Valve announces New Revenue Share Tiers for developers
43 replies, posted
Just so you know - Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo take bigger cuts, around 30%. With new rates, Steam is the cheapest option. Or, of course, publishers can make their own store and launcher.
But here's what many don't realize - it isn't cheaper to make their own launcher and store; at best it's just as costly. What motivates publishers to do that is that they can make customers play by their rules, not by Valve's. Especially in terms of refund policies.
Read my post again. I'm saying that it is the game publishers who want these multi million dollar games, that spending that much on a game is often unnecessary.
They do cost that much but they don't have to.
You might still want to read the article.
Well remember not only are you paying for the artist's time (which on somethin even as 'simple' as that barrel might include a highpoly sculpt, bake, lowpoly decimation and may be part of a set of props), but you're also paying for the time of the team leads and other directors who have to lookdev and manage the assets to make sure they're all in line with each other. That shit ramps up quick.
Oh please, a barrel isn't an organic model, it doesn't need sculpting. It's just a cylinder with some extra vertical flanges on each third of the way, and a little deformation if you want to be fancy.
And have you seen most of these AAA games? They just plop down the same assets regardless of the context of the area. Why would you have a sealed oil barrel in the middle of a street?
This post demonstrates Steam's value, I think. There's value in being on Steam because Steam provides customers. Itch may offer lower commissions but Itch is nearly worthless for any serious game developers even despite that.
Valve doesn't just handle the hosting and distribution. They handle a lot of things.
On the financial side, they handle: credit card processing, fraud prevention (this is such a large expense; you have no idea), refunds, analytics, currency conversion, etc.
Outside of that, they handle hosting/distribution, advertising on the Steam store, the entire Steamworks suite, Steamcommunity integration, the Steam Workshop (big feature), and more.
Steam is an extremely valuable service and I think its full value is often overlooked.
It's very easy to tie it into your custom backend services. It's not sent in plaintext.
Factor in producers directors and artists salaries + building rent these prices aren't too far off in the overall picture but on an individual basis are completely overblown.
I guess this is supposed to be attractive for high budget titles that's guaranteed to make alot of money, but AAA titles made their own launchers and will never come back and nothing will change on indipendant side since since they have been gutpunched by Steam for a long time so what is this supposed to accomplish?
I have a feeling AAA developer won't be coming back after they already created their own launcher and digital distribution network. They know people really want their games, and if you already have a launcher and everything set up to give you 100% of the money, even with Steam's incentive, why bother? We're at a point where I think these big companies really don't want to give customers versatility or convenience that something like Steam does, they just want complete control so they can get as much as possible, and honestly, even if it was on Steam, it wouldn't do much for the consumer either since you'd probably still have to download a launcher anyway to play it.
If they control distribution of their own games with launchers, then they also get to define their own arcane customer service and return policies that basically ensure every sale is final.
This is literally in response to FO76 being self-hosted by Bethesda.
All these talk about fragmented platforms remind me much of the tyrannical days of game publishers. Devs go to them not only because of the funding, but also their reach and accumulated circle of consumers. When the devs finally grow enough to be independent, they splinter. When digital stores come along, traditional game publishers lost their grip. Now they want it back.
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