I’m one of those that makes most of the money off a different platform. I’m not making it because the platform is helping me. It’s inertia. I’m the best in my category and so I dominate. Same for these games.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Hey op, I see a lot of your arguments in the comments.
I have a challenge.
Name 5 things Valve could implement to change this that would not be to the detriment of indie devs.
This is not a joke. You have opinions. I want to hear them.
I’m also curious (since I see you pushing a decentralized market place in the comments), how you think a decentralized marketplace would function and what would be better about it.
architect@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
atrielienz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I believe that this is as much about game quality, over saturation, and marketing/inertia as it is about Valve in general, but I’m trying to understand what they think (based on the contents of the article) can be done to fix this problem for game devs.
brachiosaurus@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
Name 5 things Valve could implement to change this that would not be to the detriment of indie devs.
Valve is a for profit company and their main goal is to boost their profits to the roof (valve ceo owns an entire fleet of megayachts). They work to boost their sales not to help other people, when their salesmen lay down 5 things they could implement on the platform their main objective is to do business. Anything you implement that benefit users and devs rather than the already full valve wallet would be a positive change.
The first thing you want to implement is a less greedy and profits drive mentality, the second thing they could implement is the source code of their platform. They could implement exact sales data for each game and transparency reports on their profits, they could implement a mastodon social page and they could implement disclaimers on AAA titles warning people they are buying games from evil corporations.
ExperiencedWinter@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So just to recap you want valve to become a non profit, and open source their platform? It seems like you’re really mad at capitalism, and just chose to lash out at valve.
They could operate in a much more anti consumer way, like other game companies (Epic), they could remove user reviews, they could get rid of the ability for games to be added to the store without a publisher, but they don’t.
hirihit640@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
how is Epic anti-consumer?
ExperiencedWinter@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I don’t use it, but last time I checked they still haven’t implemented a review system… Also there ceo is out there saying stuff like this tomshardware.com/…/epic-boss-tim-sweeney-blasts-s…
brachiosaurus@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
You are on a free, open source and decentralized platform that share nothing with steam. This is indeed the right place where to lash out at evil corporations like valve and their billionaires ceos
atrielienz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The main problem I see with this is that game devs are trying to use capitalism to make money. So what you’re saying is, it’s alright for game devs, but not for store fronts.
That doesn’t make sense to me.
Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
I mean, they could start with not asking 30% of the revenue when you sell less than a million or so units.
Lyricism6055@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It costs a LOT to build a global cdn with the uptime steam has. That 30% is totally justified as a platform fee imo
Especially now with cloud storage and software development costs being so high.
I mean I see your point for sure, but I also see why consistency matters too. Why would valve “punish” someone for doing well? Those big titles are also great for revenue on their side too so honestly selling more units would be even more justifiable to lower the revenue split (from a business perspective on valves side)
Idk. Just thinking out loud I guess.
hirihit640@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
That 30% is totally justified as a platform fee imo
and yet everybody hates on Apple’s 30% cut…
Why would valve “punish” someone for doing well?
maybe it could be like how rich people are taxed more? (at least if rich people paid their taxes in the first place)
Adalast@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I don’t personally hate on Apple’s 30%. I hate on Apple’s predatory licensing practices which demand an upfront expenditure before the first unit sells at all.
Dalkor@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Valve provides a whole lot more developer infrastructure than Apple. Now a good argument may be that you don’t use it all, but it is still provided to all.
Also the class of games on steam take up so much more space than most everything on the apple store.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Would a decentralized version of Steam do that?
Is that 30% the bulk of Valve’s profit?
What do Indie developers get in exchange for Valve’s 30% cut on Steam that they don’t get elsewhere that charges 30% or charges less of a percentage?
So could physical retailers, so how’s that working out?
I’m not going to say they can’t do that. It’s not a bad suggestion but it seems to be suggested continually in a vacuum without considering other factors.
Rooster326@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Decentralized
Imagine paying $60 for a game and then finding out the torrent is dead.
Soggy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
No solution, only angry >:(