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A comment on Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B. Parent comment

Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by ineedasername on Monday September 21, 2020 @11:46AM (#24544735)
Apple probably doesn't have much revenue from the OS X desktop store, but if we're talking about total gaming revenue, Steam is around $5 billion/year and Apple is around $20 billion/year. Although I'm pretty sure Apple's # represents gross sales, not their 30% cut. I don't know if Steam's # is the revenue they receive after their cut, or if it's gross sales. If their # is the cut they take, they'd be far ahead of the App Store in terms of gross profit.
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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by tubularhells on Monday September 21, 2020 @12:47PM (#24545569)
From a gamedev friend, there is no money on macOS. iOS and apple arcade is a viable option, but on Steam, the macOS sales are not worth the headache support and development gives you. Lots of quirks to work around with macOS, and more to come with the ARM transition as apple will surely blame developers for performance problems with x86 titles. Not to mention that the yearly developer fees that you have to pay to keep a game's long tail on the store. It eats into profits for Indies.
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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by mcphage on Monday September 21, 2020 @04:39PM (#24548195)
> but on Steam, the macOS sales are not worth the headache support and development gives you. [...] Not to mention that the yearly developer fees that you have to pay to keep a game's long tail on the store.

What yearly developer fees do you need to pay to keep a macOS game on Steam? Is it to Valve?

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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by tubularhells on Monday September 21, 2020 @05:36PM (#24548748)
Nothing yearly for Steam, it's a one-off fee, I think about 100 USD these days (it changed over the years). For the macOS store it is a 100 USD a year or so, and of course they take their cut from your sales. I prefer Valve's way of doing business.
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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by mcphage on Monday September 21, 2020 @06:17PM (#24549051)
Oh, okay. You started talking about whether it’s worth releasing a Mac game on steam, and then brought up a yearly fee, so I was having trouble following where you transitioned.
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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by Macha on Monday September 21, 2020 @01:13PM (#24545915)
The mobile gaming market and PC/console gaming are basically two distinct markets with very little overlap though.
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