Steam ups my sales 10x, takes 30% of that, leaving me with a net gain of a 7x increase in sales. So that's worth it. Of course, I'll happily take any better rate that offers me even better value. But it's ludicrous to pretend it isn't valuable, what you get for their 30% cut.
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Replying to @GarethFouche
The other way to look at this is that Steam doesn't increase your sales vs other sources but decreases theirs. This has very much been our experience (except it was more like 100x).
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Replying to @TomGrochowiak @GarethFouche
If you look at Steam now, it dwarfs other stores for sure. But I still remember times before Valve gained a true monopoly, when those stores were actually a very real source of income. Damn, even our direct sales were in the tens of thousands and then dropped to near 0.
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Replying to @TomGrochowiak
Sure, but that's because customers chose to go there. That doesn't change the fact that, now that Steam has all the customers, you're getting access to those customers for your 30%. You're not getting nothing as a dev just because valve support emails are slow.
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Replying to @GarethFouche
I thing the "customers chose to go there" thing is a bit more complex. Customers chose to go to Walmart over their local groceries for convenience, but also because Walmart uses its size and damping prices to push those out of business.
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Replying to @TomGrochowiak
Maybe. But I dunno that Steam has priced everyone else out of business using economies of scale, so I dunno if that's it. I didn't see that happening.
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Replying to @GarethFouche
It's slowly boiling the frog imho. First they opened Steam up for indies with a huge visibility boost. Then they let you handle out keys to your existing customers. Then they opened it up more and more until the guaranteed visibility stopped being part of the deal. (1/2)
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Replying to @TomGrochowiak @GarethFouche
Then they introduced the "Steam gotta have the best price" rule. Then they stopped handing out keys so easioly or at all. And so on... So the deal got worse and worse, but your own customers have already became their customers and you can't back out. It's a bit slimy.
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Replying to @TomGrochowiak @GarethFouche
also things changed for worse a lot in recent times. So if you just released a game before 2018... nope. That was a different Steam!
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Replying to @WinterwolvesG @TomGrochowiak
Yeah. Have to keep in mind there's been a bunch of changes that happened simultaneously, obviously. Rise of free game engines = 100x the competition.
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yes I don't know the reasons, algorithm, more people developing, whatever. But for sure, vs 2018 it's already a HUGE change!
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