties to allow external resellers, automatically manage updates while supporting multiple branches, offer download through high bandwidth servers all across the world, support the currently popular gamification trend with cards, badges trophies and achievements, add an overlay that supports progress tracking, text and voice chat, make things friendly to couch/controller/TV setup, support per-game controller remapping and cloud profile sharing, integrate a media player for soundtrack playing, support gifting and family sharing, include a streaming infrastructure, develop a mobile app tapping into as many of the features as possible... yourself without giving us money!

It's evidently still cheaper to DIY after considering those.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Sure, why supporting small developers by lowering the cut. Support the big devs with millions in revenue. Cool.

One more reason to not buy games on Steam for me.

I beg to differ.
I bought a number of indie titles that I would have otherwise never seen. Hell, this is how I discovered Elite.

30% is actually OK considering there is no need for them to spend/work on marketing at all. On top of it, I think it is highly likely Valve also takes a cut when doing big sales events.
And to me as a user, Steam is a neat platform to discover games and organize my library.

Anyway, it is neat to have a Steam review in your sig after your statement.

 

[Shadowdancer]

30% is actually OK considering there is no need for them to spend/work on marketing at all.

Just short of a third is quite a lot for the big advantage of showing up in a random list of garbage and big-ticket titles and hosted downloads. Unless you manage to be somehow "trending" through external marketing like getting known streamers play your game and make it to the top sellers or some other prominent part of the storefront, you're invisible in there.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Just short of a third is quite a lot for the big advantage of showing up in a random list of garbage and big-ticket titles and hosted downloads. Unless you manage to be somehow "trending" through external marketing like getting known streamers play your game and make it to the top sellers or some other prominent part of the storefront, you're invisible in there.

The thing is with Steam, that fairly obscure games are getting reviews and a bit of exposure, so if the game is good, you have a good chance of uplift.
And if you don't generate revenue, then 30% is also nothing.

Taking another angle: it is telling that the worst and greediest devs and titles (EA anyone?) are not on Steam. I'd hate to be in their biowaste store/ecosystem...

 

[Chris Simon]

I beg to differ.
I bought a number of indie titles that I would have otherwise never seen. Hell, this is how I discovered Elite.

30% is actually OK considering there is no need for them to spend/work on marketing at all. On top of it, I think it is highly likely Valve also takes a cut when doing big sales events.
And to me as a user, Steam is a neat platform to discover games and organize my library.

Anyway, it is neat to have a Steam review in your sig after your statement.

There is 50-100 new games added to Steam, every week. That doesn't really make it an ideal marketing platform if you're depending on players "just stumbling upon your game"
Just sayin'

 

[Ian Skippy]

I think that sums up the process behind that decision.

Nothing wrong with that. Steam has value, but only to a point. As time goes on, going independent from steam becomes cheaper, and this is an effect felt strongest by the biggest studios. Rockstar isn't going to to give Steam hundreds of millions for their platform, so I can see the next stap being tailor-made deals. Just business.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

With Zenimax/Bethesda trying for force their own distribution channel into our throats it's probably Steam's reaction to keep a slice of tirple A game sales. Though you can argue whether FO 76 is tirple A.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

Please, please, big publishers, don't use the ability to sell your stuff, push it automatically in front of millions of customers, make it appear based on games played/wishlist/browsing categories, promote it worldwide during regular sales periods, give it a unified cloud save, mod and guides infrastructure, tie a screenshot collection infrastructure with cloud support and web publishing features, make it use a networking API that allows an integrated social network to automatically start friendlist games, link it to a review/forum infrastructure, allows regional pricing, setup a refund system that doesn't throw you under the bus in country XYZ, support key selling to third parties to allow external resellers, automatically manage updates while supporting multiple branches, offer download through high bandwidth servers all across the world, support the currently popular gamification trend with cards, badges trophies and achievements, add an overlay that supports progress tracking, text and voice chat, make things friendly to couch/controller/TV setup, support per-game controller remapping and cloud profile sharing, integrate a media player for soundtrack playing, support gifting and family sharing, include a streaming infrastructure, develop a mobile app tapping into as many of the features as possible... yourself without giving us money!

I'm amazed at how those parasitic middlemen even make a living when all it takes is files on a web server with a paypal link to get the same features and quality of service. [noob]

QFT!

 

[Fishy]

QFT!

Forgot Linux support too.

But anyhow, it's not to argue whether 30% is good value or too high. Just a reminder that this idea that through Steam, Valve do nothing but leech a third of the profits of the software industry is well, either ill-informed or terribly reductive. Same goes for GoG and the rest of the crowd. Valve pioneered digital game distribution and over time kept adding features to their platform to remain competitive. What share these features and user base are worth is obviously going to fluctuate over time, with the tech underpinning the platform inevitably becoming commoditised and the user base being partly eroded due to competition. But the idea that somehow we're gaining anything from moving from generic digital storefronts to publisher-based platforms is, imho, ludicrous. The only people gaining anything from it are the publisher's investors, while us players directly lose out on the features digital storefronts had an incentive to produce. Indie devs lose out in the process too as suddenly their games no longer get recommended alongside the industry leader.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

But the idea that somehow we're gaining anything from moving from generic digital storefronts to publisher-based platforms is, imho, ludicrous. The only people gaining anything from it are the publisher's investors, while us players directly lose out on the features digital storefronts had an incentive to produce.

And with the industry push in the direction of games as a service we will sooner or later end out with having to purchase multiple subscriptions like it currently is with movie streaming. Which might or might not be a bad thing. After all many of us sit on a pile of shame which is likely they won't finish untill they die, so we would focus more on one title ;-)))

 

[Fishy]

And with the industry push in the direction of games as a service we will sooner or later end out with having to purchase multiple subscriptions like it currently is with movie streaming. Which might or might not be a bad thing. After all many of us sit on a pile of shame which is likely they won't finish untill they die, so we would focus more on one title ;-)))

Ugh. The pile of shame just reminded me of all the wargaming miniatures I still have to paint...

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

honestly when valve gets 30% and games like GTA stay for ages at a price of 60€ while elswhere it is to get for 35€ and only slaes at steam even scratch that price, then why would a bigegr studio not sell it elsewhere cheaper? and why would a customer not do so too?

pricing politics on steam went bad with many games, making games just price normalisation instead of a real discount.

but hey thats the capitalism you all love and last for.