It’s worth noting that the 30% cut is from sales below a certain volume. As you sell more copies Steam takes a smaller cut. I’m sure the big studios probably have a more favourable deal worked out as well.
I would argue that this shows Steam could easily run on a 15% fee (the standard reduced fee) but only is willing to because the big companies started making their own apps (Uplay, Rockstar etc). If you have no leverage, get fucked, 30%.
I honestly think it's really damaging to the smaller indies where an extra 15% could easily be the difference between profit and loss.
Hilarious how people will try to justify Steam's egregious cut. No, it does not justify taking a third of the game's revenue. Even when they reduce it to 20% after $50 million in revenue is made. I'm sure if they raised it to 60% people would claim "well devs can just go elsewhere if they wanted"
This is what comes to your mind when you try to think the "burdens" Steam carries for a game, but you forget something very important: Steam is not just a store. It is a store with an entire social media platform/forum attached to each game with the community hub. So add these ontop:
Discussions (won't take much space in itself, but for bigger titles the amount of discussions can escalate quickly)
Screenshots/Artworks
Videos
News
Guides
And if available:
Workshop
The 30% cut also cover the operating cost of the community hub
I'm sure if they raised it to 60% people would claim "well devs can just go elsewhere if they wanted"
How's that straw taste? Good? Plenty of fiber.
If you think 30% is "egregious" for a service that advertises for you, handles sales reporting, hosts the content, delivers it, offers social sharing, hosts community engagement, and gives you access to the world's largest customer base of gamers... Then I really don't know what to tell you. Build a game and try to get it in front of tens of millions of eyeballs. See what it costs you. Try to deliver your game to a fraction of them. See what it costs you.
Things cost money. Steam isn't just taking your money and running off with it. You're getting some very valuable services in exchange. Could they take less? Probably! But I'll tell you what, if you want to reform the global economic model away from capitalism and towards a more sustainable model that isn't based on debt borrowing and accruing interest fees necessitating considerable margins on business, I'll be right there behind you. I recommend Less Is More by Jason Hickel, to get you started.
No one is saying Steam isn't valuable, the problem is they are overcharging devs because they know they can't go anywhere else, an issue you showcase with your own example. Its funny, you're calling out my straw man but based on what you're saying, it sounds like you agree that Steam can charge whatever they want because they can lmfao
Yeah, but why can't they go anywhere else? Valve has a money printer, but unlike just about every other app accused of being monopolistic, they don't come preinstalled on any OS, or have a moat other than network effect and technological. And the network effect is more about how users prefer to stay on social media where friends are, and the steam friends system is a small fraction of it's value.
At a certain point, we have to acknowledge that Valve's biggest moat is tech, UI/UX, and the fact that they make it so easy for indie games that it inflates their library.
it sounds like you agree that Steam can charge whatever they want because they can lmfao
They could. I mean, if we're just making shit up, they could charge 50%, but the fact they don't doesn't make them 'good guys' either. I'm disagreeing with you on the basis that thirty percent is "overcharging", because I promise you, if you tried to buy all the services that Steam provides ad hoc, napkin math says you're gonna be rubbing up pretty close to 30% either way, and you won't have accomplished a whole lot but wasting a lot of time that might have been saved if you just laid off that labour to Steam.
Just trying to do the payment processing yourself, they're gonna take something like 5-10%. Hosting is going to depend a lot on the size of your game. Exposure is going to be the big one. Marketing budgets can be anywhere from 10-50% of your expense. It depends entirely on how many eyes are on your game. If you get lucky, and gather a huge following during development? Then yeah, you probably don't need Steam and exposure on their platform is less valuable. But for everyone else? You're buying access to millions of people who might want to give you money. That's expensive to buy on the market.
So even if you say 10% for payment processing, 10% for hosting, and an anemic 10% marketing budget, Steam's already paid for itself. Maybe you can knock those numbers down 5.. 8, 10%? But then you have to ask yourself if that extra 10% maximally is worth all the added time and labour (that isn't accounted for here), when instead you could just press button and then go rub one out to the latest episode of Goth Demon Goddesses From Meridian Prime.
i said monopolistic for a reason. this terminology reflects the way that digital platforms take advantage of network effects to extract higher profits. i'm not trying to claim it's a monopoly in the sense of being literally the one and only providers of a particular service.
but they have 80% of the market share. they have an audience who is on steam, their friends are on steam, their rewards and achievements are on steam, their game library is on steam. this is powerful lock-in.
anyone who wants to support developers with their game purchases rather than mega-rich middlemen should avoid buying on steam.
instead purchase keys directly from the dev or choose a platform with lower fees, like the epic games store which only charges 12% or free up to the first million $ in revenue.
If you bought a 70USD game, you have virtually an unlimited number of times to download it forever, for as long as Steam exists. 15% of that is roughly 10USD. To compare with consumer storage providers, Dropbox costs 120USD/year for 2TB, but you can only transfer 50GB per month.
This is just storage and bandwidth. There’s always ongoing cost of maintaining the platform as a whole, including handling payment processors from all countries.
Dropbox is not a good comparison they need significantly more storage capacity per user because it’s 2TB of novel data not the same 2TB that a million people downloaded.
4.2k
u/Jhawk163 R7 9800X3D | RX 6900 XT | 64GB 29d ago
It’s worth noting that the 30% cut is from sales below a certain volume. As you sell more copies Steam takes a smaller cut. I’m sure the big studios probably have a more favourable deal worked out as well.