30% is the industry standard though, and Valve’s contribution of distribution and discovery infrastructure, its audience, and expanding hardware initiatives are not nothing. If you’re not pricing a game to give yourself a healthy margin within the 70% or your development model doesn’t make that viable, that’s really on you.
I mean, Spotify’s model is the industry standard, and it still suck big time and doesn’t give a shit about artists.
Anyway if I’ve learn anything over the past 10 years, it’s that it would probably be easier to convince a room full of maga to vote for Hillary Clinton than the average gamer to admit that steam sucks. So keep kissing this billionaire’s ass because he really does care about you, and remember Ubisoft and Epic (12% cut) bad.
The “30% is the industry standard” claim is not even true anymore. Epic currently takes 0% to expand its catalog, though from what I remember, it estimated that it needs to take 7% or so to be profitable. Microsoft takes 12%. Itch allows to adjust. GOG’s fee varies from deal to deal. Ubisoft (and EA) no longer sell third-party games, so they’re out of scope here.
The only way I’ve seen people try to counter this is by referring to the mobile and console store fees, but going by the Epic v. Google lawsuit where the jury was asked to define the market and defined it as Android, there’s just no way that argument would hold water. Still, console manufacturers produce at a loss, so they need to make up for that. In the mobile market, Google is already changing its fee to be 20% or less.
I’m not saying the standard doesn’t suck, just taking issue with the implication that anyone using it is uniquely bad to do so.
But yeah, you’re right that getting me to admit Steam (overall) sucks would be nigh impossible. I genuinely don’t believe it does, so there’s nothing to admit. Maybe you could convince me to lie about it though? Lol.
I do admit there’s a few places it sucks, the gambling stuff being the biggest, but their positives eclipse those for me. I also acknowledge I’m in a privileged position being able to enjoy Valve’s efforts in VR, Linux compatibility, etc. directly and that I might have different opinions if I was on the outside looking in. I imagine that’s not quite the admission you want though.
I’m not gonna say Steam sucks. It’s a nice organizational tool that enforces some standards.
I’d rather have a drm free game that’s 20% cheaper though. The devs can pocket the other 10%.
Challenging biased views, half truths, or having your own opinions isn’t kissing some billionaire’s ass. I don’t want billionaire’s to exist. Gabe shouldn’t need to be a billionaire. But all of this is absofuckinglutely irrelevant to whether or not Steam is a good platform, unless Gabe was wielding Steam in a way that would promote a billionaire class, which he isn’t.
Oh, I didn’t know you were a personal friend of Gabe, my bad.
Anyway I don’t care about people like you, you are the problem. I care about people looking for solutions to have a healthy and fair industry.
I use to make a decent living out of music and sound design, 15-20 years ago. Then spotify came along and nobody lives from selling music anymore. Now I teach and if I was honest with my students, I’d tell them they are wasting time. Even here in Montreal, with hundreds of studios, there’s basically no more job in audio because the only way to make profit out of game is with AI and sound banks. So yeah, enjoy the enshitification of games, you’re directly promoting it.
You really need to take a good look in the mirror, because you are reading things that aren’t there and embarrassing yourself and the industry you claim to care about.
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 hours ago
Industry standard doesn’t mean reasonable. It’s renter class bullshit, profiting off of other’s labor. Pretending creating a distribution and discovery platform is seriously deserving of 30% of the value of the hard work of game devs is not reasonable.
ericwdhs@discuss.online 9 hours ago
I never called it reasonable. I just don’t think it’s especially egregious. Honestly, I would price the value of Valve’s contribution (which is definitely not zero) at maybe 15% to 20%, but that’s just a gut feeling.