You know what also justifies Valve’s 30% cut? Their outstanding efforts in getting games to run on Linux, and the overall impact that this had on the Linux community.
I don’t think I’d be running Linux as my only daily driver if not for this. I was slightly dreading switching because I feared spending hours trying to fix broken games, but it’s been astonishingly straightforward (which facilitated me learning to live in Linux in a way I hadn’t been able to when was dual booting with Windows)
For most developers, that’s not much of a value. The Linux share of the gaming market only exists because of Steam. 99% of those gamers would just play on Windows if Valve hadn’t pu in the effort.
It is good for Linux though.
Noblesse oblige.
Since the headline blew it, the game mentioned is called Cosmoteer.
Currently 20% off!
I know this whole thing is probably just an ad, but it’s working on me lol
I played so much of it thru steamlink while at work
Thank you!
Oh wow I’ve owned this game for quite some time. Decent game but ultimately I think Starsector and Avorion are better.
Looked like space pirates and zombies.
Is this controversial? You’re paying for the storefront.
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You give them a cut of the turnover on their site(steam). Important distinction. A developer can generate steam keys for free and sell them elswhere, as long as the price is the same as on steam.
Wait really? Are they just ok with losing the cut from sales?
Yes although they are being sued by developers for not being allowed to sell the keys at a lower price.
As I understand it the issue is actually that people weren’t allowed to sell their game for less on other platforms, but they weren’t necessarily trying to sell Steam keys.
30% seems rather high
but… when they handle payments, refunds, advertising (within their application) and game download costs (server infrastructure?), etc etc etc. it doesnt seem that crazy.
at least, for a lot of indie developers, not having to worry about those things, might easily be worth those 30%
Not to mention the reviews, community hubs, workshop, video streaming and recording, controller support, cloud saves, family sharing.
30% may be a lot, but it’s not like they’re just sitting on it.
EA and Ubisoft don’t offer (most of) those features with their launchers where they do get the full proceeds.
Not to mention Steam/Valve uses a significant portion of their resources to develop Proton.
Putting pressure on Microsoft is PRICELESS.
I remember PirateSoftware talking about the remote play online co-op on steam, I think I found it here:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Iu4kpM692vI
Definitely doesn’t seem to be sitting on it. Hell man, I have re-bought some games on other platforms just to re-play it on my Steam Deck.
I can’t defend/accost the 30% simply due to my lack of knowledge in the industry.
A couple of times, Steam Achievements have been a deciding factor in me not pirating a game. I know it’s dumb but ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
I’d say it’s very reasonable. Steam is EXPENSIVE. If you know anything about bandwidth, it’s the insane cost. They don’t do many exclusivity deals, and they even let you sell steam keys elsewhere with 0 cut for steam without giving users a degraded experience.
For it to “even out” they’d only have to increase your reach ~50%.
They do way more than that. And they give you an inherent legitimacy that putting it on your own site doesn’t. It’s not just handling refunds; it’s the certainty as an end user that you’ll get one hassle free.
Without Steam (or another retailer with similar traits), selling an indie game would be closer to a pipe dream than really hard. In almost all cases (and this seems to apply even to AAA publishers as most of them come back), the 30% they’re taking is money you wouldn’t have without them.
I think there are a lot of people who weren’t around for, or don’t remember, how buying digital titles was before Steam got quite so popular.
It was pretty rare, and the overwhelming majority of indie games were released for free. There just wasn’t many good ways to get the word out, and most ways of taking payment were costly enough to set up that it was rarely worth trying to get some meager amount of pay if you were just a one man show with no external financial backing.
All of this is true but the ugly truth people don’t want to unpack is this is largely because over 90% of PC game purchases occur on Steam, meaning it’s not that they give you an advantage much as you’re nearly dead in the water if you aren’t on Steam unless you’re a AAA game made by a major dev. I’m sure they help as well but that market dominance means they’re essential more than anything.
Valve didn’t do something nefarious to get there, let me be clear. They run overall what most consider a good operation. But saying “they’re so helpful and expand your reach” is like saying “google search helped expand my business’s reach so much” when the reality is if you can’t be found on google you practically don’t exist due to their dominance in search.
TL;DR: Choosing not to be on steam unless you’re on console or a major AAA game is choosing not to exist. And sometimes I worry what kind of company we’ll see in the future if they don’t maintain their company culture/philosophy down the line.
And exactly none of that matters because Valve has never attempted to maliciously take market share. If someone else wants to step in all they have to do is stop being shit. Steam has tons of issues. From the limited UI adaptability for devs to the rather archaic games list and somewhat silly discussions forums from the 90s, all the way to the convoluted larger menu system.
Yet rather than put any real effort into things we get shitty launchers from 9 different companies ONLY selling their limited scope of bullshit.
Plenty of amazing companies change. We have to think about that man. They have my trust now and I really like valve - I have a steamdeck, I have hundreds of games on steam, they’re great. But you can’t seriously act like having all of that dominance in one company isn’t a potential liability down the road. Again, companies change. Gaben isn’t immortal.
But they do give you an advantage. If steam didn’t exist at all, without a comparable replacement, it would not be possible for you to move a real quantity of units at all. The market they provide has massive value, and their market share is a product of genuinely being far and away better than any alternative.
People don’t refuse to buy games on Epic or Origin or Uplay just because they need everything in one place. It’s because all of those platforms are so much worse that they degrade the experience of games purchased through them.
That’s highly speculative. But again, I like valve and think steam is beyond a net good. We need to be asking these questions though. Market dominance is a risk in any hands.
You can’t discount the fact that if you are not on Steam then your game basically didn’t release on computer. You can’t just hand wave away that factor. It’s baked in.
Again, that’s because every other way to distribute games is terrible.
And it doesn’t really matter, because any sales you actually drive yourself you can give them 0% of, with free steam keys. Sales through their storefront are inherently partly driven by their value add.
I didn’t say their success wasn’t due to offering a great product over a sea of bad ones. That isn’t relevant nor am I contesting it.
Of course it’s relevant.
It’s why the PC market is what it is.
This is an anecdote, but it is also absolutely not speculation. I won’t install Epic, I avoid most AAA launchers/required accounts, prefer GOG, and get most of my games on Steam. Epic and many other studio launcher apps are hostile to the consumers or just a royal pain to use. I have a couple Sony games. Why should I have to be online to play a 20-year-old single-player game that I bought through Steam? So now I check if they have that garbage before I buy them through Steam.
I think Steam could afford to charge less, but I don’t think most smaller companies could get a basic store up for less than they charge (and the big companies have the tools to determine if thos is saving them money), and that still doesn’t get you everything Steam brings to the table, consumer confidence being the most important.
30% is industry standard (although it is starting to change). Until recently, both Apple and Google took 30% cuts from their phone app stores. Numbers I can find for GoG range from 30%-50%. Epic games is like 12%.
Anyone who is old enough to remember trying to buy digital copies of games pre-Steam knows how much value Stream brings to the table.
If it’s not on Steam, I don’t even consider it.
What about GOG and its DRM-free games? What about Itch.io and its exceptionally low cut? There are other services that are good. Origin, UPlay, Epic, and other stuff sucking does not mean they’re all bad.
GOG can suck my dick. They spammed my email with newsletters after I would repeatedly turn them off. We do need a DRM free alternative but for that I’ll stick with piracy
As soon as you add a free game, the newsletters are sent again. There is no “subscribe to get the game for free” which AFAIK is mandatory in the EU, they just resubscribe you silently.
Some sites just don’t give a damn about the “unsubscribe” link. Some don’t even include it in the first place.
All of the above get reported as spam and gmail will happily send them to trash ever after.
If it’s not on Steam, I don’t even consider it.
I’m the same, but I’m dreading the day if steam stops being the savior of gaming.
Then we’ll switch to the next best thing.
Nobody can get a foot in the door. Epic tried by buying up exclusives but that just pissed everyone off. Me included.
Then steam will still be worth it. If valve ever goes public we jump ship collectively
That’s a sad take. You are just closing doors on yourself.
I use all the stores available.
As much as I like steam, I’m not putting all my digital eggs in one basket.
The day steam decides to shutdown or remove my account, I lose all those games. No thanks.
Blind faith ain’t for me.
Wait, so you put some of your digital eggs into baskets where it’s more likely that you’ll lose them? Pretty sure Steam has a better chance of surviving than a homegrown storefront of a third rate publisher.
We have piracy for if Steam fails, GoG and Itch’d probably jump at the chance to take some of Steams happy customer base as well if Steam falls from grace post GabeN
As great a take as that is who will host the online service? Piracy can get you far but not always all the way. We need an open source game hosting option. But even that is not all. We need one that has the visibility of steam and the UI to boot. There a a couple of problems that legitimately need solving before we can just say piracy is the answer.
I get your point, but a behemoth like Valve is so unlikely to be closing their doors in our lifetimes it’s hardly worth discussing.
The real point here is that after spending thousands or tens of thousands on Steam, our next of kin or beneficiary will not get them once our lifetime ends because Steam doesn’t sell games. They provide a license to access content.
Steam still suffers from the ‘illusion of ownership’ issue, and places that offer DRM free copies of titles are superior in this way. However it’s plain for all to see that not many people care about this point. All the masses want is to play their games.
In that regard, Steam is king.
Your lifetime is nearly 80 years. Companies lasting 80 years is ultra rare in history, large behemoths included. I bet you can already name several behemoth IT companies that’s already come and gone.
I wouldn’t trust even larger behemoths like google and MSFT to last another 80 yrs. It’s just too statistically unlikely.
I do agree with you on corporate longevity in general, however I disagree when it comes specifically to Valve.
Unlike most companies that bring in billions in revenue, Valve is part of a comparatively small group of privately held companies. They don’t have shareholders to appease, and they don’t have a stock price to juice forever upward. I feel this factor alone puts them ahead of the herd, so to speak.
More than just being a non combatant in the stock market though, with so few employees compared to anyone else is a surefire way to weather even the longest storm in my opinion.
Microsoft themselves estimated a few years ago Valve’s revenue to be 6.5 billion, which works out to 20 million per employee. Microsoft’s gaming division brought in 16 billion in the same year, which is less than 1 million per employee. Even assuming Microsoft’s profit per employee is a higher fraction of the revenue per employee compared to Valve, there’s no chance its 20x higher.
Microsoft, Google, Apple, Exxon Mobil, whichever, I can absolutely see a future (that maybe I’ll live to) where any of the humongous corporations die from providing worse products or service over time, or being knocked aside from the competition. In my view, primarily for the reasons I’ve written, I don’t believe that will be Valve.
The main counterpoint I’ve been able to think up as I wrote this is whatever might happen when Gabe Newell dies. There’s no doubt contingencies for this, and he’s probably hand picked a few names he believes would carry on with his ideals. Though unless they’ve enacted quite iron clad bylaws or policies to prevent certain operational changes, the next leader of Valve could conceivably destroy the company as we know it. Barring anything serious I will outlive Newell, and so in this way, I can see Valve ceasing to exist in my lifetime.
If that happens I’ll just start pirating the games I want again unless there’s a decent competitor. Until then the convenience steam offers is worth the money.
You mean trying to buy digital games in 2003.
Valve didn’t invent the credit card or anything. They just barged their way in, via everyone wanting HL2, and have since taken advantage of how much commerce has moved online.
A few indie devs who hated the idea of storefronts because of the bad taste of Apple self published only on their website. When they finally (after years) switched to steam, every single one of them shared how they got like a multiplier of sales.
One indie dev shared how he made more in revenue in a month on Steam than he did in a decade of self publishing.
That’s life-changing.
Apple is the same deal, though. There’s a reason there’s a lot more solo devs/small teams making money on iOS than Android. Their ecosystem doesn’t do all the work for you, but it absolutely provides a lot of help. You might not like, for example, the Human Interface guidelines, but the enforced consistency in behavior makes a lot more people a lot more willing to buy things.
What do you call it when customers only use one store and all the sellers have to go through that store to get any sales?
Not a trick question. Four syllables. Starts with an M.
In this thread:
Steam is bad because they are a company that makes money. They would be better if they made no money and all games were advertised at their expense. Oh and I must post my game on Steam because it’s their fault no one else has bothered to even try and make a truly viable alternative.
I have not much against steam.
But gog is a more than viable alternative to steam.
Let’s not act as if there’s no alternative when itch.io or gog exists.
Has steam more features? Yes. Is better for some things? Yes. Is the only viable alternative as a game store? No.
I like GoG. I like that they push companies to remove DRM. I like that I can make offline backups of my games.
I prefer GoG over Steam when possible, but Steam is still infinitely more user friendly, and if the game in question is heavily multiplayer-focused, I’ll probably pick Steam over GoG just to use Steam’s multiplayer infrastructure.
GOG has had games that fail to maintain parity with Steam releases.
GOG requires workarounds on Linux moreso than Steam.
The first is not totally GOG’s fault but they should take action. If GOG is truly about preservation, they should make Linux a priority.
My second biggest gaming library is GOG. I love them in theory but Steam wipes the floor with them in terms of who gets my business in part because of those.
They suck.
Having a game on GOG is the same as not having it to me. I will pay for it on steam before playing it for free on GOG. Their launcher sucks (and unless it’s very recent doesn’t even support Linux despite their whole premise being supporting open shit), and manually updating games sucks. Plus they don’t get up to date versions even if you do use their awful launcher.
It’s not a book or movie where the source doesn’t matter. Convenient updates are obligatory for modern gaming to function correctly.
Bad-faith nonsense is worse than directed abuse.
I’d rather have someone tell me to fuck myself than push this ‘you just don’t LIKE it!’ horseshit. Or pretend the only alternative to being a monopoly taking a shitload of money is to be a charity that makes zero dollars. Other numbers exist. Be serious, god damn you.
I have mixed feelings on it.
When I was putting out games, publishing on Steam would mean a guaranteed 1 million impressions on the “New releases” list. That’s incredible exposure for an indie title, which often succeed or fail on exposure alone.
But 30% can be a lot for those same indie teams, especially combined with taxes. You can put years of work into a title and lose half the money it earns to groups that didn’t directly contribute at all. It can easily be enough money that long-term support or follow up games just aren’t viable. It can be your entire outsourcing budget or a whole employee for a year.
And after that initial exposure, you’re not getting much for your perputual 30%. The value of Steamworks can vary greatly game by game so you could end up paying $30k for $100 of bandwidth and minor marketing through things like sales and rich presence.
I would much prefer to see something like “30% after the first $X in sales”. Their cut would kick in only after they’ve demonstrated their value as a platform and small teams wouldn’t have to watch a company with billions of dollars take a very large bite out of their very small pie.
Then generate the steamkey(for free) and sell them elsewhere! Steam is toatally Ok with that, as long as the price is the same.
I do and yes, those keys move slower than Steam sales. But let’s not pretend that’s pure altruism on Valve’s part.
Selling Steam keys elsewhere still benefits Valve because people shop wherever they bulk of their library lives.
The “as long as the price is the same” is also important an important caveat, because it essentially means that Valve doesn’t need to compete with other platforms.
If you decided to sell your game for $50 dollars + platform percentage, buying from the Epic store would be a 10% discount. Almost every game on there would be able to offer this discount and that would be enough to start pulling users away. Rather than offer a better cut, Valve just writes it into the terms that you can’t do that.
You absolutely can do what you are saying. You CAN sell games for lower on other platforms as long as they aren’t steam versions. You CANT sell games that use steam keys for cheaper on another platform which makes sense because steam is still providing bandwidth and other services for your game.
Oh yeah that’s right. Sorry, I haven’t put a game out for a long time.
Ah, Cosmoteer. Extremely fun for like 10 hours, then you realize there is nothing left to do. I guess that dev has made a fortune off of it though, so hats off to that guy.
Honestly that sounds fine. It’s okay if a small game is only entertaining for 10 hours provided the price is reasonable. We shouldn’t expect every game to be an infinitely replayability mill
It confuses the hell out of me that we don’t say that about any other media.
“This movie that I spent $18 per person on only lasts 97 minutes what a rip off.”
I mean, most of us who recognize that that’s shitty value just don’t go to theatres.
It’s why they’re dying.
I agree. But people should be aware that even though “1.0” released in 2022, Cosmoteer has been around since 2011. It’s far from being the worst example of a game in eternal early access, though I would say it isn’t one of the better ones.
wasn’t portal just a mod? very short game, but has some of the most memorable moments in all of gaming
portal was its own game, but it had a very unenthusiastic release. stanley parable and gmod were mods
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Yeah, but you are then building for the sake of building. The crew limitations are a pain, so is getting the resources for the ships. If you are a purely combat player, having to mine asteroids for 95% of the time to get a bigger ship, or to get a necessary reactor isn’t fun gameplay. Then you build three large-ish ships and you cannot crew them all at the same time because people don’t want to work for you. Especially when you are a completionist and want to “finish” a system before heading out, you quickly stop getting fame and either need to jump to a higher difficulty system (which your ship won’t survive unless you know the “meta” well), or resort to more mining instead of the fun stuff.
Edit: all of these are choices made by the devs. In combat, you can take over a ship that has an airlock after you destroy the bridge. You cannot then scrap it for valuable parts, since scrapping captured ships nets you no materials back. It is viable for the very first or second sector you go to, when you don’t have factories (and finding a ship graveyard and scrapping for metal feels worthwhile) but you quickly outgrow it.
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What matters is default settings. If you expect people to jump into a game and know that 10 hours down the line they made a bad choice, then it’s a bad default. “Just buy stuff” doesn’t work when stations don’t have what you need - it’s fine for a tiny ship, try getting enough uranium for 10 reactors in a reasonable time by buying.
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Some gamers are just looking for a simple out-of-the-box experience, and will immediately turn their noses up at the idea of mods.
I am not one of those poor souls, but I do know quite a few of them.
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I had a friend refuse to use any 7 Days to Die modlets because they’re “unsafe” despite being simple XML translations. He wouldn’t even use one I wrote myself.
Yeah I enjoyed it for longer than that but it just becomes so tedious once you have a few ships.
I prefer Starsector and Avorion.
the only ones that conplain the 30% cut are bilionaries companies
Of course it’s worth it, there’s no question about it. Depending on the case it might probably be worth it if Steam took 95%.
For me, the question remains if 20% were “enough” for Steam and still make a shitload of money, or even 10%. Of course we can’t know but it seems likely.
95% is closer to what board game publishers take - best I’ve seen is 10% for the designer
Granted they have a lot more to lose
From that perspective seems Steam is perfectly fine
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Just a few days ago, I wrote a comment about how you would theoretically try and become a significant competitor to Steam, and one of the points I raised was that Steam’s storefront and recommendations are very generous (compared to others). It makes a huge difference that even indie games can appear on the front page regularly, both improving user and dev experiences. Players find games that they enjoy, while devs pay a very small amount to get effective, targetted advertisements.
I found weird ass games like Age of Decadence because of steam. I dount I wouldve found that lovingly crafted load of slavic jank without steam, or atleast it wouldve been until Warlocracy made a video on it.
My library and tastes are pretty eclectic so I think Steam’s recommendation engine struggles with me lol. That said, I love how it sends me shit no one seems to know about at the time, like Kenshi, Volcanoids, PULSAR, etc.
Yeah, though my tastes seem to be a rather close to a venn diagram circle with Mandaloregaming which is disconcerting at times. Maybe a bit more post apocalyptia on my part.
Yeah it’s becoming a bit uncanny when I pickup a game and see Mandalore, SplatterCat, or AlphaBetaGamer covering it a few days later.
Shit, I’ve bought that but haven’t gotten around to playing it yet. Is it any good?
Its a solid CRPG but be ready for slav jank. Really good story.
It’s also just the standard for selling your game on a big storefront.
This is a really decent game. I do have a complaint about it though. In late game you NEED 3 or 4 ships just to still be relevant against all the threats (not a bad thing, I like the difficulty being like this). Then you need a cargo ship to haul around all your junk. Resource and supply transfers between ships have to be done manually. This gets tedious and ultimately causes me to stop playing after I get to that stage of the game. I hope some day someone makes a mod for this or the developers add something to address this issue.
