The former Paradox Interactive CEO thinks "platform holders" 30% cut is "outrageous"

To the developers who complain about the 30% cut that Valve receives, I would ask, "What percentage do you deem fair?" How much do you think it costs to provide all of the services that Valve offers? Do you put any value in Valve's hardware endeavors?

Further, if the estimation of the cost of all of Steam's features is low, then I wonder why no one else has matched them with their own platform. In particular, Epic still pales in comparison. It's been a year now, or nearly so?

We all see what they're doing. I wouldn't be surprised if Paradox moves to Epic, after having become successful on the backs of Valve. And I will welcome the convenience of not accidentally purchasing anything from a developer who thinks me a fool, and thinks Steam of little value.

To the developers who complain about the 30% cut that Valve receives, I would ask, "What percentage do you deem fair?" How much do you think it costs to provide all of the services that Valve offers? Do you put any value in Valve's hardware endeavors?

They don't know either.
Nobody but Valve really knows.

Further, if the estimation of the cost of all of Steam's features is low, then I wonder why no one else has matched them with their own platform. In particular, Epic still pales in comparison. It's been a year now, or nearly so?

To play devil's advocate:
Because it's a defacto monopoly, which is hard to break.
A while ago, somobody linked a lengthy article depicting just how hard it would be to break it.

Although, they did tweak this for higher earning games in December last year so for games that earn $10 million it's reduced to 25% and 20% at $50 million.

That's per publisher/developer, not per game.

For real?!

Holy crap I've been quoting that wrong then, I thought that was per game?!

If that's per publisher, then practically all of the major publishers are already at 20%?! What on earth is Paradox even complaining about?

Wrong. It is per-game, not per developer.

From Valve's post on it:

Starting from October 1, 2018 (i.e. revenues prior to that date are not included), when a game makes over $10 million on Steam

*emphasis mine

That's what I thought as well, but I listened to a podcast (The Pod, one of Germany's biggest gaming podcasts) where they talked about Epic vs. Steam and they explained that. They talked to several developers who told them that this is wrong and that it's just per developer/publisher and not per game. Valve didn't communicate this properly.

I tried to confirm this by asking on the Steam reddit and people like Jim Sterling and Tyler McVicker, but I didn't get a single response.

If you could ask more developers with your connections, that might help.

Although, they did tweak this for higher earning games in December last year so for games that earn $10 million it's reduced to 25% and 20% at $50 million.

That's per publisher/developer, not per game.

For real?!

Holy crap I've been quoting that wrong then, I thought that was per game?!

If that's per publisher, then practically all of the major publishers are already at 20%?! What on earth is Paradox even complaining about?

Wrong. It is per-game, not per developer.

From Valve's post on it:

Starting from October 1, 2018 (i.e. revenues prior to that date are not included), when a game makes over $10 million on Steam

*emphasis mine

Ahh thankyou, I was questioning myself there, whew.

I'd wait for confirmation either way.

Open steam > Click: Publisher link > Click: Option (Gear Icon) > Click: Ignore this creator

Because, you know my peasant money ain't worth it.

p/s: GoL users, I will not arguing "the cuts" with all of you guys because already disproven by almost everyone inside and outside of community.

Open steam > Click: Publisher link > Click: Option (Gear Icon) > Click: Ignore this creator
Because, you know my peasant money ain't worth it.

I wouldn't go this far personally but indeed if they wanted more cash from me (was about to buy some few stellaris DLCs and some Battletech goodness) well they're gonna have to wait for that ...

Like I said I'm a fan of what they are doing and always was annoyed by people complaining about the "paradox prices" (and I still am annoyed sorry not sorry but it's always worth every penny and then some ) buuuuuuut this here is utter horsehit on their part and they should know fucking better already .

Edited for clarity. - Nami

Open steam > Click: Publisher link > Click: Option (Gear Icon) > Click: Ignore this creator

Don't act so quickly. This is Paradox Interactive's former CEO, not their current one.

Don't blame former employees for being dicks. If this guy heads up a new company and reiterates what he said in the past, then yeah, ignore that developer/publisher.


Last edited by namiko on 2 Jul 2019 at 5:56 pm UTC

What are your thoughts?

That Wester is either an idiot or a hypocrite. I'd go for the latter.

I would more say that he is speaking from the viewpoint of his own company, it's of course in Paradox best interest to keep their own prices as high as possible while having to pay as little as possible to others like Valve. That is hardly being a hypocrite.

It's the very definition of being a hypocrite. He's basically saying "do as I say, not as I do".

Not really, their per DLC price is not correlated to how much Paradox feels that a distribution channel is worth when it comes to a cut of the sales.

If not then anyone here is probably a hypocrite as well. Who here does not want to be paid more in salary while wanting to pay less for things like media, games, food and rent?


Last edited by F.Ultra on 2 Jul 2019 at 6:23 pm UTC

What is a CEO?
They are these greedy guys which job is to cut cost at spending to secure more revenue, to do this, shareholders are offering big cuts from the revenue or some big boost to their salary. Then CEOs becomes those bad guys who order products to be lower quality, take jobs to China or Mexico in order to pay less and fire people making dozens to thousands to lose their jobs. Im glad this 4ssh0l3 is not paradox CEO anymore.
What a CEO want from PC gaming? Going back to those days where local currencies, workshop, local servers and reviews were a mere dream, they hate Valve just gave too much control to the user, they want a barebone store where they have full control of what people is saying of their product. Im not surprised of devs thinking this way, devs hates their own customers, they just see us as open wallets, as some of your claimed Paradox is really known for having overpriced DLCs on their games, they just dont give a damn about you.

Now this idiot claims it cost nothing, still EPIC takes 12% for doing "nothing". Just EGS propaganda based on unchecked facts.

Some first world people around here should burst the first world bubble you live on, Im pretty sure you feel so important you live on Europe, Canada or USA but Steam is a good store for anyone else who live outside of those big walls you put around your country borders, offering currencies and local servers, yeah Steam have a central america servers to offer me steady download and cool online gaming. IM pretty sure most of you doesnt even know where my country is. Enjoy EGS, an elitist store for first world kids.


Last edited by orochi_kyo on 2 Jul 2019 at 6:44 pm UTC

Edited for clarity. - Nami

Open steam > Click: Publisher link > Click: Option (Gear Icon) > Click: Ignore this creator

Don't act so quickly. This is Paradox Interactive's former CEO, not their current one.

Don't blame former employees for being dicks. If this guy heads up a new company and reiterates what he said in the past, then yeah, ignore that developer/publisher.

According to the article: former CEO and now the Executive Chairman of the Board. Not sure which one has more power between the two, but it sounds like a fairly horizontal change of position to me, if not a higher rank.

Some first world people around here should burst the first world bubble you live on, Im pretty sure you feel so important you live on Europe, Canada or USA but Steam is a good store for anyone else who live outside of those big walls you put around your country borders, offering currencies and local servers, yeah Steam have a central america servers to offer me steady download and cool online gaming. IM pretty sure most of you doesnt even know where my country is. Enjoy EGS, an elitist store for first world kids.

I'm speechless. It's like you intended to post this to a completely different community. Take it easy, mate.

I think that Publishers and developers are most of the time greedy bastards that steamroll soul-less games only for money. Even at paradox whose games i usually like a lot, they have the absolute worst dlc politic. The point here is that even reviewers and gaming sites giving a say to publishers in the matters is a mistake, for a very simple reason. Steam is not a service to publishers, it is a mean, while Steam is not a mean to gamers, it is a service. Since Valve is a service to gamers, and since gamers are free to choose where to buy games, it's all fine.

What's wrong with epic is not that they provide competition, but it is that as someone with the knowledge has pointed out, there is all evidence they are dealing with a cut that puts them in red, only for to damage steam. And THAT is unfair. dealing a % that is not sustainable to directly damage a competitor that delivers a set of services to players, it's like directly undermining those services. They are not the industry saviours, they are the exact opposite.

To the developers who complain about the 30% cut that Valve receives, I would ask, "What percentage do you deem fair?" How much do you think it costs to provide all of the services that Valve offers? Do you put any value in Valve's hardware endeavors?

They don't know either.
Nobody but Valve really knows.

My questions, "...deem fair...," "...do you think...," "...put any value..." are not questions of knowledge, but of opinion. As developers, they "know" that these services do not come for free. If 30% is considered "outrageous," and 0% is obviously untenable, then what, in their opinion, is the middle ground? I don't think they want to pin down a specific number, because then we can compare with what Valve really provides, and also factor in the 0% for keys sold outside of Steam and other things to come up with a value not that much smaller than 30%, and certainly no where near 12%.

Further, if the estimation of the cost of all of Steam's features is low, then I wonder why no one else has matched them with their own platform. In particular, Epic still pales in comparison. It's been a year now, or nearly so?

To play devil's advocate:

Why do people do that? Business can take care of themselves.

Because it's a defacto monopoly, which is hard to break.
A while ago, somobody linked a lengthy article depicting just how hard it would be to break it.

Steam is not a "de-facto monopoly." There are plenty of ways to obtain video games. It certainly is the primary way to obtain computer games. But this doesn't answer my question. Steam being the primary means of obtaining computer games does not preclude anyone from creating a competing digital computer game purchasing store front themselves. I call out Epic specifically because they have the capital to do it, but have so far chosen not to.

My premise is that Epic and these developers are trying to undercut Steam. Instead of providing an attractive platform that would woo gamers to use it (and cost close to 30% to operate), they rather have a simple platform with low overhead, and operate with a lower revenue split to try to get Valve to budge on its price. Move the developers and the gamers will begrudgingly follow, instead of enticing the gamers and the developers will willingly follow.

Just to provide a perspective on that number:
Unless recently changed, 30% is also what Google and Apple takes on transactions at their marketplaces. Apple takes an annual developer fee of $99 in addition, and they both have a one time fee of $25 per app.

Steam is very much the Google Play / Apple Store of PC gaming.

steam has one time fee too. $100 to put your game on the store. But you can recoup that as you sell copies.

Gamer's perspective: Steam is great. I love reviews and ratings, curator system, forums, achievements, saves, easy to use client, linux support. That said, I dislike few things too, eg increasing trend of "good" manipulation of reviews and ratings, inconsistent censoring of games not based on any rules. Few cases of customers loosing their account, worth thousands of dollars, because disobeying rules on forums? Why not warning and then ban on a game's forum? I would consider these cases a theft, since I don't believe these customers were refunded. In this regard, I like the GoG's approach, but I fear games linked to account (unplayable after being banned or service dies) won't vanish.

Dev's perspective: The cut is too big. Why I should be paying (high cut) for services my game doesn't use or I don't want to use? Why indie games should be paying more, in relative numbers, than big publishers?

Networking infrastructure for multiplayer games is not free when you pay it in a cut. I am pretty sure I read from several developers that workshop is not covered in the cut and dev/publisher is paying monthly. And when speaking about starting (or hobbyist) indie studios, I am quite sure that all services for a single player game could be covered by the initial fee - 100$. How much can cost providing download of few hundred MB for a thousand players in a span of weeks? Sure, you get some promotion, but unless you are a pro or really lucky with algorithm, I don't think it's worth the high cut either. The less a game is sold/played, the less promotion it gets. So if it doesn't attract customers right from the start (days), you are getting no promotions = no help from Steam, and you will have to promote it only on your own.

The problem here is that this is a question about facts, and we don't as far as I know have most of them. I don't know how much Steam's infrastructure and features cost. It's clearly false for Wester to say "This doesn't cost anything." I'm even sure it costs pretty big bucks. But there's a lot of room between "not anything" and "30% of all games sold". I don't think most of us have a clue if what they do really justifies the revenue or not.

What are your thoughts?

That Wester is either an idiot or a hypocrite. I'd go for the latter.

I would more say that he is speaking from the viewpoint of his own company, it's of course in Paradox best interest to keep their own prices as high as possible while having to pay as little as possible to others like Valve. That is hardly being a hypocrite.

Just because being a hypocrite is solidly in your best interests does not make it stop being hypocrisy.

Why indie games should be paying more, in relative numbers, than big publishers?

If you talk about the fee on publishing the game, I dare say that $100 shouldn't be much for anyone. If you're semi-serious about putting your game out there on a an as massive market as Steam, I'd say it's pretty much nothing.

I think that particular part is a good idea, to keep the absolute worst out of the store.

Why indie games should be paying more, in relative numbers, than big publishers?

If you talk about the fee on publishing the game, I dare say that $100 shouldn't be much for anyone. If you're semi-serious about putting your game out there on a an as massive market as Steam, I'd say it's pretty much nothing.

I think that particular part is a good idea, to keep the absolute worst out of the store.

Probably monnef meant the recent policy shift where games (or maybe developers) that sell a little pay 30% while games that sell quite a bit pay 25% and games that sell big league numbers pay 20%.

Why indie games should be paying more, in relative numbers, than big publishers?

If you talk about the fee on publishing the game, I dare say that $100 shouldn't be much for anyone. If you're semi-serious about putting your game out there on a an as massive market as Steam, I'd say it's pretty much nothing.

I think that particular part is a good idea, to keep the absolute worst out of the store.

Probably monnef meant the recent policy shift where games (or maybe developers) that sell a little pay 30% while games that sell quite a bit pay 25% and games that sell big league numbers pay 20%.

Yes, that was what I meant. 30% cut if you are a small indie, but only 20% if you are a big publisher. Why? If there is any imbalance, shouldn't it be reversed - helping small indies to survive, not AAA games with predatory mtx?

Speaking about the entry fee, to be frank, I spent way much more adapting my free game with donations to meet Steams requirements. I work in IT, in not-poor not-rich EU country, getting I am guessing lower end of median wages for my job/place/experience. If I would use my rate from my real job, then adapting the game for Steam cost me over SIX TIMES more than the entry fee is, over $600. :S:

Moral of the story - if you are publishing your game with donation model and not really expecting any profit, don't bother with Steam, you are just throwing money and time away. Compared to e.g. itch.io, Steam's configuration is a horror, it seems to me like an overengineered mess filled with arbitrary delays and waiting periods for approval. It's probably ok if you are doing games for the money (it gives a lot of choice), but if you simply want to put your game for a download and make few tiers of donations (for which Steam configuration is not built for, even though they allow it), then it's a massive waste of your time and money.

Why indie games should be paying more, in relative numbers, than big publishers?

If you talk about the fee on publishing the game, I dare say that $100 shouldn't be much for anyone. If you're semi-serious about putting your game out there on a an as massive market as Steam, I'd say it's pretty much nothing.

I think that particular part is a good idea, to keep the absolute worst out of the store.

Probably monnef meant the recent policy shift where games (or maybe developers) that sell a little pay 30% while games that sell quite a bit pay 25% and games that sell big league numbers pay 20%.

Yes, that was what I meant. 30% cut if you are a small indie, but only 20% if you are a big publisher. Why? If there is any imbalance, shouldn't it be reversed - helping small indies to survive, not AAA games with predatory mtx?

It depends on the revenue made, not on the size of the studio. Small indies with a hit can reach those goals, too.