When I was putting out games, publishing on Steam would mean a guaranteed 1 million impressions on the “New releases” list. That’s really good exposure for an indie title, which often succeed or fail due to exposure.
But 30% can be a lot for those same indie teams, especially combined with taxes. It can easily be enough money that long-term support or follow up games just aren’t viable.
And after that initial exposure, you’re not getting much for your 30%. The value of Steamworks can vary greatly game by game so you could end up paying $30k for $100 of bandwidth and minor marketing through things like sales and rich presence.
I would much prefer to see something like “30% after the first $X in sales” so you’re only paying the platform after it’s demonstrated it’s value.
I do and yes, those keys move slower than Steam sales. But let’s not pretend that’s pure altruism on Valve’s part.
Selling Steam keys elsewhere still benefits Valve because people shop wherever they bulk of their library lives.
The “as long as the price is the same” is also important an important caveat, because it essentially means that Valve doesn’t need to compete with other platforms.
If you decided to sell your game for $50 dollars + platform percentage, buying from the Epic store would be a 10% discount. Almost every game on there would be able to offer this discount and that would be enough to start pulling users away. Rather than offer a better cut, Valve just writes it into the terms that you can’t do that.
You absolutely can do what you are saying. You CAN sell games for lower on other platforms as long as they aren’t steam versions. You CANT sell games that use steam keys for cheaper on another platform which makes sense because steam is still providing bandwidth and other services for your game.
I have mixed feelings on it.
When I was putting out games, publishing on Steam would mean a guaranteed 1 million impressions on the “New releases” list. That’s really good exposure for an indie title, which often succeed or fail due to exposure.
But 30% can be a lot for those same indie teams, especially combined with taxes. It can easily be enough money that long-term support or follow up games just aren’t viable.
And after that initial exposure, you’re not getting much for your 30%. The value of Steamworks can vary greatly game by game so you could end up paying $30k for $100 of bandwidth and minor marketing through things like sales and rich presence.
I would much prefer to see something like “30% after the first $X in sales” so you’re only paying the platform after it’s demonstrated it’s value.
Then generate the steamkey(for free) and sell them elsewhere! Steam is toatally Ok with that, as long as the price is the same.
I do and yes, those keys move slower than Steam sales. But let’s not pretend that’s pure altruism on Valve’s part.
Selling Steam keys elsewhere still benefits Valve because people shop wherever they bulk of their library lives.
The “as long as the price is the same” is also important an important caveat, because it essentially means that Valve doesn’t need to compete with other platforms.
If you decided to sell your game for $50 dollars + platform percentage, buying from the Epic store would be a 10% discount. Almost every game on there would be able to offer this discount and that would be enough to start pulling users away. Rather than offer a better cut, Valve just writes it into the terms that you can’t do that.
You absolutely can do what you are saying. You CAN sell games for lower on other platforms as long as they aren’t steam versions. You CANT sell games that use steam keys for cheaper on another platform which makes sense because steam is still providing bandwidth and other services for your game.
Oh yeah that’s right. Sorry, I haven’t put a game out for a long time.