In the ongoing saga of the Wolfire versus Valve lawsuit, which is continuing, we've been able to see a funny little look behind the curtain and Tim Sweeney was not happy with Valve.
I don’t have any frame of reference for how much content delivery on Valve’s level costs, and whether a lower cut would be sustainable. I assume that a lower cut for the first $X of revenue a game makes on Steam would be doable without cutting into profits too much, and would probably help smaller indie devs. In the end, since Valve is private, we can kinda only speculate about what would be fair, or even just feasible.
Of course, Valve isn’t obligated to do any of this, but if they would in response to pressure from Epic, I’d consider that a good thing. Considering the article above, that seems unlikely, needless to say.
I also do agree that Epic’s store isn’t all that great.
Still, with 30% cut, it was never easier for indie devs to release their game before. Now it’s basically like “you made your own game in your garage or basement in your free time, then you log in to steam, fill some paperwork, set price, upload, and you can start selling copies already as you have link you can share on your social media and everywhere”. Some 20 years ago you’d need to find publisher that would like the game, be willing to invest in pressing CD/DVD and distribute this across the city/state/country/world/whatever. Then you had to market the game in paper magazines, online ads or wherever and hope people will see the ad/review and go to store to buy the game. Then wait for money to run the circle back to you. With much greater cut than current 30%, especially with indie titles. Even like 10 years ago, you’d have to be “green lit” for steam to actually sell your game, meaning you had to beg for a lot of clicks, to be able to put your game on steam.
I don’t have any frame of reference for how much content delivery on Valve’s level costs, and whether a lower cut would be sustainable. I assume that a lower cut for the first $X of revenue a game makes on Steam would be doable without cutting into profits too much, and would probably help smaller indie devs. In the end, since Valve is private, we can kinda only speculate about what would be fair, or even just feasible.
Of course, Valve isn’t obligated to do any of this, but if they would in response to pressure from Epic, I’d consider that a good thing. Considering the article above, that seems unlikely, needless to say.
I also do agree that Epic’s store isn’t all that great.
Still, with 30% cut, it was never easier for indie devs to release their game before. Now it’s basically like “you made your own game in your garage or basement in your free time, then you log in to steam, fill some paperwork, set price, upload, and you can start selling copies already as you have link you can share on your social media and everywhere”. Some 20 years ago you’d need to find publisher that would like the game, be willing to invest in pressing CD/DVD and distribute this across the city/state/country/world/whatever. Then you had to market the game in paper magazines, online ads or wherever and hope people will see the ad/review and go to store to buy the game. Then wait for money to run the circle back to you. With much greater cut than current 30%, especially with indie titles. Even like 10 years ago, you’d have to be “green lit” for steam to actually sell your game, meaning you had to beg for a lot of clicks, to be able to put your game on steam.