Was about to ask what’s with all the shilling here but just realized which community this is. Have fun shilling for a mega Corp. Go tell yourselves that 30% cut isn’t ridiculous.
But let’s move that away from the mega Corp [sic] everyone here is supposedly shilling for. Let’s talk about cuts lost to distribution and delivery for a second.
I cannot answer this for a lot of industries, but for example for board games ~7%-9% go to the actual designer. That’s 91%-93% that is lost along the way. Even if we take Sweeney’s 25% example that the devs get, that’s still 3x-3.5x as much as for physical products.
This would indicate that digital distribution is far better than physical for developers making games, as they get a vastly bigger percentage of the money. Within the digital space, we can compare things a little bit, at least for video games.
Digital storefronts seem to roughly all come out at 30%, for which Valve provides more value than say Google or Apple, as they also give you forums, mod integrations, and various dev tool to use to simplify development of your game’s modding and multiplayer features.
We also know that consoles are pricier, as you have to pay certification costs for updates on top of the original distribution, and in a way this is true of the mobile stores, too.
Now, don’t get me wrong: 30% is a ton of money, and I cannot see where a rich company needs this much money. However, I would argue they’re one of the last companies to tackle in improving as far as them not taking excessive money goes, and everyone else (Google, Apple, MS, Sony, even Epic considering how they do fuck all for the 12% cut they take) should get impacted first, plus it’s still difficult to argue that digital cut is excessive to begin with comparing the vastly improved developer cut comparing the physical distribution space - as good as I can compare board games vs video games, granted. But I would estimate that the overhead costs of physical sales for video games aren’t that different, manufacture, shipping, it’s all comparable after all. Video games need less container space, but they also sell for less.
Twitch takes 50%, which was an increase of their 30% cut, and people have called them out on it
Apple take 30%, but recently reduced that to 15% for apps making under $1M/yearly
Google Play has the exact same system
GOG takes a 30% cut
Epic Games takes a 12% cut, but they are purposely operating at a loss and this comes with a lot of strings attached (exclusive contracts, passing transaction costs to users, etc.). This is not sustainable, and developer should expect an increase as soon as they take over more of Steam’s userbase. (If they take it over…)
Overall, calling a 30% cut “ridiculous” is patently false. It is the industry standard.
Digital marketplaces use a near monopoly to extort developers into accepting these inflated cuts. I simply will never accept an inflated rate caused by a monopoly as a good thing. Without that near monopoly there is no way they could maintain a 30% cut.
Without that near monopoly there is no way they could maintain a 30% cut.
I admit, it sounds high to me - like I said above. But I also got 0 clue, for all I know 80% of that are their costs. 🤷 Lack knowledge to judge that. At least in digital space 70% go to the makers, and usually 20-25% remain at the end, not 2%-8% like with physical goods.
I think the high profit margin on digital goods is almost entirely due to the more efficient distribution of the Internet vs a supply chain, not because steam enabled it. If anyone deserves that cut because of the lower cost of distribution it’s the people that created the Internet, and thank God they were publicly funded scientists and not corporations.
Also keep in mind that the infrastructure of the Internet charges a usage fee, not a percentage of profit. If I change $5 for a game on steam vs $60, is steam really doing more work to justify a percentage fee?
Was about to ask what’s with all the shilling here but just realized which community this is. Have fun shilling for a mega Corp. Go tell yourselves that 30% cut isn’t ridiculous.
Okay, so you say a 30% cut is ridiculous.
But let’s move that away from the mega Corp [sic] everyone here is supposedly shilling for. Let’s talk about cuts lost to distribution and delivery for a second.
I cannot answer this for a lot of industries, but for example for board games ~7%-9% go to the actual designer. That’s 91%-93% that is lost along the way. Even if we take Sweeney’s 25% example that the devs get, that’s still 3x-3.5x as much as for physical products.
This would indicate that digital distribution is far better than physical for developers making games, as they get a vastly bigger percentage of the money. Within the digital space, we can compare things a little bit, at least for video games.
Digital storefronts seem to roughly all come out at 30%, for which Valve provides more value than say Google or Apple, as they also give you forums, mod integrations, and various dev tool to use to simplify development of your game’s modding and multiplayer features.
We also know that consoles are pricier, as you have to pay certification costs for updates on top of the original distribution, and in a way this is true of the mobile stores, too.
Now, don’t get me wrong: 30% is a ton of money, and I cannot see where a rich company needs this much money. However, I would argue they’re one of the last companies to tackle in improving as far as them not taking excessive money goes, and everyone else (Google, Apple, MS, Sony, even Epic considering how they do fuck all for the 12% cut they take) should get impacted first, plus it’s still difficult to argue that digital cut is excessive to begin with comparing the vastly improved developer cut comparing the physical distribution space - as good as I can compare board games vs video games, granted. But I would estimate that the overhead costs of physical sales for video games aren’t that different, manufacture, shipping, it’s all comparable after all. Video games need less container space, but they also sell for less.
Overall, calling a 30% cut “ridiculous” is patently false. It is the industry standard.
Digital marketplaces use a near monopoly to extort developers into accepting these inflated cuts. I simply will never accept an inflated rate caused by a monopoly as a good thing. Without that near monopoly there is no way they could maintain a 30% cut.
I admit, it sounds high to me - like I said above. But I also got 0 clue, for all I know 80% of that are their costs. 🤷 Lack knowledge to judge that. At least in digital space 70% go to the makers, and usually 20-25% remain at the end, not 2%-8% like with physical goods.
I think the high profit margin on digital goods is almost entirely due to the more efficient distribution of the Internet vs a supply chain, not because steam enabled it. If anyone deserves that cut because of the lower cost of distribution it’s the people that created the Internet, and thank God they were publicly funded scientists and not corporations.
Also keep in mind that the infrastructure of the Internet charges a usage fee, not a percentage of profit. If I change $5 for a game on steam vs $60, is steam really doing more work to justify a percentage fee?