Hacker News Reader

Comment by crooked-v | Hacker News Reader

From what I understand, Google, Microsoft, and Sony all also charge 30% for the app marketplaces on their devices. There may be some game-theory pressure here not to lower the cut for risk that the others will do the same and a race to the bottom will ensue.

View on HN

Developers will only have to pay a 5% Microsoft Store fee if a user installs their app through a campaign ID link. The same applies if the user finds their app through a web search. However, if a user discovers the app through the Microsoft Store search or other “Microsoft-owned” properties, developers will have to pay a 15% fee, getting 85% revenue in return.

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/202038/microsoft...

Epic basically started that race to the bottom in the PC gaming space. Time will tell if it will actually drive Steam's cut down.

Steam already lowered their cut directed mostly at AAA games with sales over $10 million dropping to 25% and sales over $50 million dropping to 20%.

AAA devs were already trying to leave steam as much as possible, so they tried to bring them back while doing nothing for smaller studios and indies who can't afford to exist off steam.

Doesn't Steam allow indie developers to generate as many keys as they want for free? The Humble Bundle gave me a lot of Steam keys the last time I bought something from them and Steam didn't get a 30% cut from it.

They can’t exist solely off Steam, but selling on Steam + GOG + maybe even directly is better than exclusively Steam.

I know I’m in the minority, but especially indie titles I try to buy somewhere else and look for a direct sale, GOG, and itch.io first

Indies don't earn enough for it to matter. The cut only matters for successful companies so nobody is complaining in the end.

If your game sucks then it doesn't matter because 30% of nothing is still just nothing. If your game is good enough then you get a discount.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com