this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
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There aren't many option and all of them except one are predatory. Regulation that would limit the amount taken would be a real boon to the industry. Steam, Epic, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all guilty of this. The government should step in but they don't because of lobbying and donations.
No one defends Microsoft when it comes to this. Gaben gets a free pass because he pretends to be a cool guy when he's just another billionaire essentially robbing his workforce and customers.
Steam is the only store putting the customer first. The refund policy is top notch. Heck just making proton, giving gamers the choice of os, is the best thing for gamers since computers was invented!
https://youtu.be/gwoAmifo9r0
Putting the customer first? Call me when I can transfer my license to anyone else I want without valve having to okay it like I can a physical copy then we are talking about putting the customer first.
That they are miles better then the competition, does not mean there are no room for improvements.
Microsoft's refund policy is top notch too and I see proton as leveraging open source to avoid dev costs.
More importantly, everything steam does could be done with 5% instead of 30% and Gaben would still be filthy rich.
Steam is as greedy as the other platforms and it's us, the consumers, and the indie scene that suffer for it. Are you okay with your favorite indie studio closing and your favorite game not getting a sequel because Gaben wants 8000 million a year instead of 1000 million a year?
There is most likely collusion and soft monopolies, these platforms are clearly not competing in good faith.
Dude, unless you've ever tried publishing your own game you should stop parroting stuff you hear online. I've released a (borderline shovelware) game I made for educational purposes, and steam is god damned amazing and has such good support for a novice like myself. On the complete opposite of what you're claiming, the gamers and indie companies stand to gain the most from a service like steam.
It's not surprising that it's more or less only people from huge companies like blizzard and Ubisoft who complain and try to gaslight Valve. If I were to release a game again I'd rather publish it on steam if they took 60% of the cut than anywhere else. (Unless you want to pay me a godly amount of money for exclusivity Epic Games, then hmu lol)
You would have the same service if you paid 5% or 60%, steam is ridiculously profitable.
I'm a consumer and I care about the industry, I won't shut up just because you made one shovelware game and tell me to. This is literally against your own self interests, are you sure you aren't the one parroting stuff valves marketing team drilled into you?
Explain to me how regulations and limiting the rate to 5% wouldn't be a clear cut benefit to everyone involved including you. Do you think they go bankrupt? 336 employees and 8000 million. And no, their hardware cost for hosting games does not come close to costing 8000 million.
Great, give me an alternative then.
Afaik, except for steam only Itch even has a native Linux client for starters? EGS is a pos software that doesn't even have an "appear as offline" mode and bleeds money while still taking a 12% cut. And Epic is not a small indie company trying to break into the market.
Steam workshop, their VR integration, their work with Proton for Linux, Steam marketplace, the ease of generating keys for resellers without the 30% cut, great mobile app/interface, actually good storefront browsing, the list just goes on with things Steam does better than any competitor, and that's just a few examples of where the 30% cut is going (ofc they still make absolute bank on top of this).
But regulating this to something insane like 5% would definitely make us lose out on several of these features, not to speak about future features.
They would still have more than a billion in revenue. Steams is running on insane profits and it would still be running in insane profits at 5%. Look through the document posted and do some napkin math. Even at 0.5%, Gaben would still be able to buy a yatch, just maybe not the six like he currently owns. That isn't an exaggeration, he owns six yatchs and spends between 70 million and 100 million a year maintaining them. That is who you are defending.
As a developer, I have no problem with this. Why do work that doesn't need to be done?
I don't either, that is what open source is for afterall. I'm trying to point out that this decision wasn't out of love for his customers but out of love for his bottom line. This let him compete with platforms with devices while having a seriously low entry cost compared to them. It's just a smart business decision but people treat it as if it was charity.
Hold up, how is proton leveraging open source to avoid dev costs? Are you referring to steam using and contributing to existing projects instead of reinventing the wheel? Or to game developers that use it as a reason for not making native Linux versions, which wouldn't be Valve's workforce in the first place?
I can see how the things Valve does contribute to their business model - steam input giving their controller compatibility with games, proton letting them launch a Linux-based handheld, and the new recording feature probably there for the steam deck... But the thing is, Valve is still providing all those things to customers for no extra charge, and they keep adding new stuff.
My point is that it isn't charity. It's just a smart business decision that reduces their cost greatly and let's the community work for them for free. With all the licenses involved, I don't even think they can even add a charge.
If they could have built the same product but closed source, they would have.
I love FOSS and in the end this benefits he community, I just don't think that was the driving factor behind the decision and it doesn't excuse them bleeding dry developers and colluding with other store fronts.