TheRedSnifit
Member
I don't understand why it's so hard to understand the definition of the word "monopoly."
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Tim Sweeney: Not sure why Steam is still taking 30%
- Thread starter Renekton
- Start date
I don't understand why it's so hard to understand the definition of the word "monopoly."
Huge Succeeded
Banned
No, it really doesn't. Many of the most popular games in the world aren't even available on Steam. And there's a number of successful storefronts for games, and publisher-specific launchers, beyond Steam.
nephilimdj
Member
That was the Era when ISP would host game servers and trailers/random stuff, so fans demanded them host steam files.
Valve basically got a free advantage.
Pheace
Member
No idea if they have numbers on that but benefits of that go beyond just reducing the cut they would've lost going retail. It also means they diminish the used sales market.
It's only a matter of time till the consoles are digital for the most part.
I'm not disagreeing that third parties volunteering to host Steam content servers and game servers for popular MP titles is a good thing for Valve, just clarifying that the streamlining of content server selection wasn't because Valve stopped using third-party content servers.
People saying Steam is a monopoly need to think about real-world (bricks-and-mortar) application of their argument.
My home is Shefffield (UK). Until they got into financial trouble, there were 3 Game stores in the nearby big shopping mall, 1 in a smaller nearby shopping mall, and 2 in the city centre.
They hoovered-up most consumers wanting to buy videogames and hardware. But there was still at least 1 independent videogame store, a CEX and an HMV.
Were Game a monopoly? They had the largest number of stores, and no doubt got the majority of sales. But they weren't the only destination to buy. In fact, the UK Competition Commission itself didn't think this was a monopoly, since the reason Game had so many stores was because they acquired Gamestation, rebranded the stores, and kept them open. The CC gave the go-ahead for this acquisition.
Something to think about.
My home is Shefffield (UK). Until they got into financial trouble, there were 3 Game stores in the nearby big shopping mall, 1 in a smaller nearby shopping mall, and 2 in the city centre.
They hoovered-up most consumers wanting to buy videogames and hardware. But there was still at least 1 independent videogame store, a CEX and an HMV.
Were Game a monopoly? They had the largest number of stores, and no doubt got the majority of sales. But they weren't the only destination to buy. In fact, the UK Competition Commission itself didn't think this was a monopoly, since the reason Game had so many stores was because they acquired Gamestation, rebranded the stores, and kept them open. The CC gave the go-ahead for this acquisition.
Something to think about.
Real_Madrid
Member
Isn't 30% the normal cut for digital stores?
Google, Apple, Sony, Microsoft, ... are all taking 30% if I'm not mistaken.
Hosting servers etc is not that cheap and they offer a lot of free stuff like cloud saves, generating own keys at no charge, free multiplayer, easy patching,...
It's a monopoly in practice, because like some other here said, you cannot release an indie on PC without Steam. You could do it, like Minecraft, but that's the exception.
Google, Apple, Sony, Microsoft, ... are all taking 30% if I'm not mistaken.
Hosting servers etc is not that cheap and they offer a lot of free stuff like cloud saves, generating own keys at no charge, free multiplayer, easy patching,...
It's a monopoly in practice, because like some other here said, you cannot release an indie on PC without Steam. You could do it, like Minecraft, but that's the exception.
Sad Affleck
Member
Isn't it dangerous asking for Valve to follow the Walmart model? If Steam starts taking a 10% cut because they can offset reduced margins with sheer volume, isn't every other storefront fucked?
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Yeah that's what I said earlier in the thread - it's super weird for Tim to basically be encouraging putting a price squeeze on competitors considering his other opinions.
Whenever I see someone mention the possibility of Valve charging for multiplayer I can't help but think how stupid it is. How exactly would Valve charge for multiplayer? You don't have to use Steam for multiplayer if you sell your game on Steam, for example if you buy a Ubisoft game on Steam you use Uplay not Steam for the multiplayer. I don't think there's a way Valve could block that.
Plus Valve has 2 F2P multiplayer games (DOTA2 and TF2) and another cheap game (CSGO) with ingame transactions. I don't think Valve has any interest in limiting the number of people that can play those games.
Plus none of their competitors on PC like Uplay or Origin charge for multiplayer.
BlackRainbowFT
Member
It might seems like a lot, but you can re-download a game as many times as you want, they provide devs with steam services (cloud saves, multi-player, etc) and they gave free keys to anybody (which allowed for stores like humble to work).
I find their new position rather normal: i.e., if your sales are really low on Steam, asking for a large number of free keys is not acceptable.
I find their new position rather normal: i.e., if your sales are really low on Steam, asking for a large number of free keys is not acceptable.
This is 7 years old but the numbers are probably still close to being accurate.
Third party publishers make more money selling a game on Steam (or Xbox Live or PSN) than selling a retail copy.
If it doesn't qualify as a monopoly it doesn't qualify as a monopsony for the same reason. They aren't singular or unique in any sense.
Auto-Reply
Member
His question should be why other storefronts (his own included) are taking the same amount as Valve with Steam while offering less in options and service. That's more similar to the triple A 60 pricetag. Slap it on there because that's what everyone does. If you offer less, charge less!
Except 1) They're not, and 2) they're not.
Publishers and developers can and do charge whatever they want. It can be argued that the lower digital distro costs (Valve's costs being one of them) has actually helped maintain the price of games, as the lower costs offset the rising cost of games budgets, and that publishers are afraid of consumer reaction to rising game prices.
And, as I'm here, people saying "monopoly" or such should remember:
1) The actual legal bar for monopoly is a lot higher than you think, otherwise action would be taken against, as examples, Amazon in the digital marketplace, and Waterstones and HMV in the physical. All three companies command a majority share of their markets (online sales, bricks-and-mortar book sales, bricks-and-mortar CD/DVD sales respectively).
2) As soon as Steam comes close to becoming a monpoly, you can bet your bottom dollar EA, Activision/Blizzard, MS etc are going to file legal complaints in the US, UK and Europe. If anyone really thinks their legal teams aren't just waiting for the moment, they're not thinking far enough ahead.
Some days, threads like this on GAF show just how in a bubble many posters are in.
(it might shock you, other places have the same % take, along with forcing you to pay for licenses)
And lets not even start with how Physical Retail eats into a video game's profit margin.
I feel like we are treading onto something that was known years ago? Way into the last generation of consoles, during early days of Steam as a major storefront?
(it might shock you, other places have the same % take, along with forcing you to pay for licenses)
And lets not even start with how Physical Retail eats into a video game's profit margin.
I feel like we are treading onto something that was known years ago? Way into the last generation of consoles, during early days of Steam as a major storefront?
Kaleinc
Banned
Should have been the first tweet and post.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
They handle:
- Credit card processing, including payment processing for every payment processor in every country
- Historically, giving you literally hundreds of thousands of front page impressions -- not sure if they still guarantee this but historically they did; I know they currently guarantee tons of patch update impressions on the front page
- Unlimited keys for external sales which they take 0% on
- All handling of refunds and chargebacks
- A marketplace for item content, which they only take 10% on
- A marketplace for trading cards, which are free for developers, where each sale they take 10% on
- Custom art and promotion in major sale events
- Hosting every download and redownload, all patches and patch downloads, all costs associated with patch certification
- Hosting preloads
- Closed beta tests and interactive branching for deployment
- Cloud saves and storage for all your users in perpetuity
- Coupons and targeted user contacts
- A pretty effective anti-cheat system, yours for free
- A community discussion forum and an unlimited supply of free labour to moderate it if you need it
- Purchase support in every major language
- Steam Days
- Matchmaking
- Leaderboards
- Several engine tech stacks, including the major tech stack for VR, completely free
- An audience of 100 million users
Of course you might say you can do without some of these and roll your own for some of these (also, when you discontinue your roll-your-own service 3 years from now because you can't afford it, I hope you enjoy an unending torrent of complaints for your customers because you demanded not to have to pay 30%). But the idea that "lol if u add up mastercard and my cdn costs steam ain't worth 30%" is stupid as hell.
The monopoly / monopsony arguments seem totally incoherent; maybe 6 or 7 of the the 10 biggest games on PC aren't on Steam at all.
- Credit card processing, including payment processing for every payment processor in every country
- Historically, giving you literally hundreds of thousands of front page impressions -- not sure if they still guarantee this but historically they did; I know they currently guarantee tons of patch update impressions on the front page
- Unlimited keys for external sales which they take 0% on
- All handling of refunds and chargebacks
- A marketplace for item content, which they only take 10% on
- A marketplace for trading cards, which are free for developers, where each sale they take 10% on
- Custom art and promotion in major sale events
- Hosting every download and redownload, all patches and patch downloads, all costs associated with patch certification
- Hosting preloads
- Closed beta tests and interactive branching for deployment
- Cloud saves and storage for all your users in perpetuity
- Coupons and targeted user contacts
- A pretty effective anti-cheat system, yours for free
- A community discussion forum and an unlimited supply of free labour to moderate it if you need it
- Purchase support in every major language
- Steam Days
- Matchmaking
- Leaderboards
- Several engine tech stacks, including the major tech stack for VR, completely free
- An audience of 100 million users
Of course you might say you can do without some of these and roll your own for some of these (also, when you discontinue your roll-your-own service 3 years from now because you can't afford it, I hope you enjoy an unending torrent of complaints for your customers because you demanded not to have to pay 30%). But the idea that "lol if u add up mastercard and my cdn costs steam ain't worth 30%" is stupid as hell.
The monopoly / monopsony arguments seem totally incoherent; maybe 6 or 7 of the the 10 biggest games on PC aren't on Steam at all.
FinaruDensetsu
Member
"Not sure why Steam takes the standard cut all digital game storefronts take."
*Also not sure why Steam gives out free codes to developers for which they get 0 cut from when that's not an industry standard.
*Also not sure why Steam gives out free codes to developers for which they get 0 cut from when that's not an industry standard.
NoPiece
Member
Steam is a marketplace, they don't buy anything, and they don't set prices. So it isn't a very effective monopsony.
I don't know what the fuck those numbers in the reply mean. What?
Joey Jo-Jo Jr
Member
Sony take a similar cut from psstore sales I'm sure, but they also invest money into designing the hardware, exclusive games for the platform, including stuff that probably wouldn't be massively financially viable to make, like Gravity Rush 2,The Last Guardian, various first party psvr games etc etc.
Likewise Nintendo and Microsoft with their consoles.
Valve sell games on an online store that run on PCs they have nothing to do with the making of and on an OS made by Microsoft.
Valve are currently making a DOTA card game and made a couple of tech demos for the HTC Vive.
Likewise Nintendo and Microsoft with their consoles.
Valve sell games on an online store that run on PCs they have nothing to do with the making of and on an OS made by Microsoft.
Valve are currently making a DOTA card game and made a couple of tech demos for the HTC Vive.
Yikes
AHA-Lambda
Member
Because that's the cut that everyone takes???
I've said this but can't help repeat it, if you don't like Valve's 30% cut - fine, argue it.
But don't act like this is Valve's issue alone. It's an industry issue.
Everyone takes 30%, that's the going rate.
I'm tired of repeating this, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I've said this but can't help repeat it, if you don't like Valve's 30% cut - fine, argue it.
But don't act like this is Valve's issue alone. It's an industry issue.
Everyone takes 30%, that's the going rate.
I'm tired of repeating this, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
There's no way you could be less right. Steam had plenty of competition. The "Monopoly" could be broken by lowering the cut to 5% even with lower audiences 25% extra earnings would be huge for devs. They would jump ship if Origin for example offered those terms. Or Win10 store. But they don't.
Steam defines the ceiling, others are refusing to lower the floor including Tim Sweeney.
PdotMichael
Banned
So your entire point is based on things which I didn't say.
One thing also missing from this list (but hasn't come to pass yet as far as I know) is that Valve is planning on hosting third party games on their dedicated server network that they use for DOTA2, CSGO and TF2.
No word on price yet but given that all other steamworks features are free it's possible this game hosting will be free as well.
Joey Jo-Jo Jr
Member
Yeah got a bit carried away with the hyperbole, edited out the last paragraph but this board moves fast
Dictator93
Member
I agree with Tim Sweeney. Usually the percentage of and margins of setting up an infrastructure, should decrease with time as the base infrastructure is set up. IDC if that is their "demand" and the price the "market of devs" has been willing to historically pay. They have an effective monopoly and takikng so much is kinda ethicallly shit IMO. Valve makes fucktons of money for offering a rather poorly regulated service at times where they have little responsibility.
What does Sony, MS or Nintendo have to do with the development of third party games like from EA, Activision that would necessitate them taking 30% of a digital sale AND the licensing fee that comes from publishing onto their respective consoles?
When the user also has to pay for online multiplayer access? Even if they dont use the console manufacturer's servers? Something Steam with steam-works does for free?
So Steam should lower their cut, and thus completely remove all other storefront's ability to compete because they could never compete with the feature set of Steam while taking a smaller cut? So you want Steam to actually partake in monopolistic practices?
thomasmahler
Member
Agreed with Sweeney, 30% is too much. Good of him to fight that fight.
Not so much fighting as throwing stones out the window of his glass house
AHA-Lambda
Member
Here's a question for you all then that argue this.
Why do we never hear big publishers moan about this?
The same industry that couldn't keep its mouth shut about used game sales being as bad as piracy, but no major publisher has complained about the digital storefront cut of any store, let alone Valve.
Correct, selling games at retail leaves pubs with about 50-60% instead of 70.
That's why they love digital distribution so much.
Oh you mean that 30% he'll inevitably take from the Epic store as well?
Why do we never hear big publishers moan about this?
The same industry that couldn't keep its mouth shut about used game sales being as bad as piracy, but no major publisher has complained about the digital storefront cut of any store, let alone Valve.
Correct, selling games at retail leaves pubs with about 50-60% instead of 70.
That's why they love digital distribution so much.
Oh you mean that 30% he'll inevitably take from the Epic store as well?
You both are only displaying an utter lack of economics education.
It's very factually not a monopoly.
Google what that word means.
It's an oligopol at most and even that is very arguable given the existence of hundreds of third party resellers
Joey Jo-Jo Jr
Member
Good points. All I can say is I think if any of Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft(Xbox) were to leave the games industry, it would be a big loss for gamers just as the death of Sega was and has been over the past decade.
On the other hand, if valve went under tomorrow, they could just be replaced by a different online store.
So Sony, MS and Nintendo have even more control over their respective markets then Valve does of its.
And yet we are support to be afraid of Valve taking over everything?
AHA-Lambda
Member
Yep.
XBL & PSN are far closer to monopolies than Steam.
I'm really becoming sick of going into any thread about Steam on gaming side now. It just ends with people repeating the same meaningless "monopoly","30% is too high" quotes all the time that are untrue, if not ignorant.
Because people often use words that are 'close enough' to what they mean without those words literally being what they mean. In this case, Steam is an effective monopoly--that is, as developer or publisher, you cannot afford NOT to release your game on Steam, unless you have a significant investment in your own infrastructure, which most developers cannot afford to do. We're not all Riot/Nexon.
If I release a game exclusively on GoG or from my own website, it's gonna be a guaranteed failure. It's simply not feasible to release it outside of Steam on the PC. So Steam is a monopoly. Sure, you can argue that the absence of competitors means that they're not... but it doesn't matter.
You can't release a game on the PC and make money without that game being on Steam.
How are they monopolies? You can buy games for those platforms from multiple stores, like Gamestop or Best Buy.
And yet the largest games on PC are not on Steam? If they cannot succeed without steam, how does this work?
Bullshit.
Joey Jo-Jo Jr
Member
Value are just a company who run a lucrative online store selling games that creative people unrelated to valve make.
If they can afford to take 30 percent then so be it.
If they can afford to take 30 percent then so be it.