There is competition for Steam and stores like Epic offer at 12% tier. Developers make substantially more money per sale on Epic than Steam.
And the thing is, 30% cut is pointless for Steam. They have more money than they could ever spend. There is no budget at Valve. They just spend whatever they want and do what they want.
They rob hardworking small developers of real money that they need to support themselves all so billionaire Gabe N can enjoy the extreme excess of his valve palace
> They rob hardworking small developers of real money that they need to support themselves all so billionaire Gabe N can enjoy the extreme excess of his valve palace
Steam's 30% is still a huge improvement on the overhead involved in brick and mortar physical sales. But if a developer doesn't want to pay the 30% they can always sell their game from their own website - and some do[1]. Most developers seem to think that the 30% is worth it though.
Edit: Something I neglected to make explicit is that the PC is an open platform. If you don't want to sell through Steam you have tons of other options, including self-publishing. If you want to get your game on a PS5 or an iPhone, you have to go through Sony or Apple and they take a similar cut of your revenue.
I assume you're neither a shareholder or employee of Steam.
But you count their money, you decide for them that their own money is pointless to them, you somehow know how much money they earn, and based on that make assumption it's more than they could ever spend (even though you admit yourself there is no budget at Valve).
And how long is "ever" in "than they could ever spend"? 1 year? 5 years? 20 years? 100 years?
I very much dislike people who count other people's money, I don't know if it's their own jealousy or greediness. But you on top of that also somehow came to the conclusion that their own money is pointless to them, and then accuse them of robbing people.
And this is about marketplace for PC games, a wild west of side-loading and land of free for all.
Epic has not admitted that 12% is unsustainable, and the suggestion that it has is so detached from reality that it colors the rest of your comment as being extremely unreliable.
You should double check your sources because you fell for low-effort low-intelligence fake journalism. What Sweeney said was that 12% was not viable in developing countries due to high finance costs. https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/109102593910919987...
You dislike people who count private profit margins?
I dislike low-information consumers who simp for corporations based on literal fake news.
It's ironic for you to call me "low-information consumer" and "shame me" when you don't even look further than the first Google result to Tim Sweeney's tweet.
Epic Game Store is unprofitable and losing money. There were financial documents released in Epic vs Apple about Epic Game Store becoming possibly profitable in a few years and accumulating 1 billion loss before the end of this decade.
> You dislike people who count private profit margins?
I like how you honestly believe that saying "% cut is pointless for Steam", "they have more money than they could ever spend", "they just spend whatever they want and do what they want", "they rob ... so billionaire Gabe N can enjoy the extreme excess of his valve palace" is counting profit margins.
To bring you back to reality, you're not counting profit margins, because you have no access to their financials. You're making stuff up and talking emotional nonsense like you have a personal grudge and accuse other people and companies of robbing people.
edit: can't reply to your comment below. wishing you all the best with your future trap laying for incompetent repliers
And the thing is, 30% cut is pointless for Steam. They have more money than they could ever spend. There is no budget at Valve. They just spend whatever they want and do what they want.
They rob hardworking small developers of real money that they need to support themselves all so billionaire Gabe N can enjoy the extreme excess of his valve palace