ElBoxyBrown
Banned
I'm talking before Spotify and streaming services.
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Tim Sweeney: Not sure why Steam is still taking 30%
- Thread starter Renekton
- Start date
I'm talking before Spotify and streaming services.
"For other companies, acting purely profit-motivated is seen as normal and acceptable. But Valve is expected to act like a charity even when they are the most consumer-friendly of the bunch".
"Because they're already pro-consumer, people expect them to act even more pro-consumer. Nothing is ever good enough, and when Valve fall short, they're greedy and a monopoly."
I think Apple taking 30% of the cut from the App Store is more of an insult than Steam doing the same. On the PC, devs do atleast have other options. No choice on the matter when it comes to IOS, it's either the App Store or nothing.
Abilidebob
Member
In the short term, no. But as they can "get away with it" and eat those costs, they'd be able to pretty much snuff competition if they wanted to. Which would lead to an actual, or close enough, monopoly. Which can be bad for the consumer.
LordRaptor
Member
If you believe that;
- Steam is a monopoly
- Being a monopoly is bad for consumers
- Steam are large enough that they can reduce prices where other vendors cannot
then it follows that steam being cheaper than anywhere else because they can will make them more of a monopoly not less
The only change would be that publishers and devs would get more money, but other stores would either be forced to lower their cut of sales as well to match steam or chance losing out on publishers and devs possibility abandoning their Store.
Steam can afford to take the hit to their revenues, could other stores handle a smaller share of each sale? Smaller stores get closed down, Steam's market share increases.
johancruijff
Banned
and that's why we see lower prices for their games
AHA-Lambda
Member
Absolutely.
It really shows up the level of argument in this thread and from a supposed industry professional.
Just nuke this argument from orbit, cos it's a mess.
And yet people on this forum took this moron seriously when he talked about Microsoft
Tim is a transparent clown and should be treated as such
Sentenza
Member
For people who aren't aware of it, the 30% cut isn't even just a standard among digital gaming stores.
It's a market average for resellers of any sort, across a multitude of different industries.
If you are a painter selling your paintings in a art gallery, you are going to give them a similar cut.
If you are a car manufacturer, you are giving a similar percentage to agents selling your cars.
I think real estate may be the only market where it goes way lower (6-to-10 %).
It's a market average for resellers of any sort, across a multitude of different industries.
If you are a painter selling your paintings in a art gallery, you are going to give them a similar cut.
If you are a car manufacturer, you are giving a similar percentage to agents selling your cars.
I think real estate may be the only market where it goes way lower (6-to-10 %).
Chairmanchuck
Member
Iunderstandthatreference.jpg
AHA-Lambda
Member
Yeah this just proves he's incredibly naive and doesn't know what he's talking about then.
For an industry veteran, this level of debate is frighteningly poor.
AHA-Lambda
Member
Yep, I refer to my previous post in the thread pointing out John Ricciteelo's own hypocrisy on game prices
Edit: sorry, dp
LordRaptor
Member
He knows what he's doing and as evidenced by this very thread it even worked on some people.
Hmm because I was wondering if online marketplace costs scale decently with traffic, w.r.t. cost elements like CDN and customer service.
Fbh
Member
Isn't PC an open platform?. As far as I know there is nothing stopping devs/publishers from selling their game on their own site or have some sort of store like origin or use some other digital store that takes a smaller cut (if there are any).
You want the Steam user base and the exposure gained from releasing on their store?, Then you pay what they ask for
You want the Steam user base and the exposure gained from releasing on their store?, Then you pay what they ask for
AHA-Lambda
Member
Ah yes, EA and Ubisoft.
Those billion dollar companies well known to live project to project and require as much charity from their customers as possible...
I hope you never buy anything from any other retailers now! After all we wouldn't want other producers of any other goods or services you could possibly mention to miss out on their hard earned and deserved money.
Are used games sales as bad as piracy too? >_>
AquaticSquirrel
Member
So wait... if an indie developer uses UE4 they have to give 30% of revenue to Epic, if they release that game on Steam then they need to give a further 30% to steam.
So the developer would only end up getting 40% of the revenue for their game...huh.
I guess that might explain why a lot of indies stick to Unity?
So the developer would only end up getting 40% of the revenue for their game...huh.
I guess that might explain why a lot of indies stick to Unity?
LordRaptor
Member
In fact the way Steam is setup is that if you want to you can have your game on Steam and make full use of their suite of publisher tools, but never actually pay Valve a penny for those services, and instead sell your own steam keys via your own website for 100% return (minus whatever eCommerce fees setting that up would cost).
So if Epic really want their games on Steam and not pay that 30% cut, they can easily do that just by selling Steam keys on epicgames.com.
You know.
If that 30% was actually the problem they had.
UE4 is 5% after the first $3k pcq
thomasmahler
Member
Well, developers usually don't. Developers get a percentage of the net receipts, which already has the platform fees deducted. So you take a dollar, subtract 30% from the platform fee, then subtract the publishers share and other costs that might come up and that's what a developer gets.
I do personally agree that a third of all income is too high for the services provided and while Tim comes off as a bit hypocritical with Epic charging the same 30% on their own store, I do think he has a point here. Games are expensive to make, most of them are lucky if they make their money back and when you release a game, knowing that 30% of all profits a game makes are already cut is a tough pill to swallow.
Angelus Errare
Banned
Even EA developers don't get all your money when you buy from Origin.
AquaticSquirrel
Member
Angelus Errare
Banned
Spotify is number 1 streaming, but as far as digital purchasing music goes. It's iTunes >>> everyone else at a distant second.
LordRaptor
Member
Its 30% for things you sell on Epics own marketplace, which is mostly assets for UE
Their marketplace takes a 30% cut.
ClosingADoor
Member
That 30% is not the problem AAA-development faces. That 30% or higher would be there no matter where you sell your stuff, except in your own stores. Publishers make less money from retail sales.
The games industry is not a charity where it is up to the stores to make sure the publisher can break even with their games.
Why should Publishers lower the prices? They would get more money without doing anything, if Valve would reduce it's share to 10% or whatever. He either is quite naive (I don't believe that) or he is playing dumb on purpose.
Here's a short history lesson:
Before self-publishing on digital storefronts was possible, the only viable way to get your game on the hands of consumers was through a publisher and retail. Developers got a much smaller piece of the gross sales, which varied wildly on a game-per-game basis: figures as lot as 5% weren't uncommon and few were capable of securing to get over 30% for themselves. This was because most games were funded using publisher advance payments: larger advances often came attached with lower shares.
In that context, getting 70% of the gross sales was an amazing deal, even if you had to figure out how to fund yourself without advances.
Since there wasn't much competition, there wasn't much need to spend in marketing: the storefront provided enough exposure by default to generate healthy sales numbers, so the 30% didn't seem much of a problem. That's no longer the case, so it's perfectly reasonable for developers to start questioning the 30% fee.
Before self-publishing on digital storefronts was possible, the only viable way to get your game on the hands of consumers was through a publisher and retail. Developers got a much smaller piece of the gross sales, which varied wildly on a game-per-game basis: figures as lot as 5% weren't uncommon and few were capable of securing to get over 30% for themselves. This was because most games were funded using publisher advance payments: larger advances often came attached with lower shares.
In that context, getting 70% of the gross sales was an amazing deal, even if you had to figure out how to fund yourself without advances.
Since there wasn't much competition, there wasn't much need to spend in marketing: the storefront provided enough exposure by default to generate healthy sales numbers, so the 30% didn't seem much of a problem. That's no longer the case, so it's perfectly reasonable for developers to start questioning the 30% fee.
I disagree. Apple provides everything for the devs. The platform, the store, ways to make money off app and also the development tools. So in fact they give the devs more than Valve, unless they give development tools as well?
Mr. Phellps
Member
Too good, man.
Steam provides a huge infrastructure, it's far more complex than people seem to think. It's not just a HTML page with pictures and links to purchase the games. Steam needs to cover the costs of its infrastructure, its social network, its bandwidth (which is very expensive. Hire an Amazon server and you'll see a mere 2TB of monthly bandwidth will cost you upwards of $200. Now imagine how much bandwidth Steam actually uses, with millions of users frequently downloading games that can range from 100MB to 100GB), and not to mention storage and security. They need to cover all that and still make a profit.
30% is fair.
Next you'll tell me the UE4 marketplace takes 30% too.
LordRaptor
Member
Apple provides less for that cut than Steam does.
Theres a mandatory $100 per year subscription fee for Apple developers too.
Consumers won't care either way, prices won't lower anyway, as Origin and co. show.
But cutting margins will assure that only the big stores that sell a lot will survive.
People love to argue how valuable competition is but Valve would essentially outmuscle all DD but the publisher driven stores. It's the definition of an anti-competitive move and people rightfully call out companies like Amazon when they do it.
This thread reads like one about a console maker.
Lots and lots of people defending an effective monopoly with nonsense arguments.
"Sell elsewhere if you don't like it" - ...
"30% is standard, everyone takes 30%" - So if everyone took 50% it would be okay? What if they took 70%, 90%? By that logic it's ok as long as everyone does it.
That the big guys don't throw away money by lowering the cut without pressure should be obvious.
30% is more than console manufactures take/took as their physical cut.
30% is more than a retail store gets.
Steam takes 30% - for what?
They take 30% because they have the market power, not because of any service they provide.
Lots and lots of people defending an effective monopoly with nonsense arguments.
"Sell elsewhere if you don't like it" - ...
"30% is standard, everyone takes 30%" - So if everyone took 50% it would be okay? What if they took 70%, 90%? By that logic it's ok as long as everyone does it.
That the big guys don't throw away money by lowering the cut without pressure should be obvious.
30% is more than console manufactures take/took as their physical cut.
30% is more than a retail store gets.
Steam takes 30% - for what?
They take 30% because they have the market power, not because of any service they provide.
Commanche Raisin Toast
Member
If PSN takes 30% just like steam, then I'm going to need someone to explain that "suicide for 99% of devs" comment.
Pureauthor
Member
So.
Are you saying you'd prefer they take 10%? 5%?
At the same time you're complaining about them being an 'effective monopoly' (whatever on earth THAT means)?
I want you to think very carefully about how those two statements would work together.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
No they don't. Those devs can make console games.
BigBoss007
Member
He is absolutely right.
Console makers charge 30% on their digital retail stores PSN, XBox Live and the eShop do it.
Physically They get a cut from every disk printed and the dev stil has to pay all costs associated with physical distribution and give a cut to the actual store that sells the game.
The point being made is that it doesn't much sense -- if any at all -- to take Valve to task when 30% is what virtually every other digital distribution service commands, including Epic's own marketplace for Unreal Engine assets.
30% may be too high, but the notion that developers don't get anything out of the cut they relinquish to Valve is demonstrably false.
lefty1117
Gold Member
The volume between billions of cc transactions a year, and one-off purchases on these digital storefronts is not really comparable. Aside from the volume disparity, credit cards have been around for ages, that market and all the related infrastructure has had a loooong time to mature and consolidate. I'm sure that in the coming years the digital distribution model will continue to mature and become more efficient and we may see some of these charges go down.
kraspkibble
Permabanned.
i thought 30% was the number being passed around so why are people acting surprised?
it's true though...a lot of developers will need to release on steam if they want their game to be successful. not many developers can get away with not releasing on steam. off the top of my head the studios that could would be Rockstar, CD Projekt Red (not pre W3), or Bungie.
Rockstar could sell GTA through their website, which they do already, exclusively and still sell millions. CD Projekt has its own store in GOG so I wouldn't be surprised if Cyberpunk 2077 + Witcher 4 (if it happens) were exclusive to GOG. Bungie has Blizzard behind them on PC.
these are huge studios but for a small indie developer Steam may be the only option. releasing their game on GOG for example wouldn't be smart.
it's true though...a lot of developers will need to release on steam if they want their game to be successful. not many developers can get away with not releasing on steam. off the top of my head the studios that could would be Rockstar, CD Projekt Red (not pre W3), or Bungie.
Rockstar could sell GTA through their website, which they do already, exclusively and still sell millions. CD Projekt has its own store in GOG so I wouldn't be surprised if Cyberpunk 2077 + Witcher 4 (if it happens) were exclusive to GOG. Bungie has Blizzard behind them on PC.
these are huge studios but for a small indie developer Steam may be the only option. releasing their game on GOG for example wouldn't be smart.
ClosingADoor
Member
Apple makes profit off the hardware already though. And developers pay them to publish the app in the first place. They get a cut from every part of the process.