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Comment by Steltek | Hacker News Reader

It'll be a very dark day for us all when Valve turns evil.

Steam Deck has been a modder's dream since it came out. Just having "desktop mode" be a standard option has been amazing.

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Valve already did the evil part, they were just so early to the game (pun intended) no one knew how to react or what it meant. They somehow avoided mass criticism, or I wasn't paying good enough attention.

I question a 30% developer fee for using Steam. Loot boxes in CS and TF2 to get and keep kids gambling. Destroying nearly every mod and skin community. I don't think I'm willing to sweep all that under the rug because they made it easier to open a steam deck.

I like Valve believe it or not, but I question a lot of these decisions.

Lot's of uproar back then. Many people did not switch to steam for as long as possible.

I switched as soon as I could, the beta was great. Once release happened it went in the crapper.

> They somehow avoided mass criticism, or I wasn't paying good enough attention.

Let me tell you about the Counter-Strike 1.6 Beta update in 2002...

https://counterstrike.fandom.com/wiki/Steam

(Geez, 21 years ago!)

But yes, you are otherwise correct. That said, I argue that Valve has done an overall good job providing value to their users and even developers.

I am with you on the loot boxes, not sure I agree on the rest. City skylines as an enormous modding community, on steam, for example.

I am OK with the 30%, because it's not a monopoly. You can use any other store, "sideload", whatever, without restrictions. I think, but I am not sure, that you could actually offer your game cheaper on other channels in parallel. But because people like the convenience of steam (which is probably one if not the best implementation of a software store) that many would pay the premium to have the game on steam.

Well, Source was the last Counter Strike game that allowed people to use custom skins. CS2 enforces sv_pure when playing on official servers, so you can't make up your own skin and use it. It sucks.

Using custom skins on official servers by modifying game files has always been forbidden since CS:GO. CS2 doesn't make it worse. Join a community server if you want to use your own skin you made up.

At one time[1] Valve even tried to ban community servers that offer custom models/skins. Though they doesn't seem to enforce it anymore.

[1]: https://blog.counter-strike.net/index.php/server_guidelines/

While I won't argue loot boxes, and I dont know enough about mod/skin communities...

The 30% developer fee makes a lot more sense if you consider that steam is much more than a game store. They host forums, guides, achievements, cloud saves, multiple versions of the game at once with beta channel access, screenshots, remote play, extras like Proton support, a friends list that will show you when other people are playing a game (advertising). And the store page has all sorts of stuff like ratings, reviews... a shopping cart and ability to purchase more than 1 game at a time (didn't know that was a feature, but apparently it is). And top of all that, it's just frankly where PC gamers are, so theres a ton of built in marketing.

Not every game benefits from all these things. But it's hardly just a storefront. I would question Gamestop taking a 30% cut. I would question if EGS wanted the same 30% cut as valve gets. Gamers prefer Steam over EGS, and the reason they prefer it isn't just because "it's a nicer store front." It's a whole platform thing.

People Make Games did a great half-hour documentary on it. It's... pretty bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMmNy11Mn7g

> I would question Gamestop taking a 30% cut

Why? Physical distribution is way more expensive and they handle the entire consumer lifecycle.

Gamestop has a single interaction with the sales process. Once I've bought my game, unless I want to return it, I never have to think about gamestop again. So while the "get the game to the store" costs more, the act of swapping money in exchange for the game is basically 0 work. Gamestop has logistics to deal with as their primary service.

Valve has a perpetual obligation. I might buy the game and then never even download it. Or I might download the game. delete it. download the game again next week. delete it ... etc... And take 1000 screenshots that I want them to host, and upload mods for a game that they have to host and people may download. And this may happen forever (or at least until Valve ceases to be a company).

Fable III isn't even available in the Steam store anymore... but they have a repo hosting the game files. And they still take updates (the package was last updated in july 2023, even though its been off the store for years). According to SteamDB there are 14 people playing it right now. Steam has been supporting a game that they haven't even sold in the past 8 years.

I'm willing to bet that if I ask gamestop for anything regarding support for a game from 8 years ago they'd just laugh at me.

tl;dr - physical distribution has cut and dry limited obligations, but steam has to deal with stuff forever.

That’s not a downside for Steam, and probably totally negates any distribution cost.

Imagine if you had to go to Gamestop every time you launched a game. They would kill for that opportunity. Steam has a captive audience who goes to their store every day.

>the act of swapping money in exchange for the game is basically 0 work.

you're still treating this as a software service. Remember that for a physical store:

1. you need to maintain the store. you can't have dirt bugs and grime everywhere 2. you need insurance to deal with various inevitable factors. theft, crime within store grounds, destruction of property, etc. 3. buildings break down faster than servers. you need to upkeep that. 4. security. Need to monitor the store in and outside of business hours. 5. yes, support. They manage memberships, pre-orders, process returns in or out of warranty/return period, check inventory for if older used games are around, and can route you to other locations for such product.

Its only cut and dry if you never think what is needed to maintain the norm for you.

> host forums

Some of their discussion forums are incredibly toxic though, seeming to have no effective moderation.

Baldurs Gate 3 and Starfield spring to mind as clear examples, though it wouldn't surprise me if there are even worse ones around.

Some example? I don't use Steam, nor play videogames nowadays but I played a lot the original Baldur's Gate back in the day, so I'm somehow curious about this (even simple pointers are appreciated)

Personally, I insta-bought Baldurs Gate 3 when it launched due to having played Baldurs Gate 1 & 2 + the video's of it showing the graphics looking ok.

It was a mistake.

The Steam discussion/forums for it are here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/

I've not looked at them for ages as they were very toxic for a few weeks after launch, and I personally have no real desire to go looking again now. Maybe they've magically improved somehow, but I doubt it.

Why was it a mistake? I've only heard good things.

>It was a mistake.

What do you mean, the game is objectively solid and is very much a continuation of the Boulders Gate series. It has flaws, but personally I think it's the best crpg i've played in years (and without nostalgia filters).

I'm guessing its probably related to the fact that BG1 and BG2 are T-rated, BG3 is both M-rated (in part for sex) and inclusive in a way that, well, more than one review or article suggested it might be something like “the queerest video game of all time”.

To be clear, I'm not criticizing, I just am not surprised that a certain segment of the BG1/BG2 fanbase is unhappy.

First thing on the forum: BG3 doesn't represent asexual people!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/0/3944650...

Steam takes 30% to make everyone slightly dumber

I see a thread of people talking about their experience of the game and how aspects of it made them feel. That's exactly what a forum is for, and a very legitimate way to engage with a piece of art.

Particularly for a game with strong sexual representationa and inclusion, it is legitimate to discuss aspects where the inclusion is still lacking. This may be useful for the Devs future plans, or it may change nothing but be useful for other prospective players to understand about the game.

You might not find the thread useful or engaging. I don't find the threads about compatibility with hardware I don't own useful or engaging. Not every thread is for every person.

That's fair. and there are plenty of stories of game devs that do moderate their forums being incredibly toxic themselves.

But point being, Steam is a whole platform. When THPS 1+2's "Upload a custom skate park" broke, I just hit shift+tab and clicked discussions, and bam. theres discussions about it being broken for other people. and I didn't even have to launch the game, I could just go to discussions from the game on steam to see when it was fixed. I didn't have to go googling for everything.

And the beauty of it, is that valve hasn't made all of it a walled garden. It's a nice garden, but they do a pretty good job of not keeping it completely locked down (which is the main reason why proton has been so successful).

So no, Steam won't moderate your forums for you, but they will host the forums and you don't have to have your own/none. But then again, that might be more of a benefit to the customers than to the devs who may not care.

I mean the entire Unreal Engine 5 is a 5% cut, a 30% cut to host forums and screenshots is a little ridiculous.

Promotion probably plays a bigger role in enabling profit than engine, though.

Whether it should may be a different issue.

Discovery is a major reason why so many people use Steam.

That, and Steam hasn't really burned many folks, ever. They even pioneered returns after you played the game...

As a user, I've never once been mad at Steam.

The only thing I get mad at Steam about is that the client updates (baseless accusation incoming) WAY too often and/or desperately needs to have some sort of incremental update system. I am, however, not a game developer. But as a consumer it's been very good.

> They even pioneered returns after you played the game...

They were forced to do so by the Australian government, so it was hardly "pioneering".

Feels very apple-esque when people spin up compliance to government regulations as "pioneering". Then Epic has the same spin every other company does and they are ground to dust in the internet discourse.

But yeah, difference is Valve knows to be good to consumers (mostly) but make dev support a nightmare if you're not big enough.

Note that this was after Valve was taken to court and was ordered to pay fines for violating consumer protection laws by not offering refunds.

> Valve must pay a fine of AU$3 million (about £1.6m/US$2.3m/€1.8m) for misleading Steam users in Australia by stating they were not entitled to refunds for faulty games on Steam

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/australia-fines-valve-over-...

Australian laws do not apply to the rest of the world - and a $2.3m fine is pennies anyway. So no, that is not why people in the US can get a refund after playing a game for up to 2 hours...

>So no, that is not why people in the US can get a refund after playing a game for up to 2 hours...

okay, here's the EU part: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/new-valve-refund-poli...

not brought to court but that right-to-return law put another fire under their butt for sure.

> That, and Steam hasn't really burned many folks, ever.

I think like many new things it got off to a rocky start in 2003 and 2004 (especially with the launch of Half-Life 2). I only started using Steam on 2007 I think and I've never had an issue.

Other features steam develops for you with that 30% cut: Multiplayer friends list apis, cloud save apis and space, wide open VR apis (that get turned into Unreal Engine apis, game streaming, voice chat (though it's terrible by today's standards), workshop (modding and UGC) apis storage and management, Free keys to give out on other platforms which actually decreases that 30% cut depending on how much you use that functionality, built in "markets" for in game items, steam remote play apis and functionality, remote play together api (streaming gamepad stuff over networks without needing any crazy configuration or special programs), the new input system which is just incredible and can basically eliminate any work an individual game developer has to do to support powerful input tools and accessibility, free selling games on linux with very little dev work needed to support it and way less demanding bugs from linux users, built in customizable (but purposely bad) DRM if you only care for a minimal implementation, etc

"Steam" is not just a game store. It's like if walmart built an entire industry around maintaining, supporting, and extending anything you sold through them. 30% is a lot, but Valve is the only company out of basically the entire retail industry actually providing value to sellers and buyers alike, rather than just a storefront.

The CS:GO child gambling problem is HUGE though, and unconscionable. I don't know how Gabe feels about that, but I don't care. It should be exceptionally illegal to give a child access to a "gambling like" game that ever touches real money.

Friends list and matchmaking APIs are also provided by Epic Online Services, and work on consoles, multiple engines, and multiple stores, for free.

That 30% cut still seems egregious. Those features are all nice but none of them can be used to make a game.

Unity is even cheaper, at 2.5%.

Evidently it's not egregious to the people putting games on the platform, so agree to disagree I suppose.

I’m fairly certain Microsoft and Sony both take a 30% cut too.

Yes. They knowingly put things on the platform with the 30% cut in mind because it is worth it to them, ergo they do not find it egregious.

It can be worth it to them and still be egregious. At 50% it’d likely be worth it (to the extent it’s still a viable business) because that’s where the largest market of PC gamers are. It doesn’t necessarily mean anyone would be happy with the fee.

Same as 7 million dollars for 30 sec air time for commercial during Super Bowl, ridiculous.

Minimizing the value of utilizing steam to those two things is ridiculous (ly disingenuous).

Is 30% fair? I don't really have an opinion, but putting your game on steam isn't required for game development.

Oh, thanks for reminding me to claim my free game from Epic Games this week.

Valve has done a massive favor to us Linux folks with their work on Proton and other Linux-related development. That’s also worth something.

30% does seem a bit too high, though. I’ll grant you that.

Actually they have done a massive favour to the games industry, keep targeting Windows and get Linux for free, what a deal.

They also host the game download and all its updates allowing buyers to (re)download whenever they want.

30% is the standard retail cut if I’m right. So if you sell your game at Walmart, they take 30% too.

Edit: There is actually a way to bypass Steam’s cut - provide by Valve strangely enough - if I’m right. As developer you can mint as many API keys for your games as you like and sell those through other means. Your customers will still download and play through Steam but Steam gets nothing - i.e. you use their infrastructure for free; of course they would get their cut from copies sold via their store.

yea, I don't get how people complain about Valve. Google, Apple, Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft all take roughly the same.

The difference is people actually like using Steam. They actually want to be locked in. I'd rather by a game on Steam vs Gog. Consider that. DRM free, but people prefer the lock-in. That's because Valve is nailing it.

Imagine people saying the same about Microsoft, Epic, EA etc.. Nope.

Many games on Steam are DRM free. You have to download the game through Steam... but from Gog you have to download the games from Gog too. One uses their app as a gatekeeper and the other uses a website. KSP is an example just off the top of my head where you can download the game, delete steam and keep playing. Not all games implement Steam DRM.

But also yes. Steam has made the gaming on linux process so much easier. Using steam is the easiest way to game now and I definitely prefer all my games to be there.

They all do. You can argue it's too high but the issue is that they all own those platforms and the hardware you develop on (except Google). Valve, not so much.

>The difference is people actually like using Steam. They actually want to be locked in.

yup, and that's where the danger starts. People like being locked into Apple as well. the consoles all conditioned people to being locked in. I understand it, but don't think it's a good thing.

Microsoft does technically have a lock in with PC, but they have enough historical lawsuits on those issues that they are lax on what is hosted on Windows. The reckoning for Apple/Google is definately coming, though.

> but the issue is that they all own those platforms and the hardware you develop on (except Google). Valve, not so much.

Console manufacturers charge a separate per unit royalty for every game published for their consoles, typical in the range of 10-20%.

That’s how they make most of their money before online stores - the console is sold at near break even typically but they do earn on extra accessories.

The store charges are separate and independent.

> People like being locked into Apple as well.

I don't. I just use Windows and Linux occasionally and that reminds me why I prefer Mac OS.

It's easy to get lock in effects when the alternatives are crap wrt usability. Even if you can get larger numbers for less money on the spec sheet.

On one level, it's evil lock-in. On another, it's all-products compatibility with very tight integration.

I don't like being locked into Apple, but I can't argue with the extraordinary convenience of doing it their way. New iPhone or iPad? Just set it next to your old one and it will pull everything over. New Mac? You can clone from a backup of a different Mac. I started with an iPad, got a Mac a few years later, and finally got an iPhone after Google released the amazing (loved the fingerprint reader on the back for unlocking) but disastrous (the battery would decide to go to hell one day, no warning, and you were losing 30+% of power per hour) Nexus 6P.

I don't remember the details but I thought they clamped down on the CD key work-around in the last year or two.

No. Valve was never against legit developers using their infrastructure for games sold elsewhere even if Valve dont get any cut. If you have game that sold 1000 copies on Steam you can still generate 10,000 keys for selling elsewhere.

What they clamped down on was developers who built $0.01 game for trading cards farming. Now Valve just have some fair usage rules so developer of game that sold 10 copies on Steam can't request 1,000,000 keys for it.

Disclosure: I am indie game studio co-fouder so Steam keys is something we deal with.

I found it - in February 2023 it looks like added some limits and are enforcing that Steam customers don't get a worse deal than customers who use CD keys.

But yes they have clamped down on the fake games for trading card farming too.

It was a news in February 2023, but Steam had this as part of their ToS for decade or more. Basically Valve want you to run the same discounts on Steam as you run on other stores.

AFAIK it's perfectly fine to temporary run something like lowest-ever price outside of Steam on a condition that within some timeframe (not sure about timing) there will be similar sale on Steam.

Yeah, probably the reason why it’s not only forum and screenshots? Don’t know.

I thought it was just a very sticky library where people keep buying Steam games because all the games they already own are on Steam.

Also, both Xbox and PlayStation have more-or-less all those things you mentioned but you get subsidised hardware in the deal too.

One major plus with Steam is buying a single copy of certain games and having a friend join instantly via remote play.

Also nice to be able to buy some new games and run them on an old laptop, can't do that on my xbox 360 anymore. My library all runs on my latest computer too. At least xbox makes a fair amount of the catalog backwards compatible, it's not a thing on Playstation.

edit: plus I can give friends access to my entire library, providing I'm not using it at the time.

Another fun thing about steam: There's no setting for the game developer to enable/disable the networking, so if a steam game uses steamworks and doesn't have multiplayer through steam, it can just be modded in and works great.

Is this the best tool for that?

https://github.com/m4dEngi/RemotePlayWhatever

And monthly online fees?

Or is that only PS?

This is fair, but it's an oddly mixed bag on Playstation for legacy reasons.

Free-to-play games can be played online without a subscription, but paid games require a subscription - I imagine as a holdover from pre-Fortnite days and cross-platform play.

I'm a subscriber for the game catalogue and only really play online multiplayers that are F2P anyway, but yeah it doesn't seem at all justifiable. It's a strange decision too - I can't imagine the subset of people who are NOT subscribers for the monthly games and/or catalogue AND are playing games online that are NOT f2p is big enough to be a significant impact to their bottom line. If anything it would be a deterrent from choosing the platform.

according to polygon gamestop's margin on new games was around 25%. So that's not massively different and steam absolutely provides more value for the developer than gamestop.

I don't really get the GS comparisons. GS was from a different time where your options for distribution on console was selling in brick and mortar stores or barely selling at all. they 100% can't justify 25% in 2023 as digital purchases supercede physical, but that's not when these rates were negotiated upon.

Steam taking 30% cut is fine. No one is being forced to use Steam (unlike on iOS)

If developers don’t like it, they can chose other options to distribute their game.

Here is where I come in and recommend everyone check out Playnite: https://playnite.link/

When I care about supporting a developer or publisher and they offer their product on their own storefront DRM-free, I will often go there to buy. Or I buy from GoG which takes a smaller cut. Playnite lets me launch my Steam and non-Steam games in a seamless fashion. Steam still does a great job as a game installer/patch manager, and helps me discover new games. But I'm not locked into paying them a 30% fee, which is pretty brutal for some smaller publishers.

Windows only?

It can run on Linux/Steam Deck apparently:

https://www.reddit.com/r/playnite/comments/15q2x16/i_install...

I have only used it on my Windows install, so I can't recommend this.

Who is being forced to use iOS?

Not being forced to use iOS, but if you are on iOS you are forced to use the app store.

I think the point is Valve doesn’t own the store and the platform.

They do now for the Steam Deck, but customers can always choose to play on Desktop or x86 handhelds instead.

SD is ultimately a linux computer, so you can still throw on another store if you really care. It's also a relatiely niche device, so not quite prone to monopoly effects anyway.

You can install other game stores on your steam deck. You can directly install apps outside of Steam. You can even install a different operating system if you want. It's not locked to Steam in the slightest.

Let me know when I can install fdroid on iOS.

Literally people will look down on you if you don't buy an iPhone.

They back off when they find out my line of work, but you hear about bullying and peer pressure in school over bubbles. That does not end when you leave high school.

One VC said that people that buy Android don't have taste and wouldn't work with them. Now they say Android is for poor people. Freedom to sideload or install a custom os be damned.

>That does not end when you leave high school.

It's not a high school thing, it's just amplified during that point in life; there is always pressure to conform.

I don't care about whether or not some VC thinks I have class either professionally or personally. Avoid people that jump to conclusions and you'll be better off, regardless of how fancy their personal titles are.

Don't worry, there are a (perhaps) surprising amount of VCs who love Android.

I'm one of them. We are not all the same!

you shouldn't tie your self-worth to the mobile phone brand you use

It's easy to understand this when your matured, not so much when you are developing, or literally get excluded from activities because of that.

I mean, $800 is kinda cheap for self-worth, if we’re honest. Cheaper than a sports car or house with a view or own apartment or even one vacation someplace fancy.

But yeah, ideally one shouldn’t tie self worth to perishables.

Same goes for Steam though, especially for multiplayer games.

I believe you, but that sounds made up.

What’s your line of work that you need an Android phone?

I find dealing with Android users from iMessage tiring but everyone I know who uses Android also uses WhatsApp and that works just fine cross platform.

Apple knows this and has curated it. Why do people think that they had specific bubble colours for messaging devices inside/outside Apple ecosystem.

They even did deep, dirty tricks like this: https://uxdesign.cc/how-apple-makes-you-think-green-bubbles-.... Not only that but Apple just love to lean heavily on their own custom functionality rather than coming up with open/reusable technologies. Apple are happy to use Wifi & Bluetooth standards to compete in the market, but not so much standards for chats/group chats (where Android users find things don't mesh as well/they don't have the same functionality as iOS users).

I can't for the life of me find it now, but I remember reading an article a while back on how Google found a way to trick iPhones into accepting Android messages as "blue bubble"/iOS messages by dumping some string onto the end or something. I'm sure it was a HN post but I can't find it, which sucks cause it was pretty funny reading.

No one is being forced to drink water as well.

No one is being forced to breathe!

So to complete the analogy, if you don't use iOS you'll die.

...?

s/you/iPhones and yes, that does line up.

Literally every app developer who want to target the iPhone user market.

Don't forget, they are also forced to buy a Mac. License demand that iOS SDK must be used only on Apple hardware.

Technically no-one is being forced but network effects mean that not publishing on steam is essentially suicide for any dev without a huge marketing budget to overcome those network effects. This means that Steam is in a position where they can demand feeds in excess of what they could in a healthy competitive market.

Epic has lots of games that aren't published to Steam. They seem to be doing fine.

Epic recently admitted their store isn't profitable.

That doesn't mean the Epic Store is not profitable for the developers.

It does mean that at any point in the future the store could simply not exist with short notice.

Most game developers aren't Epic.

It's Steam or bust for the vast majority.

Epic pays those Devs for timed exclusivity on EGS, with the profits from Fornite and Unreal.

Is there anything preventing a healthy competetive market for game stores on PC? Does Steam/Valve engage in behaviour that limits competition? Alternatives do exist - itch.io, GOG, Epic Game Store, and just putting an .exe file on your website.

If the market is not being artificially suppressed (I don't believe it is), and developer still think it's financially advantageous to pay Steam's fees, doesn't that indicate the fee is "correct"?

Another way to word that, is that the benefit that Steam provides through their distribution/passive marketing service is so large that it justifies the 30% price tag. If it did not, then developers would go find another service. It's basic economics.

A whole lot to say not much. It’s reviews and forums.

>Not every game benefits from all these things. But it's hardly just a storefront.

yeah, that's my issue. but it's all or nothing because the only thing that really matters is presence. So you just suck it up or use another store (or distribute independently).

>Gamers prefer Steam over EGS, and the reason they prefer it isn't just because "it's a nicer store front." It's a whole platform thing.

It's really just network effects at the end of the day. We've seen enough instances in other places in tech where the de facto is shit and even actively ruining its product, but people stay.

Sad thing isn't how big it is, it's how hard it is to fail.

Don't forget the network backbone for multiplayer game traffic.

I'd love to see a "what has Steam ever done for us?" sketch produced :)

I'm honestly surprised no one has mentioned the Most Favored Nation clause, which helps enforce Steam's ability to charge 30%.

https://www.pcgamer.com/lawsuit-claims-valve-is-abusing-its-... https://www.masonllp.com/case/valve-mass-arbitration/

> Loot boxes in CS and TF2

It's apples and oranges.

It's worth pointing out that this is for cosmetics. The largescale lootbox outcries have been exclusively about gameplay advantages. Games that only provide cosmetics are usually praised for being fair. For example, Overwatch also has lootboxes - but for cosmetics only - and nobody gives a damn.

And then there's cards, which you earn for free, and can sell for a wallet balance in order to buy games.

> keep kids gambling

I don't believe this is their goal, even though they certainly aren't doing enough to prevent it.

Overwatch *had lootboxes. Now it has a BattlePass you buy, new heros are locked behind buying the BattlePass or grinding the first ~40 levels to get it for free, and also premium cosemtics in a FOMO-style "today's deals" daily rotation store. No lootboxes. I miss OW lootboxes. I'm not a gambler but the surprise/novelty was fun, and once I had most cosemtics I wanted I could also just collect them which was satisfying. I had >500 and double digits of every seasonal loot box at the end of OW1.

Blizzard had the worst luck. Their loot boxes were fair and most reasonable, but because they also looked so visually appealing, they were used in the thumbnail and header of every major article describing the horrors of loot boxes in general.

Las Vegas had the worst luck. Their casinos were fair and most reasonable, but because they also looked so visually appealing, they were used in the thumbnail and header of every major article describing the horrors of gambling in general.

Honestly I found it crazy that out of all the lootbox systems that existed, Overwatch got the brunt of the outrage. CS to this day has a much more predatory and in pretty much every way worse lootbox system than OW ever did. I don't think I spent a single cent on that game (other than the 40EUR or whatever it was to buy it) and I unlocked most of the things for my main champs through the natural lootbox drops.

It was such a neutral system and I literally never felt any type of FOMO or pressure to buy lootboxes, which can't be said for other games with similar systems.

Actually they changed the unlock system, you have to win 10 games as the role the locked hero is in to unlock them now. At least that's what I had to do, might be cause I had OW1 since the early days and played a lot of it.

Not true, the outcries are about the gambling aspect, be it cosmetic or not. When you can buy cosmetics directly (or convert real money to game money) the general consensus is that it’s fine, you know exactly what you get, with loot boxes you don’t (and they are always filled primarily with junk nobody wants to stack the odds against you) Overwatch was more or less the worst possible implementation of cosmetic loot boxes and it’s great that they’re actually gone.

Orange box :D

When they established a 30% fee they were on the cutting edge of digital stores and doing something very risky. So to make what they made work was great for small developers.

I would argue they still aren't evil (and Apple is, though I am a shareholder) because Steam, the Windows store and Epic can all live together on my PC as competing store / DRM. If a developer doesn't want to give up 30%, they have viable alternatives.

Developers can also absolutely just sell exes directly from their website, or on itch.io.

Is it a great way to get publicity? No. Is it a perfectly reasonable way to sell a game? Yes.

Hacker News has dozens if not hundreds of threads about people complaining about bandwidth costs on their static blog going viral and getting inundated with views. Some games taking up 100+ Gb and getting millions of downloads for week’s can’t be cheap.

I mean if the cost of the game doesn't pay for the download cost that sounds like an arithmetic issue.

Also, what small-time indie game is >100gb?

This is a thread about steam charging a 30% cut and people asking about what costs they could possibly have?

If Steam didn’t take a cut then they would not be able to pay for bandwidth. And even a 100 mb indie game downloaded a million times is still a lot of bandwidth times that by tens of thousands of games and it’s more than just games, screenshots, saves, mods, forum posts, video trailers, patches, etc.

A one time sale of a 4 dollar game that could support 100 gb worth of mods with being able to delete, download, and reinstall dozens of times has ongoing costs.

Selling on your own website, yes, you should be able to cover sending your own exe 100gb or not with each sale.

Oh I was agreeing that Steam provides value, and supporting it with the suggestion that if they didn't people would opt out and just sell games without Steam.

>Selling on your own website, yes, you should be able to cover sending your own exe 100gb or not with each sale.

I think the point was that if you were hosting independently, your video game isn't going to be 100+ GB. You will handle the costs or build it into the price of the game.

Dunno how thin margins Valve operates on, but I think they can survive on less than 30%, especially since they offer lower rates to AAA studios.

If people like your game they'll seed it for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent#Software

Making people think that you need to pay for bandwidth is the greatest scam pulled off by AWS

As a developer, I don't mind paying the 30% for the hosting, payment handling, discoverability, community management etc.

I can't say if it's truly worth the 30%, but I sure don't want to be handling all those services myself or through others.

Yep. Valve takes that cut and serves up your game (and its patches) on demand FOREVER. No need to fight for shelf space, or bicker with store management on product positioning or any other shit. When a gamer wants your game, they get it, and if they're looking for something that might be like your game, they'll find yours, too.

I also remember reading an article from way back when that said that brick and mortar revenue cuts were at _least_ twice what Steam was taking. Perhaps this memory is totally wrong... with today's Google I'll certainly never be able to find the source of the memory.

Above GameStop is said to get a 25% cut, and that is NOT counting the distribution, the publisher, etc.

If you are not Blizzard or CDProject it most likely is worth every cent.

As a casual gamer I am not willing to dig around the internet to look for games.

But if I stumble upon something random on Steam there is a chance I will buy it.

most indies don't (and usually shouldn't, unless mobile) target casual gamers, and they can't bet on "stumbling upon a random game" to sell.

That stuff isn't easy but fortunately Valve isn't the only one offering that, and pretty much every other storefront offers lower rates if that's important.

What I mean by “should” is if game sticker price is $10 and as Indy game dev you can get $7 basically for free if casual stumbles on your game.

I assume such dev can and should also use all other available promotion options of course.

So from my pov 30% is fine to pay. Especially that after initial effort of putting game in.

Sure, but when your game is selling in the double digits, that's not something you can bet on. Discoverability is a multiplier and if an indies' is very low, Valve doesn't help there. You gotta pay $100, so I need at least 14 people to "stumble" and buy my game just to pay that back. Then I need 140 people so I can get that $100 back.

If valve wants to earn those 3 dollars, they need to ensure my game can be discovered to begin with. "becsuse there's a lot of people on steam" doesn't cut it these days. That was valuable at one point but I'd say aroind 2014 or so it ceased to be so.

There’s so many options for distributing PC games that the market clearly sees the 30% as fair. This is an ecosystem where you could sell a game on a website with a payment portal and nothing else…

Plenty of publishers do try ditching Steam for their own storefront. They always come back to steam. Ubisoft is currently doing this with the latest Assassin's Creed game, PC sales are Epic and UPlay store only.

It seems like Steam is just that good for 30% then, can't say I'd call Valve evil for that.

> I question a 30% developer fee for using Steam.

30% was more reasonable in 2005-2006 when steam was getting it's first third party games on the platform (and games were cheaper as well, a selling point for digital distribution at the time, which has no longer existed for many years due to greed) and when compute and bandwidth was massively more expensive than it is today. These days the cut should be closer to 5-10% at most.

> Destroying nearly every mod and skin community.

I miss those days so much. When I was a teenager there was always new maps and mods for hl1/hl2 to try out. Now modding in pretty much every game and it's community doesn't compare, most developers won't ever release tooling for their engines and will sue people who reverse engineer their games to make third party tooling. Even 'mod friendly' developers like paradox and bethesda don't like people making changes that affect core gameplay too much and will strip out functionality to prevent people from doing it because they would rather pump out shovelware DLCs to make money.

Valve lucked out by doing all the enshittification in the late 2000s/early 2010s when their reputation was at it's highest. If they had cultivated this same following today and then rug pulled in the way they did in the past they would have killed their business entirely. Imagine if CDPR/A ctiblizzard/EA announced they would never make a game again and would only sell third party games through GOG/Battlenet/Origin, their distribution platform. Their business would be gone in a matter of months.

> These days the cut should be closer to 5-10% at most.

It's interesting to see this randomly thrown out, I'm curious if there's any basis for this? Epic Games currently takes 12% and five years later they're still unable to turn a profit. That's for a store that wrote a brand new launcher that's worse than Steam's and they don't have nearly half the features Steam does.

I believe Humble takes 5% and they're also not doing that well.

5% would hardly even cover the CC fees. Not to mention refunds.

do we actually know if AAA studios pay the 30%? it seems very plausible that they all have secret deals with steam for a smaller cut

Pretty well known that they and others dont pay 30% after some number in sales.

Yeah I think it was publicised a few years ago that Rockstar had a special deal for Grand Theft Auto V at least. It may have been all developers get reduced fees at certain sales tiers but I don't remember the exact details.

It is public knowledge that fee drops to 25% after $10,000,000 and down to 20% after $50,000,000 in game gross revenue.

Yeah, facts here. Valve is of course already evil AF. And braindead gamers jump on that Epic hate train and defend the Valve money making machine that steals 30% from devs just because they can. I do not think Epic is great either, owned partially by Tencent ... but at least their competition and lowering devs fees and going to court vs Apple and things like that benefit the actual devs in the end.

What does Valve actually make with all this money? That rake on billions for basically doing nothing and like since HL2 the amount of games they actually developed was very low. Alyx was a niche game for VR only. Maintaining and improving CS and calling it 2.0 is hardly anything considering what they could do. Dota 2 they just bought it. Steam machines failed and it was never that they actually sell hardware with a loss. So seriously where is all this money going?

I can only assume straight into Gabens and other high level execs pockets at Valve.

Don't you see the topic? They developed Steam Deck platform, with paying for FOSS developers and opensourcing/upstreaming. I haven't expected such a great thing done by a private game company.

Well that's all great and all and I like Proton but they only use it for their own game. Its totally tight to Steam and its not recommended to be used with non-Steam games. So this is THE OPPOSITE of doing it the nice way and good open source should be done.

The also did not start from scratch and just used Wine and build upon this and payed the guy who did DXVK ... its hardly eating up billions to come up with something like the Steam Deck and Proton. Steam OS is basically just Arch Linux now so its hardly anything revolutionary from scratch.

Do not get me wrong I like all these things but I stand by what I said. I fail to see where all the money is going. Take a SINGLE AAA game where Valve rakes in 30% of the profits for a few distribution servers and a few forum mods. They have invented a money printing machine and for like 20 years the have been printing money and there is nothing visible for anyone to actually see. They do not even make games. Other game devs do not have billions at their disposal and develop games with high budgets and at a 100x faster pace. I stand by what I said, the money goes straight into Gabens and other exec pockets, the have nothing to show for it. The Index is expensive AF its not that they made a loss with it. They make profits with everything they do, especially the Steam Deck.

Steam controller also failed but its not that they wasted billions on that failed product either. I never tried it, I think the idea was great but the layout was wrong, buttons should not be on the bottom.

You tell me where all the money is going. Like do you really think they spend even more the a tiny tiny fraction of that they made on paying open source devs and deving the Steam Deck? The already had their money printing machine loooooong b4 the Steam Deck was even an idea. WTF did they do with it?

> there is nothing visible for anyone to actually see

> You tell me where all the money is going

> Other game devs ... develop games ... at a 100x faster pace

> Steam controller

> The Index

Steam Controller gave us Steam Input, which works with:

- Steam Controllers

- Xbox 360 controllers

- Xbox One controllers

- Xbox One S controllers

- PS3 Controllers

- PS4 Controllers

- PS5 Controllers

- WiiU Pro Controllers

- Switch Joycons

- Switch Pro controllers

- A bevy of other third party controllers

All with shareable layouts, hosted by Valve.

The Index gave us Steam VR, which supports:

- Valve Index

- Oculus Rift

- Oculus Rift S

- HTC Vive

- HTC Vive Pro

- HTC Vive Cosmos

- Razer OSVR

- Pimax 4K, 5K, 5K Plus, 8K, and 8K Plus

- Dell Visor

- Samsung Odyssey and Odyssey+

- Acer AH101

- HP WMR

- Lenovo Explorer

- HP Reverb

- Varjo VR-1 and VR-2

Along with their support for OpenXR.

Not to mention Remote Play, and the variety of platforms they support with that. Or the hosting for cloud saves.

I'm not saying this costs billions, but I do think you're missing quite a bit of what Valve do when they launch something. There's quite a lot visible for people to actually see and use.

You are deeply ignorant of how much money and effort Valve are pumping into the FOSS Linux ecosystem. The names of their employees as well as their contractors can be found attached to submissions on a wide swath of projects. The project lead behind Proton was an employee of CodeWeavers, essentially the people who made Wine. A partnership! Insinuating that they're all take no give is just ridiculous.

It's not even just loot boxes, but them letting people gamble with the items (which can be worth a lot of money!) on unregulated gambling sites that allow minors. It's insidious stuff.

Good video on it: https://youtu.be/eMmNy11Mn7g?si=dwotdKXKu5mHLZWg

30% fee is fine? If you don't want to use steam you can put an ad in the back of 2600 Magazine and mail out CD-R or USB sticks like they did in the olden days. That's how Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem were sold for many years.

Valve charges 30% because customers want all the stuff that comes with steam. They work for that 30% unlike smartphone ecosystems that offer a closed ecosystem and can lock competitors out of their platform.

>f you don't want to use steam you can put an ad in the back of 2600 Magazine and mail out CD-R or USB sticks like they did in the olden days.

you're free to. I will offer Itch.io as a modern alternative: https://itch.io/

almost zero restrictions on games you can upload, and they let you set your own share, even down to 0% if you so please. I think the default is 10%, which seems reasonable.

>Valve charges 30% because customers want all the stuff that comes with steam

not really. they charge 30% because they can leverage their 90% market share on small devs. In fact, they already relented and offer a lower share if you sell more than like, 25m copies. That suggests that they do need to work to keep AAA stUDIOS from making their own stores (again).

It's all about market dynamics. And I bet many steam users just use it for network effects.

> Destroying nearly every mod and skin community

What on earth is this referring to? Steam doesn't inhibit moding at all. Heck, it has built in mod support that's used by games like Oxygen Not Included and Rimworld and it's huge ( https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/ ).

Steam also doesn't bat an eye at mods from outside of the client and there's no shortage of mod managers that work with steam - Vortex, CKAN, r2modman, etc...

I was wondering about that as well.

I think he's talking about cs, but last I checked it had a massive modding community.

Unless he meant custom skins on official servers, but that's how you can cheat so.

There is a tendency for people not to see evil where they don’t want to. Lego, for example, is responsible for producing a ridiculous amount of plastic every day. I am expecting to get downvoted just for mentioning it.

They do know what they are doing to the environment themselves, though, despite the public’s blind eye they are making at least some effort to research more biodegradable materials.

I remember some pushback when the Steam store was launched, with people pointing out (rightfully) that with this you don't really own the games you buy

> I question a 30% developer fee for using Steam

Devs are free to move to Epic Store/Microsoft Store if it bothers you that much. That's the beauty of PC, your computer is not tied to a single store.

They don't because they know those stores don't have the market share Steam has. The people have spoken.

It's privately owned so does not have the shareholder pressure to keep increasing share holder value.

The do increase shareholder value, just in exactly short-term. The problem with publicly traded companies is not as much wanting to increase the value, but how short is the time horizon, when most owners don't have any understanding of the bussiness other than just handful of numbers every quarter.

>Valve turns evil

Some people and legislators are arguing that unregulated digital gambling is very very evil

If you mean gambling in Counter Strike, at least it's not explicitly aimed at children.

Children don’t play Counter Strike?

Whether or not children play CS:GO/CS:2 is irrelevant. It is a game where 50% of the time you play as terrorists shooting law enforcement, it's very obviously not aimed at kids.

The only way for kids to gamble in CS at all is to either steal a credit card, which is obviously not Valve's fault, or for them to have a Steam gift card. If anything is to be done about the children, I think Valve should just 1) require a users to have a credit card on file in order to buy lootboxes, and 2) require re-entering the full credit card details if the user makes several purchases in a short period of time, in order to stop kids who, for example, memorized the CVV of a card already on file in Steam.

Keep in mind that uploading a government ID would have issues, seeing as in the US a driver's license is not universal, not to mention IDs all across the globe. Maybe there's an alternative form of ID that would work that I just can't think of, but anyways, I'm against needing to upload a government ID to access anything unless it's specifically for governmental purposes.

> Whether or not children play CS:GO/CS:2 is irrelevant

My opinion is that it is relevant... but each to their own I guess.

I was a teenaged boy when I first started playing Counter Strike. Maybe I’m a Luddite but the game is still fun; I feel like you don’t have to gamble or buy 48 cosmetic collectibles to enjoy it.

It's explicitly not aimed at children being rated M / mature and with obvious themes implying as much. Obviously children still play it, but there has to be some level of responsibility on the parents here.

Children are not the only group harmed by gambling.

Regardless, many children most certainly do play Counter Strike.

Ok but as a society we’ve settled on letting fully grown adults partake in some forms of gambling. Are we really equating loot boxes in a mature rated game to casinos that will empty your kids college fund in the span of 12 hours?

My point is that the "think of the children" angle is redundant and reductive. We simply don't need to go there to have a discussion on the pros and cons of lootboxes.

you mean because CS is such a mature community?

Gambling is very different from csgo cases and pokemon cards. One of the insidious aspects of gambling is that people can delude themselves that they can actually get rich from it

I'm sorry to tell you this but csgo has a thriving secondary market where you can exchange items for real money.

I'm aware and I'm not going to deal in absolutes because I'm sure there are a few people out there that do think they can make money from csgo skins but it's absolutely nothing compared to actual gambling.

I'm a former gambling addict, it is very very difficult for me to lose the amount of money I have lost at craps or blackjack playing magic the gathering.

I don't think we can classify all variable reward systems as gambling. Even competitive online chess with elo and matchmaking could be classified as gambling.

I find all this handwringing about cosmetics gambling ridiculous when sports betting is becoming more and more accepted and legal.

For me, if there's some good way to gate kids from participating then gambling with loot boxes should be perfectly accepted. Not that it's good game design, but adults can vote with their attention/money

> if there's some good way to gate kids from participating then gambling with loot boxes should be perfectly accepted

There already is, you gotta have a credit card to buy lootboxes. And while I am not aware of the situation all across the globe, in most places you gotta be 18+ to get a credit card. For a debit one you might qualify a couple years earlier in the US (and probably some other countries), but an easy solution would be for Steam to just ping the bank for info on the age of the customer. However, I am not sure if that would be easily possible, especially if we are talking about API-like approaches.

The only current workaround is using gift cards, but I somehow doubt that kids resort mostly to that instead of using their parents’ credit cards. But at that point, it is on parents, because there are all sorts of ways to solve the problem on an individual level (e.g., get a card with a low limit just for steam, use a paypal account that you have to manually log into for every transaction on steam and don’t give your kid the credentials, etc).

Unfortunately, there is no way one could feasibly stop some parents from just handing their kid a credit card and mentally checking out. And any other solution to the problem that won’t massively inconvenience adult Steam customers seems to be difficult to imagine.

It’s simple to add a child as an authorized user so they get a card.

But at that point it comes down to parents.

I feel most of the “children gambling” people just hate the idea of loot boxes in general, which is fine, but the argument is stronger if it’s honest.

At least here in Australia, Steam vouchers get sold in supermarkets and any one at any age can buy them. I'm not sure if those vouchers work on the Steam market but I'd assume they would (I've never seen anything in the Steam UI to suggest that deposited funds will only work in some places).

In Germany there is a big fat 18+ sticker on the vouchers.

I mean I think that's a bad call too.

Oh same. I think it is far, far worse. Sports betting has a really gross social component where the group applies social pressure to push casual spectators to "put their money where their mouth is", I don't think sports betting at a venue should be illegal, but I also don't think letting anyone place bets with a booky from the drunken comfort of their friend's living room is at all beneficial for society.

I kind of get the argument, even if I'm not fully convinced, that betting is something people are going to do anyway so you might as well codify it and keep it honest, but if nothing else, advertising sports betting should absolutely be illegal, and sports betting should probably still be illegal.

>I don't think we can classify all variable reward systems as gambling.

That's true. thank you for your perspective

Look at the wikipedia page:

> Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elements to be present: consideration (an amount wagered), risk (chance), and a prize.[1] The outcome of the wager is often immediate, such as a single roll of dice, a spin of a roulette wheel, or a horse crossing the finish line, but longer time frames are also common, allowing wagers on the outcome of a future sports contest or even an entire sports season.

CS cases ticks all of the boxes. I'm really curious what your definition of gambling is.

Most children who had pokemon cards bought for them likely don't consider the act of buying and opening pokemon card packs to be life altering or ruining events. I also doubt the average person considers buying packs of pokemon cards gambling. So while it fits the literal definition, it's considered different colloquially.

This is very much unlike slot machines and blackjack which can and do take over people's lives.

People who were raised from childhood with a particular form of gambling as a regular thing seeing it as different than “real gambling” generally isn't surprising, but it doesn't mean that there actually is a real meaningful difference beside personal acclimatization.

Gambling in a casino also doesn't have to be life altering either. In fact there are people who have destroyed their lives opening pokemon card packs. Reddit is literally full of stories. Here is the first random story I clicked on: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonTCG/comments/14uucxy/im_in_3...

>One of the insidious aspects of gambling is that people can delude themselves that they can actually get rich from it

Do you really think TCGs are not gambling? Guess people open MTG and Pokemon packs just for "fun" then.

Why would holo cards, foils, and mythic rares exist? Black Lotus is just a piece of cardboard after all.

I agree, I mean to the kids (And some adults with nothing else to do) the digital items and such are "Getting Rich"

Gambling is literally anything where you pay money to have a chance to win something. That includes all these loot box things in literally any and all of its forms.

As someone who was once addicted to these games, they should absolutely be illegal. We really should not allow corporations to print money with drug dealer methods.

That definition is very reductive. Any competitive tournament with an entree fee is gambling?

Also, the reason I'm against banning such games is because when you look at all the things we find fun, you will be sad to see that a lot of them just boil down to variable reward. That variable reward aspect is what makes it fun.

Competitive games are not based on chance. Betting on the outcome is.

> Competitive games are not based on chance

You would be wrong. Even chess has variance, the better player does not always win.

Then there are games that actually integrate chance as a mechanic and are still competitive.

Not being based on chance doesn't mean there's no element of chance.

If you have no skill or training in chess, there's basically zero chance of you winning.

>Any competitive tournament with an entree fee is gambling?

technically yes. But not all gambling is illegal. because the legal definition of gambling is more precise.

I think that's the part that is forgotten in the discussions because we conflate the casual definition with the legal one.

Have you watched pokemon card opening videos?

laughs in Eve Online

Valve is a private company, so it would probably be after gaben leaves the company

Valve has a history of being pretty anti-consumer, especially in regard to obeying warranty and returns.

They were very early on in pushing “gambling for kids” with loot boxes and microtransactions.

But yeah, exposed screws are cool I guess.

You're right. Steam also charges an atrociously high % of revenue, and yet people bitch endlessly when they have to use Epic Games Store or other marketplaces EVEN THOUGH we espouse so much about game developers being constantly fucked by big companies.

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