Agreed. The Steam platform has so much value for developers and yet they still complain about the 30%.
To put into perspective, when Epic only takes 15%. They themselves admitted that is not a sustainable thing. EGS is constantly losing money.
So now I invite everyone to gauge just how "big" the EGS is. How many "features" they offer etc. This platform in so much smaller than Steam and even they state that a 15% cut is not sustainable to keep the light on.
Judging just how big the Steam platform is, do people honestly think Valve could be forced into reducing their cut to this proposed 15%? When this little hobbyshop that is EGS cannot make it work. Why would it work for a much much larger and therefore more expensive platform?
I am furthermore given to understand when you distribute on Steam you are free to run your own store front. You are free to create your own Steam keys for your games and sell them in your shop which is supposedly have a 0% cut for Valve.
Of course then you would have to run your own store with all the effort and cost that go along with it.
Or you simply put it on Steam. A storefront visited by millions of paying customers. Which handles everything. From purchase/refund/CDN for Downloading and updating the game binaries/communityhub to directly engage with the customers if you wish
In the end, the only way they are forced to use steam is because that is where the customers are. and since there are alternatives around, these customers could very well shop some place else. but they dont. they shop where they get the best experience. and if that is on steam, thats where they go.
If "developers" were really honest they would all disclose just how much they sold on Steam vs any other digital store front in case they distribute their offerings to any store that will let them.
Just because you get 4 sales on Epic vs 4 million sales on Steam does mean Steam is a monopoly. It just means Epic is a steaming pile and given the chance the customer goes to the better option.
30% on mobile platforms if generally frowned upon as source of massive overcharging compared to actual costs (since its a massive revenue & income stream for their owners), but somehow for Steam its fine because... they also generate keys? Or what should be the magical justfication.
No its not fine, its a cash cow milking customers. Valve may be better than their competition but they are not saints (same company basically inventing addictive lootboxes mechanism, albeit not in its worst possible form), its a for-profit company that has tons of profit. I am not saying 15% is OK or X% is OK, but 30% is too much in 2025.
Maybe they should have tiers ie 0-10% for first 5k sales, 20% above 100k etc. There are many options to be nicer to customers & developers.
The difference is that a game with its own market power is free to distribute directly on their website and keep that 30% for themselves, whereas an IOS app is not.
If Microsoft charged every program you download 30% of gross Windows proceeds, that would be inappropriate. If Apple allowed a free tier where you get 0 marketing power but you can link from your website to the ios store for a downloadable app, and charge what you want, it would be another matter.
It isn't overcharging on Mobile either IMO but the difference is pretty obvious: there is only one way to get your app onto an iPhone or an Android and that's through those stores.
PCs are an open platform. It is very different.
>its a for-profit company that has tons of profit. I am not saying 15% is OK or X% is OK, but 30% is too much in 2025.
And you base this on what? Nothing. It is a privately held company and you don't have access to its books.
To put into perspective, when Epic only takes 15%. They themselves admitted that is not a sustainable thing. EGS is constantly losing money. So now I invite everyone to gauge just how "big" the EGS is. How many "features" they offer etc. This platform in so much smaller than Steam and even they state that a 15% cut is not sustainable to keep the light on.
Judging just how big the Steam platform is, do people honestly think Valve could be forced into reducing their cut to this proposed 15%? When this little hobbyshop that is EGS cannot make it work. Why would it work for a much much larger and therefore more expensive platform?
I am furthermore given to understand when you distribute on Steam you are free to run your own store front. You are free to create your own Steam keys for your games and sell them in your shop which is supposedly have a 0% cut for Valve. Of course then you would have to run your own store with all the effort and cost that go along with it. Or you simply put it on Steam. A storefront visited by millions of paying customers. Which handles everything. From purchase/refund/CDN for Downloading and updating the game binaries/communityhub to directly engage with the customers if you wish
In the end, the only way they are forced to use steam is because that is where the customers are. and since there are alternatives around, these customers could very well shop some place else. but they dont. they shop where they get the best experience. and if that is on steam, thats where they go.
If "developers" were really honest they would all disclose just how much they sold on Steam vs any other digital store front in case they distribute their offerings to any store that will let them. Just because you get 4 sales on Epic vs 4 million sales on Steam does mean Steam is a monopoly. It just means Epic is a steaming pile and given the chance the customer goes to the better option.