I’m with you on all of this. I’m familiar with this (am a game dev) and you’re 100% right that the biggest cost is game distribution. One thing though: it costs ~$100 to list a game on Steam, which is returned to you after it’s made a thousand or two.
Honestly there’s nothing much valve can do to appease people, but I believe the most likely thing they can do is release data on how much distribution costs and give companies the ability to disable the “extra stuff” to save even a few percent of their revenue.
It got added when they moved from Greenlight to the current system IIRC.
Double checked and it’s called the “Steam Direct fee”, is $100 (+ potential taxes) and you get it back when the game makes $1,000 “Adjusted Gross Revenue”.
Removed by mod
I’m with you on all of this. I’m familiar with this (am a game dev) and you’re 100% right that the biggest cost is game distribution. One thing though: it costs ~$100 to list a game on Steam, which is returned to you after it’s made a thousand or two.
Honestly there’s nothing much valve can do to appease people, but I believe the most likely thing they can do is release data on how much distribution costs and give companies the ability to disable the “extra stuff” to save even a few percent of their revenue.
Removed by mod
It got added when they moved from Greenlight to the current system IIRC.
Double checked and it’s called the “Steam Direct fee”, is $100 (+ potential taxes) and you get it back when the game makes $1,000 “Adjusted Gross Revenue”.
Removed by mod