Aiming their sights at bigger developers, Valve have adjusted how much of a cut they will take for bigger titles.
Once a game makes $10 million on Steam, the new revenue split will be 75% for developers and 25% for Valve. If developers manage to hit $50 million, they will get to keep an even bigger share at 80% for them and 20% for Valve. When talking about revenue, this encompasses everything like DLC, in-game transactions and so on.
It's a smart move, one I expected Valve to do at some point given how bigger studios and publishers have been leaving Steam for their own launchers. On top of that, I was sent a screenshot of Epic Game's new beta of their launcher and it looks a lot more like a store itself now too. Considering Epic's launcher is the only place on Windows to get Fortnite, they could have a pretty huge pull and I'm sure that and more has worried Valve to make a move like this.
This doesn't directly help smaller developers though, since their share will remain the same which is apparently 70% for the developer and 30% for Steam. The argument there though, is the network effect of keeping larger titles on Steam and attracting more might help smaller developers find more users too.
The other change is a good one for developers. Before, developers were quite scared to share detailed sales data from how their games sold on Steam. Valve seem to understand that developers want to share this information, so they're now allowing it. The important bit from that:
We've heard you, and we're updating the confidentiality provisions to make it clear that the partner can share sales data about their game as they see fit.
That's really nice to see, I always felt like any attempt to hide sales data would be Valve covering up issues developers might be facing on Steam. Pleased to see that be opened up too. So now, if any developer wants to share how their games sold on Linux, reaching out to us shouldn't be an issue at all.
You can see the full post on Steam here.
You could argue for other stores like itch.io, which allow you to set the share you wish to give back which is rather nice. However, itch has a dramatically smaller user base and so sales are likely to be lower anyway. The same story for likely any other store that takes a lower cut.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: kuhpunktDid Blizzard need to show people Titan to tell them that they were working on something? Was showing Duke Nukem Forever back in 1997 a good idea? No. It's ridiculous.When Bethesda announced Fallout Shelter for smartphones, they also revealed Fallout 4 which was almost finished. When they demonstrated crappy Fallout 76, they at least showed a teaser trailer for TES 6. And people were quite happy. Recently Blizzard announced Diablo Immortal, and what happened next? If you make a cash grab, at least show something good.
What an excitement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0qZTS38cjw
Quoting: kuhpunktQuoting: kuhpunktIt's a fact that they have been working on games all the time. Things like that space game might have fallen apart, sure. Others like HL3 might have slowed down/been restarted due to a lack of interest or whatever... but saying that they haven't been working on anything for the past couple of years is just plain wrong.
Yeah, so? There are facts. Things have been leaked. That's no baseless claim. I don't claim to know anything besides that. I don't know what games they will release next (besides In The Valley Of Gods) and when Half-Life 3 will be a thing and what VR games they are exactly working on.
Well, you believing in leaks more than in what Gabe Newell says about his company and presenting your conclusions as facts might be part of the communication problem. As expected, this is not going anywhere. I'm out.
Last edited by Eike on 2 December 2018 at 1:53 pm UTC
Quoting: EikeQuoting: kuhpunktQuoting: kuhpunktIt's a fact that they have been working on games all the time. Things like that space game might have fallen apart, sure. Others like HL3 might have slowed down/been restarted due to a lack of interest or whatever... but saying that they haven't been working on anything for the past couple of years is just plain wrong.
Yeah, so? There are facts. Things have been leaked. That's no baseless claim. I don't claim to know anything besides that. I don't know what games they will release next (besides In The Valley Of Gods) and when Half-Life 3 will be a thing and what VR games they are exactly working on.
Well, you believing in leaks more than in what Gabe Newell says about his company and presenting your conclusions as facts might be part of the communication problem.
Facts have nothing to do with believing. That's why they are facts :/
Quoting: ShmerlValve should have put Linux version release as a requirement for such discounts. It would incentivize big developers (who have money) to make Linux versions. Win win for everyone.If they had the leverage to do that they wouldn't be dropping the price in the first place.
Quoting: kuhpunktOh, come on. A giant "game studio" that puts out a game every five years is clearly not emphasizing the "game studio" thing. I personally don't understand why people want Valve to be a game studio again when clearly their main business is being a game store++, but it's just ignoring reality to pretend their main business is still making games. It obviously isn't.Quoting: DuncI said “effectively”, and admit that wasn't a good way of putting it. But IceFrog was hired for Dota 2. What I meant was that it didn't originate at Valve, from a Valve creative team. Of course their own people did most of the work on it.
What is it always with discrediting Valve's work? Is TF2 not a Valve game, because Valve once hired Robin Walker? Is Portal not a Valve game, because some students came up with the portal concept and Valve then hired them? Is Left 4 Dead not a Valve game, because Turtle Rock Studios originally came up with the game?
How do you even define a Valve game? The guys (or most of them?) who founded Blizzard aren't with the company anymore. Is Overwatch thus not a Blizzard game?
Quoting: DuncBut even that was five years ago. Clearly their eyes have been off the ball. They've let a lot of developers, especially on the creative side, go over recent years. It's one of the reasons many fans have lost hope of ever seeing HL3 or Portal 3.
How are their eyes "clearly" off the ball when you literally have no idea what's going on behind the scenes? Yes, some people left, but also a lot of other people joined them. And some of the people that left actually returned to Valve.
And all the better for both us and them. For us, because one game studio vaguely interested in Linux wouldn't be much use to us compared to this huge platform thing being interested in Linux. For them, because which would you rather have--100% of the revenue (and expenses) for 3 or 4 games, or 30% of the revenue for gajillions of games?
Frankly, I think they're still making games at all mainly because someone at Valve is of the opinion that it's useful for the main business to still have some hands-on experience with what it's like, so they can keep their finger on the pulse of the developer world and not get out of touch.
Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: ShmerlValve should have put Linux version release as a requirement for such discounts. It would incentivize big developers (who have money) to make Linux versions. Win win for everyone.If they had the leverage to do that they wouldn't be dropping the price in the first place.
They can give it as an extra bonus. I.e. decrease even more for those who make Linux releases. Not sure how much it will cut into their profit, but it's some incentive still.
Quoting: Purple Library Guybut it's just ignoring reality to pretend their main business is still making games. It obviously isn't.
And all the better for both us and them. For us, because one game studio vaguely interested in Linux wouldn't be much use to us compared to this huge platform thing being interested in Linux. For them, because which would you rather have--100% of the revenue (and expenses) for 3 or 4 games, or 30% of the revenue for gajillions of games?
Frankly, I think they're still making games at all mainly because someone at Valve is of the opinion that it's useful for the main business to still have some hands-on experience with what it's like, so they can keep their finger on the pulse of the developer world and not get out of touch.
Did I say anywhere that game development is their main business? No. I just said that there are still many game devs at Valve and they've gotta do SOMETHING... otherwise they wouldn't be there. But people here claim over and over again that Valve as a game dev is dead and will never make a REAL game again...
Quoting: kuhpunktDid I say anywhere that game development is their main business? B
[...] But people here claim over and over again that Valve as a game dev is dead and will never make a REAL game again...
Citations needed
Quoting: EikeCitations needed
Quoting: DuncThat's why abandoning game development to concentrate on Steam was a mistake.
Quoting: DuncClearly their eyes have been off the ball. They've let a lot of developers, especially on the creative side, go over recent years. It's one of the reasons many fans have lost hope of ever seeing HL3 or Portal 3.
Quoting: ageresThey made no games since 2011 (I mean REAL games). If they wanted to make one, they would have released it already.
Quoting: ageresHL2 and CS: Source aren't nothing. CSGO, Dota 2 and Artifact are.
Quoting: ageresDo you have better guesses what Valve spent their billions on? I don't. Definitely not on game development.
Quoting: ageresValve don't care about what gamers want anymore, just $$$. I appreciate what Gaben is doing for Linux, but let's get real: Valve is dead as a game development company.
And it's not just here. It's everywhere.
Last edited by kuhpunkt on 3 December 2018 at 8:49 am UTC
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