Are Sony and Microsoft giving away their hardware free and making it back with the 30%? They way you talk about it suggests they are. If they're not then in what way are they delivering more for that 30%?
It is not standard lol
Someone wasn't paying attention. Until Epic arrived 30% was standard. I also note you neglected to answer my question...so I'll ask again.
You are dumb comparing a platform holder share with Steam afain lol Steam has no platform, no closed ecosystem, etc.
Exactly.
GOG, until Epic forced their hand, GOG being the only other major player that accepted third party titles at the time. Like I said, someone wasn't paying attention.
You also still haven't explained how Steam is not a platform despite all the features and support they provide.
LOL you think 70/30 was the retail standard? I remember EVERYONE getting a cut. It was 30% for the platform holder, a cut to the retailer itself, a cut to the manufacturing process, and a cut to the publisher. They had it so much worse before steam showed up. It was so bad that the PC market was almost dead before Steam came in 2004-2005. Do you remember how bad pc ports were? Do you remember how many games were skipped entirely for the PC market? Steam single handedly revived the PC market and made it worthwhile for companies to make pc games again. Otherwise I very much doubt PC gaming would be in the current state it is if it wasn't for valve. And this is from someone that has 400+ physical PC games.
latimesblogs.latimes.com
Bullshit revisionist history?
Just because Valve set up the same prices as everyone else at the Time doesnt make them Greedy.
Please don't pring Humble Bundle into this. They are lower than 30%, have really cheap games and 10% of that 25% goes to charity.
I knew after I posted it so I just threw in the TL;DR in there. I just wanted to get my thoughts out because people are becoming more and more crazy about digital games, even trying to downplay physical so I figured I had to be clear beforehand.
Large developers don't see a penny of it, it all makes its way into the pockets of the likes of Bobby Kotick and Strauss Zelnick (and they really don't need that extra money). That goes for the exclusivity money too. And small indie developers only get approached by Epic once they've already seen success, generally on Steam, otherwise Sweeney personally tells them to fuck off over dinner, at which point they're already making bank too, and are probably well over the threshold to net them the 20% split with Steam. All of this is ignoring the fact that any extra money for the publisher / developer comes at the cost of the user. The benevolent Lord Gaben meme is a thing for a reason; Steam may be a tour de force in the PC market, what some might mistakenly call a "monopoly", but for a company with such a huge marketshare they're extraordinarily pro-consumer.
Because they're splitting costs 88/12 and using that money to pay them for exclusivity, at least IMO.
. As for the cut appearing too big because they don´t make hardware and "cutting edge games", it does not matter, all they need is enough game makers willing to pay, just like the Console companies. You see, sony makes like 4 times more money than Steam, they could invest couple billion every few years, drop the cut to a small fraction, and still make more money than Valve, but they wont do it. Who is the villain?.
Which offers $0 to the not chosen ones, making Valve remain as their best chance to achieve anything.
Even more attractive market conditions will atract more people into making games, which will make the flood of games even worse. Game makers making more money doesn´t necessarily translate onto higher quality games, better writting, better AI, better art, less bugs, nor less crunch for their employees, that´s a fact.
As for Valve making money that benefits no one else, I would agree if they didn´t deserve it, but the store that makes the job better needs to be rewarded, that´s the point of having free markets and competition and that´s why you have Epic now, they want the cake so bad
Jesus...fuck no. You realize Valve have datacenters all around the world for their Steam CDN, right? You realize people have to be hired to maintain those and minimize downtime, right? They have support staff for third party developers. They have the Steam developers. They have game developers (although admittedly their output of late has been...lacking...). They have PR guys. They have customer support. Valve is not just Gaben and a handful of his college buddies holed up in an office somewhere laughing maniacly whilst they rake in an untold fortune.
www.theguardian.com
But would they sell better on Steam? Surely well enough to drop to the 20% cut. Quite possibly well enough to make up the difference long term.
You mean the two titles that underperformed and have vague sales reports?
Please do your research. Food shops don't have a massive CDN to maintain, software to develop and aren't plowing god knows how much endless money into developing a game that will likely never surface.
