this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024
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Steams cut off that, at just the $3 million mark, is $450 million. This is $900,000 per game.
People wonder why other companies wanted to make their own launchers. They leave millions on the table by having steam 'handle' things.
This is also why Valve isn't that inclined to pump out tons of new games.
A game like Palworld, which as of 3 weeks ago, has sold 12 million copies would end up making Valve somewhere in the neighbourhood of $72 million as of the end of January.
There's nothing stopping game companies from selling through multiple storefronts, or even direct to customer with Steam's cut removed.
The fact is, players are happy to pay a premium so that the games live in their steam library, are downloaded via Steam's delivery network, and integrate with steam features.
Steam is not anti-competitive, it's just good.
If you sell steam keys through your site you can't charge less than the steam price. In order to sell it cheaper on their site, it would have to be a non-steam version and they'd have to serve up the files themselves. If it's a multiplayer game it wouldn't be compatible, they'd need to switch to EOS or something else. realistically speak, developers could probably charge a bit less by providing that their own. it doesn't cost 30% to serve up the files and process some payments.
No, it doesn't. It also doesn't take $5 to make a cup of coffee, or $10 to make a plate of pasta, or whatever Netflix charges every month to serve up mundane low quality streaming video.
But unless you're proposing ending capitalism to fix the problems with valve's pricing model, there won't be any change to it any time soon.
The only thing that will get valve to have more competitive pricing for video games publishers is if they have actual competition that can siphon away games from their platform. It's not valve's fault that everyone else has made inferior products.
And there's nothing forcing you to publish on steam. If you don't think 30% is a fair exchange for handling file distribution and payments, you can handle your own file distribution and payments. Your game isn't forced to be on Steam.
Netflix isn't the service I'd point the finger at for low quality streaming video. That would be Amazon. They don't even have the problem that Max has where it always starts low and then evens out by the time the recap is done.
In fact, I'm fairly certain you're allowed to do both: sell your game for 25% less while hosting and processing yourself. You just can't sell your steam codes for less.