Why? Physical distribution is way more expensive and they handle the entire consumer lifecycle.
Valve has a perpetual obligation. I might buy the game and then never even download it. Or I might download the game. delete it. download the game again next week. delete it ... etc... And take 1000 screenshots that I want them to host, and upload mods for a game that they have to host and people may download. And this may happen forever (or at least until Valve ceases to be a company).
Fable III isn't even available in the Steam store anymore... but they have a repo hosting the game files. And they still take updates (the package was last updated in july 2023, even though its been off the store for years). According to SteamDB there are 14 people playing it right now. Steam has been supporting a game that they haven't even sold in the past 8 years.
I'm willing to bet that if I ask gamestop for anything regarding support for a game from 8 years ago they'd just laugh at me.
tl;dr - physical distribution has cut and dry limited obligations, but steam has to deal with stuff forever.
Imagine if you had to go to Gamestop every time you launched a game. They would kill for that opportunity. Steam has a captive audience who goes to their store every day.
you're still treating this as a software service. Remember that for a physical store:
1. you need to maintain the store. you can't have dirt bugs and grime everywhere 2. you need insurance to deal with various inevitable factors. theft, crime within store grounds, destruction of property, etc. 3. buildings break down faster than servers. you need to upkeep that. 4. security. Need to monitor the store in and outside of business hours. 5. yes, support. They manage memberships, pre-orders, process returns in or out of warranty/return period, check inventory for if older used games are around, and can route you to other locations for such product.
Its only cut and dry if you never think what is needed to maintain the norm for you.
Some of their discussion forums are incredibly toxic though, seeming to have no effective moderation.
Baldurs Gate 3 and Starfield spring to mind as clear examples, though it wouldn't surprise me if there are even worse ones around.
It was a mistake.
The Steam discussion/forums for it are here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/
I've not looked at them for ages as they were very toxic for a few weeks after launch, and I personally have no real desire to go looking again now. Maybe they've magically improved somehow, but I doubt it.
What do you mean, the game is objectively solid and is very much a continuation of the Boulders Gate series. It has flaws, but personally I think it's the best crpg i've played in years (and without nostalgia filters).
To be clear, I'm not criticizing, I just am not surprised that a certain segment of the BG1/BG2 fanbase is unhappy.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/0/3944650...
Steam takes 30% to make everyone slightly dumber
Particularly for a game with strong sexual representationa and inclusion, it is legitimate to discuss aspects where the inclusion is still lacking. This may be useful for the Devs future plans, or it may change nothing but be useful for other prospective players to understand about the game.
You might not find the thread useful or engaging. I don't find the threads about compatibility with hardware I don't own useful or engaging. Not every thread is for every person.
But point being, Steam is a whole platform. When THPS 1+2's "Upload a custom skate park" broke, I just hit shift+tab and clicked discussions, and bam. theres discussions about it being broken for other people. and I didn't even have to launch the game, I could just go to discussions from the game on steam to see when it was fixed. I didn't have to go googling for everything.
And the beauty of it, is that valve hasn't made all of it a walled garden. It's a nice garden, but they do a pretty good job of not keeping it completely locked down (which is the main reason why proton has been so successful).
So no, Steam won't moderate your forums for you, but they will host the forums and you don't have to have your own/none. But then again, that might be more of a benefit to the customers than to the devs who may not care.
Whether it should may be a different issue.
That, and Steam hasn't really burned many folks, ever. They even pioneered returns after you played the game...
As a user, I've never once been mad at Steam.
They were forced to do so by the Australian government, so it was hardly "pioneering".
But yeah, difference is Valve knows to be good to consumers (mostly) but make dev support a nightmare if you're not big enough.
> Valve must pay a fine of AU$3 million (about £1.6m/US$2.3m/€1.8m) for misleading Steam users in Australia by stating they were not entitled to refunds for faulty games on Steam
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/australia-fines-valve-over-...
okay, here's the EU part: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/new-valve-refund-poli...
not brought to court but that right-to-return law put another fire under their butt for sure.
I think like many new things it got off to a rocky start in 2003 and 2004 (especially with the launch of Half-Life 2). I only started using Steam on 2007 I think and I've never had an issue.
"Steam" is not just a game store. It's like if walmart built an entire industry around maintaining, supporting, and extending anything you sold through them. 30% is a lot, but Valve is the only company out of basically the entire retail industry actually providing value to sellers and buyers alike, rather than just a storefront.
The CS:GO child gambling problem is HUGE though, and unconscionable. I don't know how Gabe feels about that, but I don't care. It should be exceptionally illegal to give a child access to a "gambling like" game that ever touches real money.
That 30% cut still seems egregious. Those features are all nice but none of them can be used to make a game.
Unity is even cheaper, at 2.5%.
Is 30% fair? I don't really have an opinion, but putting your game on steam isn't required for game development.
30% does seem a bit too high, though. I’ll grant you that.
30% is the standard retail cut if I’m right. So if you sell your game at Walmart, they take 30% too.
The difference is people actually like using Steam. They actually want to be locked in. I'd rather by a game on Steam vs Gog. Consider that. DRM free, but people prefer the lock-in. That's because Valve is nailing it.
Imagine people saying the same about Microsoft, Epic, EA etc.. Nope.
But also yes. Steam has made the gaming on linux process so much easier. Using steam is the easiest way to game now and I definitely prefer all my games to be there.
>The difference is people actually like using Steam. They actually want to be locked in.
yup, and that's where the danger starts. People like being locked into Apple as well. the consoles all conditioned people to being locked in. I understand it, but don't think it's a good thing.
Microsoft does technically have a lock in with PC, but they have enough historical lawsuits on those issues that they are lax on what is hosted on Windows. The reckoning for Apple/Google is definately coming, though.
Console manufacturers charge a separate per unit royalty for every game published for their consoles, typical in the range of 10-20%.
That’s how they make most of their money before online stores - the console is sold at near break even typically but they do earn on extra accessories.
The store charges are separate and independent.
I don't. I just use Windows and Linux occasionally and that reminds me why I prefer Mac OS.
It's easy to get lock in effects when the alternatives are crap wrt usability. Even if you can get larger numbers for less money on the spec sheet.
I don't like being locked into Apple, but I can't argue with the extraordinary convenience of doing it their way. New iPhone or iPad? Just set it next to your old one and it will pull everything over. New Mac? You can clone from a backup of a different Mac. I started with an iPad, got a Mac a few years later, and finally got an iPhone after Google released the amazing (loved the fingerprint reader on the back for unlocking) but disastrous (the battery would decide to go to hell one day, no warning, and you were losing 30+% of power per hour) Nexus 6P.
What they clamped down on was developers who built $0.01 game for trading cards farming. Now Valve just have some fair usage rules so developer of game that sold 10 copies on Steam can't request 1,000,000 keys for it.
Disclosure: I am indie game studio co-fouder so Steam keys is something we deal with.
But yes they have clamped down on the fake games for trading card farming too.
AFAIK it's perfectly fine to temporary run something like lowest-ever price outside of Steam on a condition that within some timeframe (not sure about timing) there will be similar sale on Steam.
Also, both Xbox and PlayStation have more-or-less all those things you mentioned but you get subsidised hardware in the deal too.
Also nice to be able to buy some new games and run them on an old laptop, can't do that on my xbox 360 anymore. My library all runs on my latest computer too. At least xbox makes a fair amount of the catalog backwards compatible.
edit: plus I can give friends access to my entire library, providing I'm not using it at the time.
Or is that only PS?
Free-to-play games can be played online without a subscription, but paid games require a subscription - I imagine as a holdover from pre-Fortnite days and cross-platform play.
I'm a subscriber for the game catalogue and only really play online multiplayers that are F2P anyway, but yeah it doesn't seem at all justifiable. It's a strange decision too - I can't imagine the subset of people who are NOT subscribers for the monthly games and/or catalogue AND are playing games online that are NOT f2p is big enough to be a significant impact to their bottom line. If anything it would be a deterrent from choosing the platform.
If developers don’t like it, they can chose other options to distribute their game.
When I care about supporting a developer or publisher and they offer their product on their own storefront DRM-free, I will often go there to buy. Or I buy from GoG which takes a smaller cut. Playnite lets me launch my Steam and non-Steam games in a seamless fashion. Steam still does a great job as a game installer/patch manager, and helps me discover new games. But I'm not locked into paying them a 30% fee, which is pretty brutal for some smaller publishers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/playnite/comments/15q2x16/i_install...
I have only used it on my Windows install, so I can't recommend this.
Let me know when I can do install fdroid on iOS.
They back off when they find out my line of work, but you hear about bullying and peer pressure in school over bubbles. That does not end when you leave high school.
One VC said that people that buy Android don't have taste and wouldn't work with them. Now they say Android is for poor people. Freedom to sideload or install a custom os be damned.
It's not a high school thing, it's just amplified during that point in life; there is always pressure to conform.
I don't care about whether or not some VC thinks I have class either professionally or personally. Avoid people that jump to conclusions and you'll be better off, regardless of how fancy their personal titles are.
I'm one of them. We are not all the same!
But yeah, ideally one shouldn’t tie self worth to perishables.
I find dealing with Android users from iMessage tiring but everyone I know who uses Android also uses WhatsApp and that works just fine cross platform.
They even did deep, dirty tricks like this: https://uxdesign.cc/how-apple-makes-you-think-green-bubbles-.... Not only that but Apple just love to lean heavily on their own custom functionality rather than coming up with open/reusable technologies. Apple are happy to use Wifi & Bluetooth standards to compete in the market, but not so much standards for chats/group chats (where Android users find things don't mesh as well/they don't have the same functionality as iOS users).
I can't for the life of me find it now, but I remember reading an article a while back on how Google found a way to trick iPhones into accepting Android messages as "blue bubble"/iOS messages by dumping some string onto the end or something. I'm sure it was a HN post but I can't find it, which sucks cause it was pretty funny reading.
...?
It's Steam or bust for the vast majority.
If the market is not being artificially suppressed (I don't believe it is), and developer still think it's financially advantageous to pay Steam's fees, doesn't that indicate the fee is "correct"?
yeah, that's my issue. but it's all or nothing because the only thing that really matters is presence. So you just suck it up or use another store (or distribute independently).
>Gamers prefer Steam over EGS, and the reason they prefer it isn't just because "it's a nicer store front." It's a whole platform thing.
It's really just network effects at the end of the day. We've seen enough instances in other places in tech where the de facto is shit and even actively ruining its product, but people stay.
Sad thing isn't how big it is, it's how hard it is to fail.
I'd love to see a "what has Steam ever done for us?" sketch produced :)
https://www.pcgamer.com/lawsuit-claims-valve-is-abusing-its-... https://www.masonllp.com/case/valve-mass-arbitration/
The 30% developer fee makes a lot more sense if you consider that steam is much more than a game store. They host forums, guides, achievements, cloud saves, multiple versions of the game at once with beta channel access, screenshots, remote play, extras like Proton support, a friends list that will show you when other people are playing a game (advertising). And the store page has all sorts of stuff like ratings, reviews... a shopping cart and ability to purchase more than 1 game at a time (didn't know that was a feature, but apparently it is). And top of all that, it's just frankly where PC gamers are, so theres a ton of built in marketing.
Not every game benefits from all these things. But it's hardly just a storefront. I would question Gamestop taking a 30% cut. I would question if EGS wanted the same 30% cut as valve gets. Gamers prefer Steam over EGS, and the reason they prefer it isn't just because "it's a nicer store front." It's a whole platform thing.