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 Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 17:28 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | As a generalisation, retail would pay these guys a maximum of 40 per cent of what they made. So on a £29.99 game the publisher would receive about £12 (and on a sub-licensed deal, we would then only get about £4.25 of that) – minus return, write down and consignment costs.
When would we get that money? Well, payment would be by the end of the quarter.
So, let’s say £10 per unit sale goes to the publisher, £3 to the developer/sub-licensor, and it’s in your bank five months after the customer has paid out £30.
Compare that to the digital model. On a £29.99 sale, the digital partner will pay the publisher – or in many cases direct to the developer – between 60 and 70 per cent, by the end of the month following the sale.
Wow. To recap: on a sale over the counter today, we can have our £3 by the end of March, or on a digital sale, we can have £20 by Christmas.
Remind me why we should choose to go with retail and decline to let Steam sell the game? |
When people are saying that Steam saved PC gaming it's not (much of) an exaggeration.
With the much lower sales compared to games on consoles, most developers would stop developing for PC and small indie developers wouldn't even be able to publish their games anyway.
TWIN PEAKS is "something of a miracle."
"...like nothing else on television."
"a phenomenon."
"A tangled tale of sex, violence, power, junk food..."
"Like Nothing On Earth"
~ WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO SAY CAN ONLY BE SEEN ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHTUOgYNRzY
Last edited by consolitis on Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 17:31; edited 1 time in total |
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 17:30 Post subject: |
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Related (for small devs making a publishing deal or selfpublishing their game on Steam): http://news.bigdownload.com/2010/10/04/interview-we-chat-with-outerlights-co-founder-about-bloody-goo/
| Quote: | I guess this is the right time to talk about the two business models, publisher and independent.
The traditional publishing model is awful for developers, it's their gilded cage. It requires costly pitching, to emissaries of publishers, who return to corporate rooms & badly pitch the idea to large groups who need consensus to act, and typically take 6 months to close any deal they offer. Publishers are motivated by greed, but restrained by fear of risk, and thus seek sure deals, licenses and sequels, which makes pitching innovation almost pointless. Should you get a deal, the usual is 20 percent royalties, but after the retailer takes their share of 50 percent, you are getting 20 percent of the 50 percent left (so 10 percent of retail price). That doesn't sound too bad, until you realise that the developer is the one that actually pays for the development, the publisher has just advanced the developer their share of the royalties to pay for making the game.
So...the developer takes 10 percent of retail, after ALL costs have been repaid from that 10 percent. Assuming the game cost £2m to make, and sold for 20 pounds, the developer gets 2 pounds for every unit, once the 2 million punds is repaid, so that's 1 million copies before the developer sees their first 2 pounds, meanwhile the publisher has recouped their 2 million pound and is sitting on an extra 6 million pounds. What happens next? History shows us the developer goes bust, or gets acquired by a publisher, and the publisher maybe buys another publisher for kicks.
The self-funded, digitally distributed model should be the future, it brings 70 percent of the retail price back to the developer, which means 14 pounds for every unit sold. Assuming the game cost 2 million pounds to make (although it wouldn't, being independently developed it would be half the price, being twice as efficient!), that's a break even for the developer at 142,000 units, instead of at 1 million units. If they did get very lucky and sell 1 million units they'd make a profit of 12 million pounds, instead of 0. For an efficient team like ours, we made the game for 700,000 pounds, so our break even would be at 50,000 copies. Instead of games development being seen as a hit or miss industry, it should be seen as a break even or profit industry, there is no miss, only the chance to do better next time. |
TWIN PEAKS is "something of a miracle."
"...like nothing else on television."
"a phenomenon."
"A tangled tale of sex, violence, power, junk food..."
"Like Nothing On Earth"
~ WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO SAY CAN ONLY BE SEEN ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHTUOgYNRzY
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 18:17 Post subject: |
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I still hate steam, but this is undoubtedly one of the good things about it. What makes me hate it is really how there's no competition. Sure, you have other digital game shops, but those aren't offering the same services. There should be at least 3-4 steam 'type' services available, otherwise we're getting a monopoly, which is hardly in us customers' best interest. It's giving Valve way too much power, and the users far less. Stuff like being able to change the end-user contract on-the-fly and then having to accept it in order to play the game, shutting down an account thus potentially stealing hundreds of $ from customers, often without even giving a reason, etc.
So yeah, I'd be perfectly fine with steam if it was one of several services, and if they didn't reserve the right to shut down your account without at least still giving you access to games you've bought. There's also of course the problem with them possibly ending up bankrupt and the customers losing their games, though that's unlikely to happen as long as they have a monopoly.
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 18:29 Post subject: |
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 19:12 Post subject: |
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yeah steam rewards the devs, but fucks its customers
sorry but a game should NEVER and I repeat NEVER sell for £40 on steam, a game should never sell at full retail, when you factor into it that it has no overheads for game printing, manual printing boxing and shipping, sure steam has server overheads but nothing compared to making millions of copies complete with covers, mauals posters etc etc
its disgusting, and steam just got greedier and greedier, selling any old shit now, games that barely work on pc, or games that have stopped being supported by pc devs, its DISGUSTING.
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 19:43 Post subject: |
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But then, I'd argue the opposite - You've just read an article about how a £40 retail game nets the developers sod all, and how the same priced game on Steam nets the developers far more. I'd argue that no game should sell for retail at £40 when the devs get so little, and I still have to scrabble about with nocd cracks, and finding, downloading and installing patches. 0-Day patches on Steam are one thing, but not for a retail disc.
Pixieking
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ASUS P8P67 Evo - Intel i7 3770k - 2X4GB GSkill RipJaws X DDR3 1600 - HIS 7950 IceQ - Creative XtremeMusic Soundcard - NZXT Phantom 530 - Thermaltake Toughpower XT 675 - Win7 x64
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 20:09 Post subject: |
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your argument doesnt stand to be honest, your still paying the same price for a product with almost no cost to distribute.
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ixigia
[Moderator] Consigliere
Posts: 64946
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 20:14 Post subject: |
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I don't hate Steam only during the sales weeks 
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 20:24 Post subject: |
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| evilmonkey wrote: | | your argument doesnt stand to be honest, your still paying the same price for a product with almost no cost to distribute. |
And with no second-hand market value (although that's true for retails products too, if they use some kind of online activation).
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 20:35 Post subject: |
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I'm sure it's great for the devs, but not for the buyers. Many times i see games at almost 2x the price i can get it elsewhere online retail. On top of that the extra DRM layer that steam is and lets not discus the trouble you have to go through to get updates running (most of the times days later then retail). Oh and before i forget, if they don't like you, you lose your account with all your paid games. Mind you, i'm not against digital downloads, but i don't need another layer of DRM and paying more for less from a consumer standpoint.
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Surray
Posts: 5409
Location: Europe
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 20:46 Post subject: |
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| Hellhound666 wrote: | | I'm sure it's great for the devs, but not for the buyers. Many times i see games at almost 2x the price i can get it elsewhere online retail. On top of that the extra DRM layer that steam is and lets not discus the trouble you have to go through to get updates running (most of the times days later then retail). Oh and before i forget, if they don't like you, you lose your account with all your paid games. Mind you, i'm not against digital downloads, but i don't need another layer of DRM and paying more for less from a consumer standpoint. |
yeah, a friend of mine was actually banned with his whole steam account for using a key from ebay for supreme commander 2.
Likot Mosuskekim, Woodcutter cancels Sleep: Interrupted by Elephant.
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 20:55 Post subject: |
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| evilmonkey wrote: | yeah steam rewards the devs, but fucks its customers
sorry but a game should NEVER and I repeat NEVER sell for £40 on steam, a game should never sell at full retail, when you factor into it that it has no overheads for game printing, manual printing boxing and shipping |
It has been reported that Steam gets 30-40% (it depends on the deal that's made with the publisher) of a game's revenue.
| Quote: | | and steam just got greedier and greedier |
Sure, I hate their $=euros bullshit but with so many frequent sales? In the end I can get something much cheaper thanks to their service.
| Quote: | | selling any old shit now |
Yes, because you can't find new games on Steam!
Selling old games is GOOD, not bad. Do you want to search on ebay to find old games?
| Quote: | | games that barely work on pc |
Not their fault, brick and mortar stores sell games that barely work on PC too.
| Quote: | | games that have stopped being supported by pc devs |
Who says that a game should be sold on any store only as long as it's being actively supported by its developers? That's crazy talk.
Your only point that may be valid is that games should be cheaper on Steam but guess what? Prices are specified by publishers. Do you think Valve tells publishers "either sell it for 50$ OR ELSE...."? 
TWIN PEAKS is "something of a miracle."
"...like nothing else on television."
"a phenomenon."
"A tangled tale of sex, violence, power, junk food..."
"Like Nothing On Earth"
~ WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO SAY CAN ONLY BE SEEN ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHTUOgYNRzY |
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 20:56 Post subject: |
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| Surray wrote: | | Hellhound666 wrote: | | I'm sure it's great for the devs, but not for the buyers. Many times i see games at almost 2x the price i can get it elsewhere online retail. On top of that the extra DRM layer that steam is and lets not discus the trouble you have to go through to get updates running (most of the times days later then retail). Oh and before i forget, if they don't like you, you lose your account with all your paid games. Mind you, i'm not against digital downloads, but i don't need another layer of DRM and paying more for less from a consumer standpoint. |
yeah, a friend of mine was actually banned with his whole steam account for using a key from ebay for supreme commander 2. |
I wonder if this is actually legal. Has there been any court or consumer-help cases from these sort of cases? In my country I'm pretty sure that sort of action would make them rule for the consumer and against the company.
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garus
VIP Member
Posts: 34200
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| Posted: Thu, 2nd Dec 2010 21:02 Post subject: |
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snip
Last edited by garus on Tue, 27th Aug 2024 21:37; edited 1 time in total
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 00:06 Post subject: |
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| consolitis wrote: |
It has been reported that Steam gets 30-40% (it depends on the deal that's made with the publisher) of a game's revenue. |
No, thats not true, Steam can change between 2-20% depending on the pricetag and the publisher. Most indie games are couple of cents only to Steam really.
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 00:15 Post subject: |
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| Areius wrote: | | consolitis wrote: |
It has been reported that Steam gets 30-40% (it depends on the deal that's made with the publisher) of a game's revenue. |
No, thats not true, Steam can change between 2-20% depending on the pricetag and the publisher. Most indie games are couple of cents only to Steam really. |
I am fairly sure I've read about 30-40% more than a couple of times.
Plus that's the percentage the dev I quoted above mentions:
| Quote: | | The self-funded, digitally distributed model should be the future, it brings 70 percent of the retail price back to the developer |
and he has made 2 Steam games so far.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ship_%28computer_game%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Good_Time
If he says it's 30% then that's what Valve usually charges.
TWIN PEAKS is "something of a miracle."
"...like nothing else on television."
"a phenomenon."
"A tangled tale of sex, violence, power, junk food..."
"Like Nothing On Earth"
~ WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO SAY CAN ONLY BE SEEN ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHTUOgYNRzY |
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 00:22 Post subject: |
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Documented here: http://www.gamedev.net/columns/events/agds05-1/default.asp
| Quote: | | Revenue sharing with developers under the Steam system is 60/40 (developer/Valve). |
(Article from October 2005)
TWIN PEAKS is "something of a miracle."
"...like nothing else on television."
"a phenomenon."
"A tangled tale of sex, violence, power, junk food..."
"Like Nothing On Earth"
~ WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO SAY CAN ONLY BE SEEN ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHTUOgYNRzY
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crossmr
Posts: 2965
Location: South Korea
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 00:51 Post subject: |
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That's 5 years ago .I'm sure they've adjusted their model since then.
Intel i5 6500 3.2Ghz, Geforce 970GTX 2GB, 16 GB Ram, Windows 7
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 00:55 Post subject: |
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Yah, they probably figured they made too much cash and adjusted it downwards.
On a more serious note, I expect this is on a per-release basis. I.e. how big of a release, how big of a publisher/developer, etc.
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 01:08 Post subject: |
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| crossmr wrote: |
That's 5 years ago .I'm sure they've adjusted their model since then. |
That's true which is why I believe it's around 30% as the Outerlight dev I quoted above said (although he didn't specifically mention Steam he has only made 1 Steam + 1 Steam/XBLA game so I believe it's safe to say he was talking about it) .
TWIN PEAKS is "something of a miracle."
"...like nothing else on television."
"a phenomenon."
"A tangled tale of sex, violence, power, junk food..."
"Like Nothing On Earth"
~ WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO SAY CAN ONLY BE SEEN ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHTUOgYNRzY |
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 01:22 Post subject: |
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This is a recent one, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Wardell , Stardock's CEO claims Steam takes 30%: http://www.firingsquad.com/games/elemental_war_of_magic_interview/page6.asp
| Quote: | FiringSquad: If you didn’t have your own game store, Impulse, do you think you’d have to develop for consoles just to make money and survive?
Brad Wardell: Yeah. That’s one of the things, when people hear about Impulse versus Steam, people always assume that Stardock doesn’t like Steam or Valve. Of course, that’s pretty absurd, I mean, how can you be a gamer and not like Valve? That’s crazy talk; that’s like not liking Blizzard. The thing is, all these services, whether they be Impulse or Direct-2-Drive or Steam, they take about 30% of the money, and we simply can’t give up that 30% and make the kind of games we make.
People say “Oh, well Stardock, all they make are those kind of niche, turn-based games or space-strategy games.” We don’t make Portal or Half-Life or StarCraft, which are much more mainstream… Yeah, because other people make them, and we like them, we like playing their games! I want to play Left 4 Dead, I like Left 4 Dead made by someone else because I want to play that game, I don’t want to make it. If we had to give up our 30%, the margins just aren’t there; we’d have to give up [making games]. We couldn’t make Elemental if we had to put it on Steam. |
TWIN PEAKS is "something of a miracle."
"...like nothing else on television."
"a phenomenon."
"A tangled tale of sex, violence, power, junk food..."
"Like Nothing On Earth"
~ WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO SAY CAN ONLY BE SEEN ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHTUOgYNRzY
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chiv
Posts: 27530
Location: Behind You...
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 01:43 Post subject: |
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steam still sucks. its overpriced and used poorly.
ill still continue buying my boxed copies over the net or at a store, thanks.
fuck steam. only time i give a shit is when they give away free games... but free games are free games, i dont LIKE steam because its a good platform or anything. time and again ive said it... in theory its a good system, but valves handling of it is just so shoddy.
steam might be good from a dev point of view, but im a customer, and from mine - nah... no thanx... ill take store bought over how steam is currently being handled any day.
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 01:56 Post subject: |
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I think if steam didn't evolve into what it is now, valve would of had pushed out more great games but we're stuck with these games that are really just a total conversion mod for half life 2 (source engine).
I like steam for the special deals they have, that's all.
Phenom II X4 965 @ 3.8 // 4GB DDR3 // GTX 285
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 02:23 Post subject: |
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| HunterHare wrote: | | I think if steam didn't evolve into what it is now, valve would of had pushed out more great games but we're stuck with these games that are really just a total conversion mod for half life 2 (source engine). |
Or turned into console devs like every other AAA PC developer did (except Blizzard). 
You have to wonder why did everyone else stop caring about the PC, except Valve? I think the huge success of Steam is at least part of the answer.
TWIN PEAKS is "something of a miracle."
"...like nothing else on television."
"a phenomenon."
"A tangled tale of sex, violence, power, junk food..."
"Like Nothing On Earth"
~ WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO SAY CAN ONLY BE SEEN ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHTUOgYNRzY |
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 03:09 Post subject: |
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| consolitis wrote: | | HunterHare wrote: | | I think if steam didn't evolve into what it is now, valve would of had pushed out more great games but we're stuck with these games that are really just a total conversion mod for half life 2 (source engine). |
Or turned into console devs like every other AAA PC developer did (except Blizzard).
You have to wonder why did everyone else stop caring about the PC, except Valve? I think the huge success of Steam is at least part of the answer. |
they only care about money, they are only about -having the accessibility to purchase and play games with anti cheat security, play all your games in this game station- they arn't about "we'll make PC exclusives" their shit is multiplatform like everyone else, they just created steam to keep track of updates and mods, but it evolved into an internet middleman for games and it's working great.... pfft they don't care about PC
edit
they have been targeting derps years ago, remember when steam first came out, the only thing they said was "it works on all computers and is so small".... remember them tricking dumb asses into thinking because steam works great that they thought games bought from steam would have the same requirements then they denied refunds, they have been banking since it began and they continue with these bullshit $60 prices.
Phenom II X4 965 @ 3.8 // 4GB DDR3 // GTX 285
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 03:46 Post subject: |
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| HunterHare wrote: | | consolitis wrote: | | HunterHare wrote: | | I think if steam didn't evolve into what it is now, valve would of had pushed out more great games but we're stuck with these games that are really just a total conversion mod for half life 2 (source engine). |
Or turned into console devs like every other AAA PC developer did (except Blizzard).
You have to wonder why did everyone else stop caring about the PC, except Valve? I think the huge success of Steam is at least part of the answer. |
they only care about money, they are only about -having the accessibility to purchase and play games with anti cheat security, play all your games in this game station- they arn't about "we'll make PC exclusives" their shit is multiplatform like everyone else, they just created steam to keep track of updates and mods, but it evolved into an internet middleman for games and it's working great.... pfft they don't care about PC
edit
they have been targeting derps years ago, remember when steam first came out, the only thing they said was "it works on all computers and is so small".... remember them tricking dumb asses into thinking because steam works great that they thought games bought from steam would have the same requirements then they denied refunds, they have been banking since it began and they continue with these bullshit $60 prices. |
TWIN PEAKS is "something of a miracle."
"...like nothing else on television."
"a phenomenon."
"A tangled tale of sex, violence, power, junk food..."
"Like Nothing On Earth"
~ WHAT THEY'RE TRYING TO SAY CAN ONLY BE SEEN ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHTUOgYNRzY |
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| Posted: Fri, 3rd Dec 2010 07:43 Post subject: |
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to be honest publishers still get more money from online sales than from retail distribution - average feee for all level of sale (between developer and retail store ) is 55-60 % so publisher get 70 % of the final price from online ditsribution and only 50 % from boxed versions
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I agreed that a company having a monopoly, (almost rhymes) 
is a bad thing for customers, BUT! Since Steam is (and has been) so good to their customers, I'm gonna let them get the benefit of the doubt until I see something suspicious from their side.
