this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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I don't have any frame of reference for how much content delivery on Valve's level costs, and whether a lower cut would be sustainable. I assume that a lower cut for the first $X of revenue a game makes on Steam would be doable without cutting into profits too much, and would probably help smaller indie devs. In the end, since Valve is private, we can kinda only speculate about what would be fair, or even just feasible.
Of course, Valve isn't obligated to do any of this, but if they would in response to pressure from Epic, I'd consider that a good thing. Considering the article above, that seems unlikely, needless to say.
I also do agree that Epic's store isn't all that great.
But it's not just content delivery, they have a lot of software engineers building and maintaining lots of things, such as:
And a bunch more. That cut isn't just going into the coffers, it's being invested in the platform.
What does EGS do?
EGS basically wants to draw you in with the free games and exclusivity, but that's it. They have no actual draw to their platform. Valve invests in their platform, EGS just buys eyeballs.
Yeah, Epic does a lot of sucky stuff. I think that their 12% cut, if they can sustain it, is good, but that isn't an endorsement for all the other things they do.
I'd also argue that Valve is, considering their market position, on the whole extremely light on anti-consumer practices, in a way that a publicly traded company likely wouldn't be.
I am not arguing that Valve is bad, I just believe that a lower cut, if it is sustainably doable, is a good thing. Since neither of us know their numbers (unless your pretty high up in Valve, in that case, Half Life 3 pls), it all comes down to assumptions in the end.
The 12% cut is there to attract developers to their platform. They know they're not going to sell nearly as many copies as Steam, so they need some reason for developers to list their games on EGS. If EGS caught up with Steam, I'm guessing that number would also go up, or they'd add on other nonsense fees to increase profit.
And yeah, a lower cut would be good for devs, but it might not be good for PC gaming (i.e. less investment into stuff like Steam Link). But I agree, I don't have the numbers, so I don't know how much of that cut is profit vs reinvested.
Still, with 30% cut, it was never easier for indie devs to release their game before. Now it's basically like "you made your own game in your garage or basement in your free time, then you log in to steam, fill some paperwork, set price, upload, and you can start selling copies already as you have link you can share on your social media and everywhere". Some 20 years ago you'd need to find publisher that would like the game, be willing to invest in pressing CD/DVD and distribute this across the city/state/country/world/whatever. Then you had to market the game in paper magazines, online ads or wherever and hope people will see the ad/review and go to store to buy the game. Then wait for money to run the circle back to you. With much greater cut than current 30%, especially with indie titles. Even like 10 years ago, you'd have to be "green lit" for steam to actually sell your game, meaning you had to beg for a lot of clicks, to be able to put your game on steam.
Point taken, though I'd argue that it is slightly harder than it used to be before Steam opened the publishing floodgates completely, mostly because of the overwhelming amount of games that are ostensibly spam, not that Greenlight was that great a system either. It is, of course, probably quite hard to actually moderate the amount of games that get pushed onto Steam, but many interesting titles do get buried a bit.
I will not argue that Valve hasn't changed the PC Gaming landscape in a very positive way, both for customers, as well as for developers. I also think that they are using at least some of their profits for some pretty good things.
I just also think that they could be doing some further good for small developers, while not sacrificing all that much profit, though, as I said, I am not really in a position to make an informed judgement on the feasibility of anything like that.