[skinnyarms]

Most stores keep their numbers private, but I'd wager that Steam has most (if not all of them) beat by a large margin.

Presumably these companies believe that the higher margins and control they get from running their own stores are worth the customers they lose by not being in Steam.

As the Steam Tax lightens however, the results of that equation could change.

[diminoten]

The major publishers aren't trying to "beat" Steam, they're just trying to release their games without paying the Steam Tax.

The point is, it's too late to do the math on the Steam Tax now, those R&D dollars are spent. Steam was too slow.

[chupasaurus]

> they're just trying to release their games without paying the Steam Tax.

By not paying the Steam Tax, publishers are paying Engineering Tax and risks for fails in their distribution platforms.

I have Vietnam flashbacks from Origin and Uplay. EA fixed their's in 2015, but latter is still a bughole and the reason I don't even look at Ubi's games. Latest Bethesda release is a clear example of that problem.

[nimish]

RDR2 sold ~800MM. 25% of that is 200MM, which is far more than it takes to set up a basic digital storefront. I doubt Valve bothers with a fraction of that for ongoing operations given how terrible the steam UX really is.

[user5994461]

Damn. That's not enough to cover Amazon network fees for transferring 100M copies of 100GB.

[chupasaurus]

And we don't know about the cut Sony and MS have from that.

[diminoten]

I don't think the vast majority of gamers give a shit about Uplay's terribleness.

[MattRix]

Fortnite alone has more concurrent players than every game on Steam combined at around 8 million. Steam has between 10-20 million concurrent people with the client open, but not actually nearly that many playing games.