this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2024
512 points (100.0% liked)
Games
18418 readers
1024 users here now
Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
Posts.
- News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
- Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
- No humor/memes etc..
- No affiliate links
- No advertising.
- No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
- No self promotion.
- No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
- No politics.
Comments.
- No personal attacks.
- Obey instance rules.
- No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
- Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.
My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
Other communities:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
70%...and devs are happy to pay the 30% to get on a platform that's worth a fuck. Valve carries the servers, the bandwidth and service. Tons of indie devs have made it via steam. They're a platform for games, not a healthcare company or apple that's exploiting slave labor.
Plenty of villans out there, valve and gabe isn't one of them.
That's highly debatable. Maybe not for the specific reason being discussed, but Valve, and by extension Gabe, IS complicit in stuff like CS:GO gambling which preys on the underaged and and vulnerable.
I think it just goes back to "their competition is even worse". "They let people prey on the vulnerable" doesn't hit as hard when the competition is literally preying on them themselves.
Valve is the least shitty of the competition. Maybe GOG is better, but then CDPR is only viable because they can underpay Polish devs.
GOG support is pretty awful, and they make weird development decisions.
People were pleading for Linux support for GOG Galaxy before Steam Deck released, and that's precisely the crowd that would be most interested in DRM-free games. And when Steam Deck came out, they could have made official support for it and maybe worked with a hardware manufacturer to make a GOG-version of a Deck competitor, but no, they didn't, even when Valve did all the work to improve Linux compatibility.
GOG has good policies, but their service is only so-so. I would be spending most of my gaming money with them (hundreds per year) oft they had proper Linux support, but I guess they don't value my business. Valve does, and they have decent support, so they get my money.
A guy who owns a billion dollar worth fleet of mega yachts in 2024 (climate crisis and everyone getting poorer) sounds quite the villain to me.
And even more didn't make it. Steam being so big and the market spinning around it actually works against promoting smaller games because there's just as much you can see on steam shelf.
So we're at a point that, someone who owns something because they're rich makes them evil?
Y'all have lost the damn plot if that's the case.
No billionaire has clean hands. Think beyond just Steam. If an if an indy developer wants to independently release a game they’ll probably fail. Why? Because if you’re not on Steam or one of the other big services you won’t get noticed. They’re also big enough that no competing services are going to show up. They’re priced out. You’re automatically excluded from the market. Steam, Epic, et al by default are rent extractors first. You want to play as a dev? You’re forced to pay.
You are forced to pay either way or do you think hosting (both installers/updates and some sort of multiplayer matchmaking), marketing, payment providers,... all work for free? Without something like Steam you would just likely be forced to pay someone just to manage all of that for you as an extra employee (or multiple part time employees or outsourced services).
People forget what it was like matchmaking pre-steam. Games would vanish if they weren't some huge game publisher with a big following.
The fuck? Are you suggesting there is somehow a better way for people to find indie games? Let's say steam doesn't exist at all, and every indie dev has to host their own website and files....tell me how you plan on getting people to find their games?
Yes. They did that decades without sharing their profits.
Uhh no...no they didn't. B&Ms existed before the net and digital copies became Common place. The indie scene exploded with steam/itch/gog storefronts. The hell are you talking about, find me multiple indie games that have awards from decades ago. I'll wait.
You are on lemmy, a open source and decentralized platform where thousand of different instances federate with each others...
Cool, that still doesn't answer the question...and if you're suggesting that people build a decentralized platform to rival steam...no one is stopping them from doing so.
Luckily your computer can run any software you want so there's no need to build any platform to play videogames.
I was reply to your concern of people not being able to find their games, the fediverse is an example of how you can build a non centralized network and still bring people together.
What's the point of this comment? This doesn't answer the question.
Ok then what's stopping people from doing that?
You can absolutely do your own marketing, host your own infrastructure, etc, but that's way more expensive than just paying Steam's cut. Some games went that way (e.g. Minecraft), but most see a ton of success through Steam and decide their fee is worth the cut.
I don't see how that's a bad thing. Indie devs should focus on making a good game and creating promo content for it, and let Valve handle distribution, multiplayer, sales, etc.
Valve is successful because they make a good product that both users and developers like. EGS has a much lower profit share and provides far fewer services, and devs understandably choose Steam because it offers better value.
I wish their cut was lower, but the arrangement seems more than fair.
If devs think they can provide a better service, they're free to sell their game directly on their website if they want. They can even sell Steam keys and not pay any cut on those from their own website, so they can compare direct sales and Steam sales easily.
Devs are happy to loose 30% ? Uhrffdruhehu jirddrhuduh
30% when you get hosting/friends/multiplayer support/advertising/bandwidth out of that, and you don't have to do anything? Yes, they are happy to pay that.
Apple and google take half of that with a great visibility. Microsoft takes 30% of sales made through the digital store. Howevee, for PC releases, Xbox shifted to 12% in line with Epic's revenue-sharing model. So I doubt that everybody is as glad as you pretend. Where did you get that BTW ?
Apple and Google used to take 30%, but they were forced to take less due to Epic's lawsuit. They are in a very different position since they control the platform and thus have a monopoly.
Valve, on the other hand, lets devs make keys for free and sell them on their own website (or competitors'), has no exclusivity agreements, and only owns their Steam Deck platform (which you could install alternative stores on at launch, and launch thist competitor games through their compat layer).
Valve goes out of their way to not abuse their position, whereas Apple and Google needed a lawsuit to force them to act somewhat reasonably. If devs didn't think the 30% was worth it, why wouldn't they just sell on EGS, GOG, etc and directly on their website? Because Steam improves sales dramatically and provides a ton of value for that fee.
I wish they would reduce their cut, but I also think they provide a fantastic service, so I'm actually okay with it, and it seems devs are as well.
They can keep that 30% if they sell their keys (free to generate BTW) on their own website. I've bought a few games that way and it totally works. They can sell their games on other stores with a smaller cut (e.g. EGS) without any issues with Valve.
Many game devs don't bother doing it though, which tells me Valve's marketing is doing its job selling games.
No, they can't. Valve's TOS forbid devs from offering lower prices on other stores. If not for this, a dev could list a game for $60 on Steam, $50 on Epic, and $42 on their own website and let the customer decide where to buy it from while making the same amount of money from either of these sales. Valve is not competing fairly.
Uhh that's completely wrong. I've bought keys from tons of different stores (humble being the majn one) when there were sales going on for the game. All registered with steam keys.
So they're not games on other stores, are they?
If they didn't have this rule, devs could list at a ridiculous price on Steam and sell on their store for a more reasonable price to take advantage of Steam's marketing without paying. That's unfair for Valve. Either list there and charge the same prices everywhere, or don't.
I would be surprised if other stores didn't have similar policies.
A key that will send you where ? On steam. It is just a way to keep the Devs captive. 30% is absolutely insane specially for a licence, not something that you own.
They can sell a direct download as well, the key is merely an option.
If they want to do their own marketing, they can still piggy back off Steam's infrastructure with the only cost being the keys sold directly through Steam.
30% is not insane if it's completely opt in and there are other competitors. Google and Apple charging that much was insane because they completely control the hardware and OS, and as such there was no competition either by policy (e.g. Apple) or scare tactics (Google). Steam only controls the hardware and OS on their Steam Deck, and there's no barriers to installing competitor platforms whatsoever, and they make it easy to play those in the main Steam interface as well (I play EGS and GOG games through Heroic all the time).
The reason people sell through Steam is because Steam provides a better service vs DIY or any of their competitors. Users buy from Steam because it offers a better experience than either directly buying or buying through a competitor. Everyone wins here.
I wish the fee was lower and Valve can certainly afford to take a smaller cut, but they totally make up for that cost in the value they provide. People are willing to stick with Steam even though it doesn't have the most popular games (Minecraft and Fortnite), their competition gives away free games and has exclusives, and they aren't installed by default. Steam doesn't win because they're a monopoly, they win because people prefer their service to the competition.
A key that will send you wherever the Publisher and Distribution platforms allow for. Look at Humble for an easy example, a bunch of their games provide keys that will work on Steam, Epic, GOG, and even direct download if the publisher/developer has the servers for it. It doesn't keep any one captive.