this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
749 points (90.3% liked)
Games
16858 readers
1183 users here now
Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
Posts.
- News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
- Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
- No humor/memes etc..
- No affiliate links
- No advertising.
- No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
- No self promotion.
- No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
- No politics.
Comments.
- No personal attacks.
- Obey instance rules.
- No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
- Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.
My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
Other communities:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Is Steam really a monopoly when Valve doesn't try to stifle competition and no other company could be bothered (besides maybe GOG) to make a half decent store?
I think it's better to reframe the question as "Are there downsides to Valve's PC market dominance?" or "How is Steam's 30% cut different from Xbox or Playstation?"
For the latter: it's worth noting that Microsoft and Sony sell their hardware at a loss, and make up the difference through software, so there are obvious developer benefits to the 70-30 split. For Steam, the equivalent value-add for developers is only the platform itself, and I would wager for many of those developers the biggest reason for selling on Steam is not the feature set - though obviously useful - but because that's where the users are.
So, users get a feature-rich distribution platform, and developers (and by extension users) pay a tax to access those users. So the question is, how fair is that tax, and what effect does that tax have on the games that get made? Your view on that is going to depend on what you want from Steam, but more relevant I think is how much Steam costs to operate. How much of that 30% cut feeds back into Steam? My guess is not much; though I could be wrong.
But anyway, let's imagine you took away half the 30% cut. Where does that money go? Well, one of two places: either your pocket, or the developers (or publishers) pocket (depending on how the change affects pricing). The benefits to your pocket are obvious, but what if developers just charge the same price? Well, as far as I'm aware, a lot of games are just not profitable - I read somewhere that for every 10 games, 7 fail, 2 break even, and 1 is a huge success - so my personal view is that this is an industry where developers need all the help they can get. If that extra 15% helps them stay afloat long enough to put out the next thing without selling their soul to Microsoft or Sony or whoever is buying up companies these days, and Steam isn't severely negatively impacted, I'd call that a win.
But of course, that won't happen, because Steam has no reason to change. That's where the users are, and they are fine with the status quo.
I think you undersell how feature rich steam is for both users and developers.
They offer community forums, reviews, mods through workshop, cloud saves, automatic controller support, openish vr ecosystem (epic cant even do vr, if you buy a vr game you likely need to use steamvr anyway), broad payment and currency options, regional pricing and guidelines, remote play, and more I'm sure.
This is much more feature rich than even console platforms, so I think the 30% fee is justified.
And they do this all without really locking down their ecosystem.
Don't forget how far they've advanced Linux gaming and hardware
Why would developers care about steams "features"? That's Valve's problem, not theirs. 30% is fucking highway robbery for a distributor. The only reason they get away with it is because they're a monopoly and devs have no choice but to publish games there. It's crazy that you can't see that.
Developers care about steamworks, making cloud saves, multi-player, matchmaking, voice chat, anti cheat, drm, microtransactions, user authentication, and more significantly easier than doing it yourself, it's also basically free to use where many alternatives only support some features for significant fees.
*googles "epic games exclusives"*
"no choice"... huh...
I don't dispute they provide value, but why 30%? Why not 35? Or 25? or 80? or 3? or 29? I don't know.
I'm curious, how much of that 30% do you think feeds back into making Steam better and keeping it running?
Probably more than a public company, that has to pay dividends and prove worth every quarter.
To which the response is: I don't care. I would have paid the same amount of money for games no matter which of the stupid funny numbers you picked out.
The beginning and end of how much one should care is "are the devs happy with it? Is that the standard for digital stores as well?". And the answer to both is Yes, so the concerns are abated.
If it opens them to driven out of the market by a more generous competitor: Cool. But that alone doesn't impact me, the costumer. The generous competitor needs to do more. And you know, they know that. That's why Tim gave me so many free games.
Immortals of Aveum cost 70 monetary-whatevers and killed its studio and no one commented on it. It would have cost 60 whatevers two years ago and still would have killed its studio. But if they did 70, they would have torpedoed that price point in the news circles as a death sentence. They only had the gall because literally no one dared release a game for 70 till Activision did it and others like Sony and Nintendo followed along.
Steams share has zero impact on my wallet. The market is dictated by things way more arbitrary. Everyone with brain knows this.
I fully disagree. On the first point, do developers accept it? Sure. That does not at all mean they are happy about it. Money is tight for games, and I guarantee you every developer would much prefer to take a bigger piece of the pie.
To your second point, it is the standard but it is not universal. Epic Games Store takes 12%. Itch.io defaults to 10%. Google Play Store takes 15% on the first $1 million in revenue.
I don't believe this is entirely true. The more cash flow developers have, the more stable they are as companies, and the more able they are to put out good games. You are indirectly impacted because a larger tax on developers means fewer, or lower quality, games that get released.
~~Disagree, unless you exclusively play AAA.~~
Edit: Actually I've changed my mind on this. I mostly agree the percentage cut doesn't affect the optimal price point.