30% is basically standard for digital stores everywhere, and $5000 shouldn't be a barrier for anyone. Did you complete a game but lack those funds? Kickstart the five grand, with your finished game behind it. Finished, not in progress.

Jerykk wrote on Jun 4, 2017, 03:57:
You have a strange definition of "fluff" and "bloatware."

Steam features that I find useful:
- Cloud saves.
- Trading cards (free money).
- Forums (great for finding patch notes and bug reports).
- Instant messaging (I use it to communicate with people all the time).
- Workshop.
- Wishlist.
- Match invites/joins.
- Curators (easy way to find out if a game is capped at 30 FPS).
- User reviews (good for obscure games or to find out if a game has performance issues that professional reviews ignore).

You may not like Steam but to claim that it is "just" a game delivery service is pretty silly. It offers a wide array of features that most people find useful, which is why it's the most popular of the distribution platforms by a large margin.

Where's your indignant outrage and gamer entitlement. You should know better than to post the truth. Shame Shame Shame

You have a strange definition of "fluff" and "bloatware."

Steam features that I find useful:
- Cloud saves.
- Trading cards (free money).
- Forums (great for finding patch notes and bug reports).
- Instant messaging (I use it to communicate with people all the time).
- Workshop.
- Wishlist.
- Match invites/joins.
- Curators (easy way to find out if a game is capped at 30 FPS).
- User reviews (good for obscure games or to find out if a game has performance issues that professional reviews ignore).

You may not like Steam but to claim that it is "just" a game delivery service is pretty silly. It offers a wide array of features that most people find useful, which is why it's the most popular of the distribution platforms by a large margin.

Yeah, they offer some services that are fluff like forums, built-in streaming, built-in web browser to their DRM platform. Oh right, it also has built-in DRM. The only thing useful out of all the Steam bloatware is the Steam Workshop, that's actually somewhat useful. I don't need steam reviews from people that played the game for 0.6 hours, I have the rest of the internet to find reviews for that. I don't need streaming, I have OBS, I don't need a web browser, I have chrome.

Fact is they're just a game delivery service. You can claim all the bells and whistles you want, but the exist for you to buy games from, and then download them from. Everything else is just fluff.

And that core part of their business, while expensive, isn't anywhere near the profit they make from it. It costs them pennies to pipe 20 GB to you, if even one penny. But they just profited $20.00. So yeah, there's a lot of wiggle room there.

I've said it before in other Steam threads, Valve's %30 cut is too high in my opinion. But that isn't even close to being on the table to being changed, this is only about the entry fee for their Greenlight replacement.

In a perfect world, Valve would drop their percentage, but this is clearly extremely far from a perfect world these days.

Muscular Beaver wrote on Jun 3, 2017, 06:22:
Valve has to pay a huge fleet of fast servers all around the world to keep tens of millions of people connected and happy, they keep developing new features and bug fixes. That is not as a small job as you make it look like.

Infrastructure isn't cheap. Between purchase costs, staffing costs, and ongoing maintenance, there's a lot of money tied up in it. And given Steam's position and visibility I dare say a higher percentages of their systems are Tier 1 than people might expect. They may even have more than networking equipment in the Tier 0 slot.

Slick wrote on Jun 3, 2017, 04:02:
I'm glad some people are starting to catch on that Valve's 30% off of GROSS is pretty fucking high for a digital storefront. Their costs are next to zero to pipe the game to you.

If it was %30 off of PROFIT then I'd say that's a far more reasonable figure, it would be hard to argue with that. People just see "30%" and it seems like a reasonable number, but the context is far more insidious.

The devs have to pay their staff, hardware, software licencing, rent an office, keep the lights on, and market their product. So if all of that costs %50 of their gross, valve takes 30%, the devs get 20%. So valve is literally getting more than the devs in the above (I think rather reasonable) scenario.

Which is hilarious because Valve left Vivendi exactly because Vivendi was the 3rd party publisher taking an unfair cut of the profits, Valve said "Hey fucktards! We make the fucking games, we deserve a bigger piece of the pie!" (GabeN has since made it his life's work to eat the whole pie). Although, Vivendi in their *shudder* defence would actually put up venture capital for Valve to make games.

Sorry, let me rewind... Valve used to be a video game company that made video games. I know right! So random.

While I somewhat agree, you leave out far too much of Valves expenses and pros for devs. They built an awesome platform for everyone to enjoy. Devs profit a lot from it, not only through sales, but also with community care, releasing patches super easily, statistics, feedback, PR through free weekends, discounts, advertisements, access to several promotion programs and streamers/Youtubers, etc.
Valve has to pay a huge fleet of fast servers all around the world to keep tens of millions of people connected and happy, they keep developing new features and bug fixes. That is not as a small job as you make it look like.

I'm glad some people are starting to catch on that Valve's 30% off of GROSS is pretty fucking high for a digital storefront. Their costs are next to zero to pipe the game to you.

If it was %30 off of PROFIT then I'd say that's a far more reasonable figure, it would be hard to argue with that. People just see "30%" and it seems like a reasonable number, but the context is far more insidious.

The devs have to pay their staff, hardware, software licencing, rent an office, keep the lights on, and market their product. So if all of that costs %50 of their gross, valve takes 30%, the devs get 20%. So valve is literally getting more than the devs in the above (I think rather reasonable) scenario.

Which is hilarious because Valve left Vivendi exactly because Vivendi was the 3rd party publisher taking an unfair cut of the profits, Valve said "Hey fucktards! We make the fucking games, we deserve a bigger piece of the pie!" (GabeN has since made it his life's work to eat the whole pie). Although, Vivendi in their *shudder* defence would actually put up venture capital for Valve to make games.

Sorry, let me rewind... Valve used to be a video game company that made video games. I know right! So random.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Jun 3, 2017, 03:25:
it would objectively be ridiculous for Valve to charge that much just to give some company the privilege of selling their product.

$5000 upfront in exchange for 15% instead of 30%? That's a SHIT TON more money for the developer. Even a D-rated indie game if it's half good should be able to generate 2000 sales @ 25$ a pop, that's $50,000.

So 30% of 50,000$ means the devs pocket $35,000. Meanwhile 15% minus $5000 means they'll pocket $37,500. This is basically the mark where the returns start to become favourable to the developer, from there on up the devs get more and more money, and are therefore incentivised to make a proper polished product. And remember even if this is 2 devs in a studio, it probably took them at the VERY least 1 year to create the game, that's $37,500 split 2 ways for a year's work, it's fucking peanuts. I'd make more money working at McDonalds (Canadians have an almost-reasonable $10+ minimum wage)

So with my formula (which I totally made up on the spot, needs to be tweaked, but it gets the general idea I think), Game devs have to aim for at least 2000 sales of a $25 game. Which should absolutely be within the scope of any indie project that's worth publishing.

Slick wrote on Jun 2, 2017, 22:16:

Cutter wrote on Jun 2, 2017, 22:00:
It should be a grand at least to keep the shovelware off. And it shouldn't be recoupable per se, but used toward the 30 points Steam takes on sales - so if you don't forsee the game doing decent sales you'll be wasting your time and money. It won't end the problem but it'd probably make a pretty good dent in it.

30 points on thousands of shovelware releases, quite the vig on that action. It's okay though, it's only Valve's rabidly loyal fanbase that foots the bill getting conned into this garabge.

I don't know how hard it is to make it a $5000 non-recuperable front just to get the process started. And then take 15 points instead of 30. Wouldn't THAT go much further to encourage indie developers to make great games that will make them lots of money, but keep out the scammers? I know there's a better way to do this. Greenlight is a good idea in principle, they really just need to figure out what the fuck they're doing before someone else does it better.

It would seem that an obvious answer is higher costs upfront, but if you succeed, then higher profits. People are encouraged to make shit that lots of people will actually want to buy, ie. 15 points. And big cost up front $5k minimum (not actually that much, even for indie devs) to keep out the scammers who will profit if they only sell 100 copies of their shit before people catch on.

I know you think that would help keep the scammers out, but a $5000 would probably keep a fair number of legitimate games entirely off of Steam, not to mention it would objectively be ridiculous for Valve to charge that much just to give some company the privilege of selling their product.

The point is moot, since Valve realized the higher end fees would be ridiculous, and they went with $100 anyway.

In the long run, I hope Valve's 30% take for each sale and their shifting entrance requirements drive more people to Gog and other services... Steam already controls too much of the marketplace.

Steam review system is a joke and they dont bother fixing it. People who literally play 1 minute of the game are able to post reviews. Now the review system determines whats shown more in store, so yea great job valve for offering junk review system.

Cutter wrote on Jun 2, 2017, 22:00:
It should be a grand at least to keep the shovelware off. And it shouldn't be recoupable per se, but used toward the 30 points Steam takes on sales - so if you don't forsee the game doing decent sales you'll be wasting your time and money. It won't end the problem but it'd probably make a pretty good dent in it.

30 points on thousands of shovelware releases, quite the vig on that action. It's okay though, it's only Valve's rabidly loyal fanbase that foots the bill getting conned into this garabge.

I don't know how hard it is to make it a $5000 non-recuperable front just to get the process started. And then take 15 points instead of 30. Wouldn't THAT go much further to encourage indie developers to make great games that will make them lots of money, but keep out the scammers? I know there's a better way to do this. Greenlight is a good idea in principle, they really just need to figure out what the fuck they're doing before someone else does it better.

It would seem that an obvious answer is higher costs upfront, but if you succeed, then higher profits. People are encouraged to make shit that lots of people will actually want to buy, ie. 15 points. And big cost up front $5k minimum (not actually that much, even for indie devs) to keep out the scammers who will profit if they only sell 100 copies of their shit before people catch on.

It should be a grand at least to keep the shovelware off. And it shouldn't be recoupable per se, but used toward the 30 points Steam takes on sales - so if you don't forsee the game doing decent sales you'll be wasting your time and money. It won't end the problem but it'd probably make a pretty good dent in it.

this shit is cynical as a motherfucker... truly we are in the "era of Trump"... its just like "fuck you, bend over and take this.. now gimme all your money and fuck off"

Wow, what an unexpected decision... like Valve really ever gave a fuck. Of course they went for the lowest possible fee in order to keep collecting the $$$, no matter how shitty or fake a game might be.

I like the Steam storefront and I occasionally check it to see if there's anything I missed. It's far from perfect but I can't think of another large store's storefront which is as useful so I think they're making the best of a difficult task. Steam's recommendations are a lot better than Amazon's too.

Slick wrote on Jun 2, 2017, 18:11:
Honestly, if you're trying to run a scam, $100 isn't any barrier for you. Some people spend thousands on making some piece of shit look legit, if they can turn $1000 into $10,000 then it's worth every penny.


And if this $100 is "recuperable" then it's no barrier at all? I guess it depends on how it's recovered. But still, you could make it $2000 recuperate, and any indy studio has that money lying around to you know... get their game published. Think of the costs associated with even indie development, it's more than a couple thousand. And they could get an investor to front that if they're serious.

Agreed, it's too low to stop all but the cheapest scams like flipping a whole Unity asset pack. I gather these abuse trading cards in some way too, and Valve are cracking down on that. Some studios spam Greenlight with the same game and presumably only one of these needs Greenlit to cover their $100 fee. By making the fee per-title, rather than a one-off, this won't be worthwhile.

This will put off some hobbyists who can justify a one-off payment without needing to recoup it but not that fee for every project. TBH I can understand if Valve just don't care; they'll make trivial amounts of business and contribute to the amateurish reputation Steam has acquired.

$100 is entirely too much. It should be ten because that would ensure more great games get made and released.

But seriously, who shops steam looking for games.
I don't go to Amazon looking for random stuff to purchase.

The fact I am agreeing with you must be stars aligning or something, this was, by the way, not a mere scam, but organized crime. They made tidy sums of milling asset flips -> trading cards. We are talking $5k or more per game and dozens of games. You can assume that a 100$ fee isn't gonna curb that kinda crime, which is why Steam isn't even trying to do it via this route. And it's already problematic that steam is making 30% of what is essential money laundering.

Honestly, if you're trying to run a scam, $100 isn't any barrier for you. Some people spend thousands on making some piece of shit look legit, if they can turn $1000 into $10,000 then it's worth every penny.


And if this $100 is "recuperable" then it's no barrier at all? I guess it depends on how it's recovered. But still, you could make it $2000 recuperate, and any indy studio has that money lying around to you know... get their game published. Think of the costs associated with even indie development, it's more than a couple thousand. And they could get an investor to front that if they're serious.

just enough for Valve to make a tidy profit, but not enough to stop anything other than the completely fake/joke "games"