Steam changes their Revenue Sharing model to give high earners a larger cut

From: Valve
To: Major publishers


We've known each other for so long
Your heart's been aching but you're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on
We know the game and we're gonna play it
I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you understand
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
 
To be fair, it's the big earners who lose the most in absolute terms for a given %age cut. They also happen to be the most likely publishers to have the resources to pack up shop and move elsewhere/make their own.
 
Only hurts the small guys. No benefits to them just letting the big names earn even bigger profits.
This is necessary to keep the big names on the platform, since currently the steam's cut is so large that it's more beneficial to just develop and run their own.

If you're an indie developer, you basically have to use Steam for people to care about your game. Even if the cut was 50% most small devs would probably take that deal. But it's not like steam is only a necessary evil, they do have useful tools for game developers. And this is a move to ensure steam remains as the primary platform, which could be seen to be positive for smaller guys.

Though I do have a positive bias towards Valve in general since I quite like their approach and where they're throwing their money - I'm reaping benefits of them throwing money at desktop Linux daily.
 
I mean running their own service with everything associated with it is costly, and the number they have to compare against is now 20% of their Steam revenue instead of 30%. So essentially self-hosting has to be a third cheaper. It'll certainly deter new ones from popping up, but yeah, ones with established platforms probably won't bring their products back.


It's not like publishers move to Uplay/Origin/whatever for fun when every single one causes an outcry from players who don't want to install yet another launcher.
 
Yeah I often see people complain at the developers or something when other companies use a non-Steam launcher but really the route of the issue is that Valve uses their near monopoly on the game sales market to take a hefty chunk of the revenue undisputed. While 30% is standard on most app stores nowadays(And you could say is quite a good deal for smaller developers as you gain access to a bucket load of features and a very mature and powerful ecosystem) for a big developer selling a £50 game in large quantities it ends up meaning the loss from using Steam can be more than the losses of physical distribution, or the licensing fees for console games.
 
Only hurts the small guys. No benefits to them just letting the big names earn even bigger profits.


It doesn't hurt small guys more than it already "does". It's still the same 30% cut.

And if you think 30% cut for the reach and digital distribution steam offers you know nothing about how expensive Physical distribution was to a much smaller reach, and that, especially for "Smaller Guys".

I doubt we would've ever seen a Stardew Valley, Undertale, etc... profitable ventures without a platform like steam. That is, compared to any other distribution systems.
 
It doesn't hurt small guys more than it already "does". It's still the same 30% cut.

And if you think 30% cut for the reach and digital distribution steam offers you know nothing about how expensive Physical distribution was to a much smaller reach, and that, especially for "Smaller Guys".

I doubt we would've ever seen a Stardew Valley, Undertale, etc... profitable ventures without a platform like steam. That is, compared to any other distribution systems.

No duh. Hence the doesn't benefit them. Only benefits the large guys.

You clearly know nothing considering every other store is much lower. Hence Epic games just yesterday to spite Steam loewered there take to 12%. No matter how big or small. Nice try though to change the argument
 
So, benefiting large guys == hurting small guys? Gotcha.

If you read anything I said you'd understand. Helping big companies make more hurts small companies. Putting more money into big companies pockets only further increases the billions they make. Which further increases the money they can invest.

Small companies will continue to be the same. If not just outright close because they are at a disadvantage.

This is why Epics new announcement of there own stores with 12% is designed for smaller companies to grow by letting keep more per game sold. This is also why they themselves said they would help fund smaller studios if they only sell on there store. Because they need investments to come in to actually provide for there family's when they aren't making money from the game because it's not released yet.

Basic business. So can drop the sarcasm. A different example would be Amazon being so big and ubquitous that them just announcing they are entering a market causes that market as a whole, meaning the entire segment, loses billions in stock. The big guy will just make billions and cause smaller ones to just go out of business or forced to use Amazon and change there business model.
 
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Well, you could argue if it weren't for the big guys there wouldn't be any/many little guys. The big guys generally made the ecosystems(Game engines, platforms, technology, marketplaces, ect) that many little guys rely on, they're the expensive guinea pigs for a bucket load of small bits and pieces(In a year or two stuff like DXR will have made it's way into indie titles via Unreal Engine or similar, but I'm sure no one will credit DICE for the toil they put into early DXR to hone the fundamental concepts and assumptions that will make it a viable technology). Sometimes a big player entering a market causes perception of the market or its maturity to improve, in turn increasing the stock price & valuation of a bucket load of smaller companies in the process, and gaming is one market that needed all the proof of maturity it could get till people were truly willing to throw the kind of money at it that movies have long relied on.
 
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