LMAO tell me you are not a dev without telling me.
Steam does a shitton for devs, the 30% is literally only for sales through their storefront, I can get any amount of keys and resell them wherever I want and give valve nothing, and they’ll still host all my shit, check ownership, handle copy sharing in family libraries, handle patching and beta tests, all for a one time fee that is even refunded if you ever get past a certain amount of copies sold.
You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.
If you’re a game dev, then you should also know how valuable every service steam gives is, if you’re just “a dev” then it’s not really relevant beyond understanding how much setting up all of that infrastructure would cost in terms of time, effort, marketing to actually get discoverability, and actual server costs once you need to scale.
Either way you should know enough to get that 30% is absolutely worth it.
Gaben is a billionaire many times over, he owns half a dozen yachts, and valve has like 100 employees. They could take 5% without changing a single thing and still be fabulously wealthy. Greed corrupts
They could, but why would they when 30% is fair still? You are not entitled to setting other people’s asking price, and they are entitled to setting the cost of their own labour.
If anyone is greedy here it’s you, demanding to have a say in how much is a fair rate for someone else’s time and skill.
This isn’t a job interview I’m not obliged to give you my CV. I’m stating an opinion that valve and steam are not the friendly aw shucks corporation they’ve been whitewashed into.
valve and steam are not the friendly aw shucks corporation they’ve been whitewashed into.
And the goalposts go flying.
Who the fuck cares if valve is cute and cuddly? Who even wants that in a marketplace other than morons who think they can take advantage of someone else’s kindness?
Valve is a company, their job is to make money for the people who own it.
You the customer want the most out of your transaction with them, they know it make it a priority.
They understand that devs working there making fucktons of money is good because they’ll stay and be motivated to work, so they are selective on who they hire and then pay them an insane amount.
They want to avoid microsoft cutting their nuts off so they pushed linux as a viable alternative.
They want devs to sell on their platform so they refined a business deal that works well enough that they get several new games on their storefront a day and still make back their operating costs, despite servers that can literally be used to benchmark several gigabit download connections.
They are the most economically effective company in the world and they achieved it by not enshittifying their platform and not going public.
Selflessness would literally be a downgrade, I want Valve to have every damn cent they earned.
They’re not the only game in town, they are the best game in town, and at every turn they make an effort not to become a monopoly, either, because they know the good will of their customer base is more important than attempts at short term spikes in company revenue, which is only possible because they are a privately held company.
So yeah, are they cuddly and nice? No, fuck no, but they are extremely effective while providing a service that puts every other provider in their field to shame, so why the fuck would I want them to change?
If this was true steam would have failed from the start. Instead, the service actually does offer a ton of benefits to both users and developers/publishers including distribution of sales, updates, additional features like forums, friends, and other things that have varying levels of positive or negative benefits to different people. That isn’t even mentioning Proton or the steam deck, just what it between the makers of the games and the people who play them.
Lootboxes are bullshit, sure. He should have spread out the benefits more to the employees as well. But the 30% cut for ‘nothing’ is incorrect.
Valve only cares about Linux so far as their cut is concerned it’s not a humanitarian mission. The entire steam platform is incredibly dated, I mean it’s still 32 bit only for fucks sale, they developed a reasonable feature set two decades ago and have been coasting on their laurels ever since. Devs can’t complain because there’s no better alternative, it’s a captive market.
Steam has been coasting on the fact that everyone shoots themselves in the foot, sure, but you should look into the unparalleled level of “free” (30% cut) marketing support Steam gives to developers. On no other platform could developers end up with the visibility they achieve on Steam with nothing more than very strategic timing and good social media presence. It’s still insanely hard, but the fact that it’s even possible to compete with zero marketing budget against AAA companies speaks volumes.
You only get that “marketing” if your game is already popular. So the 99% of games not getting that visibility are paying the same as those free that are.
Blatantly untrue, as update visibility rounds are one of several marketing tools Steam gives you that can put your game on the front page for free, regardless of popularity.
Kitfox Games has published a guide (one among many you can find on the internet) on how to successfully market a game with no advertising budget. While their existing audience definitely helped, and as they mention, it takes a significant amount of time and effort, they do not spend actual money on sponsorships or advertising. This would not be a viable strategy on any other storefront, save maybe Epic, though Epic still gives fewer tools than Steam.
It’s not untrue. Most games never get that exposure. You have to be popular within a certain time frame to get any chance at showing up. You can try to game it, sure, but most will fail to achieve that
I’m not saying it isn’t insanely hard (actually I mentioned that fact twice), I’m just trying to point out that Steam gives developers more tools for visibility than any storefront that exists, with most storefronts giving no tools whatsoever. Any game with no marketing budget selling enough to support a multiple-person development team, when they have to compete directly with AAA games, is impressive for both the developer and the platform.
If you want to advocate for improvements and change, you can’t just ignore the positive things that already exist.
~Also you clearly didn’t read the page about the update visibility rounds, because those have nothing to do with popularity and are completely randomized regarding who among the recently-updated games gets a spot on the front page. In fact, your game gets rotated off that spot once you’ve gotten 1 million impressions.~
He exploited gambling addictions and taking 30% from devs by doing nothing. Earned is a pretty strong word.
LMAO tell me you are not a dev without telling me.
Steam does a shitton for devs, the 30% is literally only for sales through their storefront, I can get any amount of keys and resell them wherever I want and give valve nothing, and they’ll still host all my shit, check ownership, handle copy sharing in family libraries, handle patching and beta tests, all for a one time fee that is even refunded if you ever get past a certain amount of copies sold.
You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.
I am literally a dev
If you’re a game dev, then you should also know how valuable every service steam gives is, if you’re just “a dev” then it’s not really relevant beyond understanding how much setting up all of that infrastructure would cost in terms of time, effort, marketing to actually get discoverability, and actual server costs once you need to scale.
Either way you should know enough to get that 30% is absolutely worth it.
Gaben is a billionaire many times over, he owns half a dozen yachts, and valve has like 100 employees. They could take 5% without changing a single thing and still be fabulously wealthy. Greed corrupts
They could, but why would they when 30% is fair still? You are not entitled to setting other people’s asking price, and they are entitled to setting the cost of their own labour.
If anyone is greedy here it’s you, demanding to have a say in how much is a fair rate for someone else’s time and skill.
Is that downvote the number of games you’ve released?
This isn’t a job interview I’m not obliged to give you my CV. I’m stating an opinion that valve and steam are not the friendly aw shucks corporation they’ve been whitewashed into.
And the goalposts go flying.
Who the fuck cares if valve is cute and cuddly? Who even wants that in a marketplace other than morons who think they can take advantage of someone else’s kindness?
Valve is a company, their job is to make money for the people who own it.
Selflessness would literally be a downgrade, I want Valve to have every damn cent they earned.
They’re not the only game in town, they are the best game in town, and at every turn they make an effort not to become a monopoly, either, because they know the good will of their customer base is more important than attempts at short term spikes in company revenue, which is only possible because they are a privately held company.
So yeah, are they cuddly and nice? No, fuck no, but they are extremely effective while providing a service that puts every other provider in their field to shame, so why the fuck would I want them to change?
How’s the boot taste?
How’s the bile, you seething commie clown?
Is that supposed to be an insult? I love communism and circus performers, they both bring joy to the masses
You stated your opinion as a fact, and qualified it by saying you’re a game dev.
Back up that claim. Shouldn’t be hard to do.
Let’s connect on LinkedIn :)
Let’s not, and both know you haven’t made any games.
Your opinion is your own, I’m not justifying myself to a loser online.
What games do you have on steam/gog/epic?
If this was true steam would have failed from the start. Instead, the service actually does offer a ton of benefits to both users and developers/publishers including distribution of sales, updates, additional features like forums, friends, and other things that have varying levels of positive or negative benefits to different people. That isn’t even mentioning Proton or the steam deck, just what it between the makers of the games and the people who play them.
Lootboxes are bullshit, sure. He should have spread out the benefits more to the employees as well. But the 30% cut for ‘nothing’ is incorrect.
Valve only cares about Linux so far as their cut is concerned it’s not a humanitarian mission. The entire steam platform is incredibly dated, I mean it’s still 32 bit only for fucks sale, they developed a reasonable feature set two decades ago and have been coasting on their laurels ever since. Devs can’t complain because there’s no better alternative, it’s a captive market.
Steam has been coasting on the fact that everyone shoots themselves in the foot, sure, but you should look into the unparalleled level of “free” (30% cut) marketing support Steam gives to developers. On no other platform could developers end up with the visibility they achieve on Steam with nothing more than very strategic timing and good social media presence. It’s still insanely hard, but the fact that it’s even possible to compete with zero marketing budget against AAA companies speaks volumes.
You only get that “marketing” if your game is already popular. So the 99% of games not getting that visibility are paying the same as those free that are.
Blatantly untrue, as update visibility rounds are one of several marketing tools Steam gives you that can put your game on the front page for free, regardless of popularity.
Kitfox Games has published a guide (one among many you can find on the internet) on how to successfully market a game with no advertising budget. While their existing audience definitely helped, and as they mention, it takes a significant amount of time and effort, they do not spend actual money on sponsorships or advertising. This would not be a viable strategy on any other storefront, save maybe Epic, though Epic still gives fewer tools than Steam.
It’s not untrue. Most games never get that exposure. You have to be popular within a certain time frame to get any chance at showing up. You can try to game it, sure, but most will fail to achieve that
I’m not saying it isn’t insanely hard (actually I mentioned that fact twice), I’m just trying to point out that Steam gives developers more tools for visibility than any storefront that exists, with most storefronts giving no tools whatsoever. Any game with no marketing budget selling enough to support a multiple-person development team, when they have to compete directly with AAA games, is impressive for both the developer and the platform.
If you want to advocate for improvements and change, you can’t just ignore the positive things that already exist.
~Also you clearly didn’t read the page about the update visibility rounds, because those have nothing to do with popularity and are completely randomized regarding who among the recently-updated games gets a spot on the front page. In fact, your game gets rotated off that spot once you’ve gotten 1 million impressions.~