Does steam provide a good service? Sure. Is it worth the 30% cut they take? Absolutely not. Gamers don’t realize the amount of money valve is making off them. What we need is a good old fashioned bill at every purchase detailing how much money these rent seeking stores are extracting from you.
I don’t want the 90 services and bloated platform steam offers, I want to play my game and pay the developers.
Might be unpopular, but I think it’s a fair cut. They provide a Plattform to anyone, and indiegames regularly outperform AAA. You don’t need huge publishers to succeed if your game is fun. I don’t think that would be possible with epic at the top.
Epic does somewhere around 12% and the end user still pays the same so if you think that extra 18% would come back your way rather then going to a devs pockets? Hoo boy.
Also, Steam charges the industry standard rate iirc, same as google, apple, etc. While we can complain about that rate (last paragraph in mind: To what end?) its not as though Valve is doing anything extra greedy.
If any of those games on Epic are also sold in steam, then the (nonsale) price cannot be lower than the steam price because of steam’s TOS.
Also the “industry standard” was arbitrarily chosen to match the cut that brick and mortar stores usually operate at… Despite there being very different costs related.
But yes, steam is being just as greedy as all the other big walled gardens. People complain about that rate across the board, not just about steam.
Epic does somewhere around 12% and the end user still pays the same so if you think that extra 18% would come back your way rather then going to a devs pockets? Hoo boy.
And most of the time that extra doesn’t even go to the devs, the publishers keep it. So you’re not even helping the devs for the most part.
Besides, Steam won’t even take a single cent from Steam keys sold outside of their storefront. Devs are free to sell their games on stores like Humble or Fanatical at whatever price they deem fit.
Steam initally launched in 2003 as a updater/server browser for Valve games like counterstrike, half life, and team fortress classic. Apple music came out earlier that year, which isn’t a 1:1 relation but likely influenced things wrt download pricing.
Steam didn’t have its first third party game til late 2005 which puts the chance for it to standardize a rate for game downloads right around the timeframe of xbox live and psn launching (late 2005, mid 2006 respectively), so I wouldn’t be shocked if word got around the industry about that stuff, though that’s just me making reasonable logical deductions (People love opening their big fat mouths, lot of folks in the same circles, etc.) rather then anything solid.
Then you have the option to buy from epic who take a lower cut. I prefer Steam because of the convenience and features it offers.
Until another storefront can supersede steams features then I don’t see a reason to switch
Does steam provide a good service? Sure. Is it worth the 30% cut they take? Absolutely not. Gamers don’t realize the amount of money valve is making off them. What we need is a good old fashioned bill at every purchase detailing how much money these rent seeking stores are extracting from you.
I don’t want the 90 services and bloated platform steam offers, I want to play my game and pay the developers.
Might be unpopular, but I think it’s a fair cut. They provide a Plattform to anyone, and indiegames regularly outperform AAA. You don’t need huge publishers to succeed if your game is fun. I don’t think that would be possible with epic at the top.
It’s absolutely worth the cut they take. Ask every developer and publisher.
It’s hard getting recognized outside Steam.
Epic does somewhere around 12% and the end user still pays the same so if you think that extra 18% would come back your way rather then going to a devs pockets? Hoo boy.
Also, Steam charges the industry standard rate iirc, same as google, apple, etc. While we can complain about that rate (last paragraph in mind: To what end?) its not as though Valve is doing anything extra greedy.
If any of those games on Epic are also sold in steam, then the (nonsale) price cannot be lower than the steam price because of steam’s TOS.
Also the “industry standard” was arbitrarily chosen to match the cut that brick and mortar stores usually operate at… Despite there being very different costs related.
But yes, steam is being just as greedy as all the other big walled gardens. People complain about that rate across the board, not just about steam.
And most of the time that extra doesn’t even go to the devs, the publishers keep it. So you’re not even helping the devs for the most part.
Besides, Steam won’t even take a single cent from Steam keys sold outside of their storefront. Devs are free to sell their games on stores like Humble or Fanatical at whatever price they deem fit.
Steam charges the industry standard rate… That Steam set originally decades ago.
Steam initally launched in 2003 as a updater/server browser for Valve games like counterstrike, half life, and team fortress classic. Apple music came out earlier that year, which isn’t a 1:1 relation but likely influenced things wrt download pricing.
Steam didn’t have its first third party game til late 2005 which puts the chance for it to standardize a rate for game downloads right around the timeframe of xbox live and psn launching (late 2005, mid 2006 respectively), so I wouldn’t be shocked if word got around the industry about that stuff, though that’s just me making reasonable logical deductions (People love opening their big fat mouths, lot of folks in the same circles, etc.) rather then anything solid.
Then you have the option to buy from epic who take a lower cut. I prefer Steam because of the convenience and features it offers. Until another storefront can supersede steams features then I don’t see a reason to switch