Why Valve actually gets less than 30 percent of Steam game sales - Sensationalist Headlines

Games as a whole could be argued to be a commodity, though it might be a little shaky A game is not a commodity. A commodity has to be fungible, for one. Commodity Netflix is shooting for 50% netflix original content and as I've said, they aren't paying for the production of all of that media. They're paying for some of it, but they're also just flat out acquiring some of them as well.

Whatever it is, it's not the point at hand, and these arguments always devolve into a mess. Tell me, what are your thoughts about the topic in the OP? Is there anything you can inform me about in the previous post I made that pertained to the OP.

Regardless of the EGS stuff (why are we posting about it in this thread?), 21.6% is still a ton, and 12% is a ton. Valve is a multi-billion dollar company not because Steam is good of its own accord, but because they have a model in place where you need minimal manpower and can get $15 (sorry, $12 after this article) for every sale of every triple-A $60 game. If Valve takes 21.6% of AAA game sales, costing $60 each, and 5% of Steam users buy a AAA game per month, and Steam has 90m monthly active users - that's $58,320,000 per month. It doesn't cost Valve anywhere close to this for a month. If they have 360 employees @ $120k yearly each, this drops to a profit of $57,720,000. If servers and maintenance costs $20m a month, which is itself a big estimate, $37,720,000. A store of this magnitude could sustain itself on 9% and still be earning hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly. If you cut employees down to 200 who are working on Steam itself and not on games or hardware/VR or anything, and drop server costs to a more realistic estimate of $2m for a month, it's profitable on 2%. 12% and especially 21.6% are massive.

Uh, this started when I replied to these comments Which were saying EGS is developing a monopoly by purchasing titles. So, yeah. no.

I can see this, but I'd argue GOG's issues stem more from them targeting a specific niche that does not attract as many customers or publishers to their platform. So yeah, a lower cut for them would be disastrous. Old games doesn't exactly make for a thriving market, and DRM free games are something your modern publisher will never buy into sadly. It's a shame, because I fucking love GOG as a platform.

You're also missing out on the part that Valve handles every part of the financial part of a Steam sale, while also providing a huge playerbase, and targeted marketing.

You are explicitly anti-consumer. Otherwise you wouldn't be supporting anticompetitive practices by companies who have basically outright stated they're anti-consumer. Exclusivity is anti-consumer by nature but not always avoidable. Developers, for example, are not compelled to sell their shit on Steam. A company going out of its way to bribe companies to provide them with exclusives is, however, outright unambiguously anti-consumer. It does not benefit the consumer in any way and goes out of its way to try to benefit the deal makers at the expense of the consumer. You haven't done a good job of communicating that then. This is basically the entire issue. They are outright wrong and anti-consumer for making those exclusivity deals. So demonizing them is not remotely unreasonable despite what you keep saying. Good business sense does nt equate to a justified action. Did you ever consider that that's a huge part of the issue here? You seem to be going out of your way to hold the unpopular opinion. I've been extremely critical of (at times even blatantly unfair to) Steam since long before it became popular on Facepunch but it's still baffling as fuck to see people pulling the "but what about Steam?!?!?!?!?" card as if that somehow justifies Epic's actions. It doesn't. And Steam doing shitty stuff also doesn't mean their actions are equally as bad as Epic's. They're not. As shitty as Steam can be, it's a far cry better than what Epic is doing by a long shot. And this is coming from someone who boycotted buying games from any source that would provide profit to Valve for 3-4 years. (And still avoids buying from Steam wherever a better alternative, such as Gog, is available.)

Yeah, you make a good point, I still stand by my bottomline though that your service could be as good as nothing currently out there and you'd still need to have exclusives to "force" people to use your store/launcher to be able to compete with Steam.

Everything that has happened between Epic and publishers are understandably just part of a larger business. Just that when you make selfish decisions that compromises the other party, don't expect the other side to keep quiet about it. I don't think the perspective you are trying to bring is going to quell the unrest. That is all.

A list of the last times I've talked about games, by PC distribution platforms, excluding Humble Store: Told my brother not to format his HDD when installing a new SSD, since he could just reuse his Steam/Origin/Battle.net game installs, even if Origin is a little bit of a PITA to do so My brother was happy to notice Diablo 1 is available on GOG, making his life just that little bit easier to replay it, and for quite cheap A friend of mine sent me a link about The Glass Staircase by Puppet Combo, available currently only on itch if I'm not mistaken Same friend wasn't too happy with Borderlands 3 being on EGS only How I was happy that Baba is You is DRM-less on Steam, and have a native Linux release, which coupled with cloud saves made it harder for me to justify paying a premium (no regional pricing) for it on Itch.io You're right, anecdotal evidence is pretty terrible.

Yes, that's because Steam is the dominant product. Saying that it has a monopoly is like saying Windows has a monopoly on operating systems because it's also the dominant product in it's market. Steam is not the only place you can purchase a game or even purchase a key for their platform from, just like Windows isn't the only operating system you can install. Like wise with most dominant products, they dominate conversation. Most people only talk about Windows operating systems, most people only talk about Messenger and not it's alternatives like Signal, etc. Within Australia there is a literal monopoly on access to Australia's National Broadband Network, every ISP who wants wholesale access to our broadband network must purchase through NBN Co (a government owned corporation). An example of a effective monopoly would be Syndey Trains, if you want to catch a commuter or surburban service within Syndey you have to go on their services. There is no alternative train network, there is no Linux, MacOS, GOG, Origin or even Epic Games Store alternative network for commuters. Make no mistake, Steam IS the dominant product within it's market but it is not a monopoly.

I love this post. You shit out one argument, defend it for no reason against completely legitimate arguments, and when it's definitively demonstrated as bullshit you pull out this garbage. Do you genuinely think anyone's going to take you seriously? That anyone believes you're interested in a genuine discussion? It's obvious you're not. You jump from one point to the next, never considering the fact that you've been disproven.

Ok, this I gotta ask though Why do people not want Steam to have a monopoly? Let's forget the fact that people don't have a single idea of what a monopoly is, put themselves and their needs for quality ahead of themselves like it should be, and answer that first, because at this point, people seem to throw that to the air without even knowing the meaning behind it or why they wouldn't want it to be a thing.

I mean, monopolies are never good. You shouldn't be arguing in favor of monopolies, but rather pointing out that being in a dominant position is not and has never been "a monopoly".

refer to this for "what is a monopoly" before replying

I actually addressed everything anyone else mentioned. People keep saying that x or y aspect of epics dealings have been proven/demonstrated as being bad, and yet not a single person has actually done that. that post was meant to auto merge with this one Do me a favor and give me your opinion on this

Just because you refuse to acknowledge what has been said numerous times does not mean "not a single person has actually [proven] that"

So, I'm assuming by "this" you mean the investopedia article on what a monopoly is? Characteristics of a Monopoly High or no barriers to entry: Other competitors are not able to enter the market Single seller: There is only one seller in the market. In this instance, the company becomes the same as the industry it serves. Price maker: The company that operates the monopoly decides the price of the product that it will sell. Price discrimination: The firm can change the price or quantity of the product at any time. Let's go through this then High or no barriers to entry: Other competitors are not able to enter the market GoG, itch.io, Origin, Uplay, Humble Store, etc. Single seller: There is only one seller in the market. In this instance, the company becomes the same as the industry it serves. GoG, itch.io, Origin, Uplay, Humble Store, etc. Price maker: The company that operates the monopoly decides the price of the product that it will sell. Valve does not control the price of the products. If you view "product" to mean "the game distribution platform", Valve is also not able to control non-Steam prices (where "prices" refers to platform cuts) Price discrimination: The firm can change the price or quantity of the product at any time. Again, not applicable.

In addition; you can buy steam keys at other stores and your money will never go to Valve.

I do think people are looking for someone to come along with actual competition to Steam though, but the way Epic has handled this it hardly seems like it'll last.

are you as oblivious to ignore Intel being fined for billions for pushing AMD products out of stores with bribes?

Steam fulfills so few requirement to be considered a monopoly that the whole "Steam is a monopoly!" narrative just falls down five flights of stairs and onto its face with even the most casual of research and basic knowledge of what a monopoly actually entails.

This is so ironic, considering its from the person who straight up ignored the definition of a monopoly and shifted the point. You addressed things in your own personal world and ignored reality staring right at you in the face.

I guess. The problem here really is games being made exclusive, on a shit platform to boot. Like, I for example have no problem with all the other platforms. I was ready to boycott Doom Eternal entirely if it never came on Steam because I refuse to download Bethesda.net, which imo was made because Bethesda wants even more money. Same goes for Origin buuuut I already have it because of a couple of BF games and NFS 2015, although I don't really have a problem dropping it and I don't like EA as a company or any of their games. AGAIN, support on Origin is, however, fantastic. I'm not payed by EA to say this, but godDAMN, is their support great... This is THE thing Valve should take a hint about though. All that is there left is Ubisoft, which puts their games on Steam, and Battlenet which is even more expendable than Origin, because fuck Battlenet and fuck Activision. Every single game by them is an experience for your wallet, not you. Like, you're the car, and your wallet is the driver. It's pretty much a black hole for cash. And I just remembered. Ubisoft made The Division 2 exclusive on Uplay and Epic for no reason whatsoever. Do they really expect Fortnite players to grab the game that much?

I'm 100% okay with a game being exclusive on another store/launcher if the the service isn't literally a pain in the ass like. If you're not I think that's fine, but I do think exclusives is the only way anybody is going to be able to compete with Steam, and I'd like there to be competition. Just sucks that EGS seems to be so shit in other regards.

Hard disagree here, you just need to beat them in service in some way. If I had the option to buy Quake on Steam Or GOG, I'd pick GOG 100% of the time, mainly because of their DRM policies and prices.

Plenty of games have been released on both Steam and GOG, and while I commend you for taking that stance it seems most people don't.

That'd be because those people value Steam more than GoG.

again, why do people crave competition for steam no really, why

There's other ways to compete. Most stores, when starting off, to compete have much lower prices at first. They don't buy up all the coca-cola and force them to only sell in their store, I'm pretty sure this would get the company in a lot of anti-trust shit if they tried to do this actually, don't know why video games get away with this but whatever. What Epic should have done is reduce the price on games they've partnered with, then fronted the cost. They're already fronting the cost of games with the sales guarantee shit they're doing. Would end up costing them less in the long run likely. Would harbour good will, selling games for less would bring a lot of positive attention. Would showcase a potential benefit of taking less of a cut. (I mean, only potential, the lower cut will never mean lower sales.) Epic has screwed up and it's very hard to deny it.