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by tylerl 2754 days ago
There's a GDC talk about this (up on YouTube, can't remember the title) about the cost/difficulty going alone vs going through steam.

The tldr is that valve apparently knows exactly how much it costs you to run this apparatus yourself, and the rev share reflects that reality. The numbers are apparently really close.

The catch is that as you sell more units, the cost of the apparatus starts to diminish as a percentage of revenue, so running your own marketplace starrs to make sense when you get into the blockbuster territory.

This pricing update apparently takes that fact into account, which means that when companies start running the numbers on their new game launch, the justification for building their own marketplace starts to go away.
2 comments
eropple 2754 days ago
I'm pretty sure it's not the talk you're thinking of, but Jeff Vogel (who has been mostly-successfully making indie games consistently since 1995) mentions it in this GDC vault talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stxVBJem3Rs

They were able to stop paying a third employee when they went to Steam. That's a lot of value to the business.

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cheez 2754 days ago
> They were able to stop paying a third employee when they went to Steam. That's a lot of value to the business.

They were able to stop paying? Doesn't that mean they make less money?

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Retric 2754 days ago
Revenue is fairly useless it’s profit that you care about. Having less employees also means less effort managing them.
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cheez 2754 days ago
Ah I see.
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eropple 2753 days ago
They also made more money, even with Steam's cut.

People are expensive. (Hence the whole "oncoming economic doom" thing.)

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methodover 2754 days ago
For sure, a service like Steam offers tons of value for a game developer. And I’m sure you’re right that the price of Steam matches the cost of an individual developer developing a launcher and hosting service. That’s all true.

But I feel like the margins for Steam are so wide that it’s wide open for undercutting; for others to offer a cheaper, probably better product. I’d hope that game hosting quickly becomes commoditized due to lots of competitors vying for the cheapest possible price.

That’s good for developers, and really good for gamers.

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