Dusk: Unpopular opinion: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly
Dusk: Unpopular opinion: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly
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Also key activations cost the dev zero on Steam. And the dev can generate keys for free to sell elsewhere. details here: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
Neat.
A third off the top is still obscene.
The fact 'everyone does it' is worse.
Then developers can release games off steam, and some do.
But steam has many features people want and use that would add development costs if every dev had to make similar tools in house.
Think SteamVR, Steam Controller, workshop, community forums, steam achievements, steam overlay, friends, etc ...
'This thing should be slightly different.'
'Then use something else entirely!'
Some of y'all really do not know how criticism works.
Lol I see you don't have an actual response so you move the goal post
Incorrect.
Weird because I provided actual services and functionality that steam provides in exchange for that cut, and your response was that me mentioning devs do have other options isn't "understanding criticism"
So do you have an actual response or..?
Your response to criticism of Steam was 'there's other services.'
That does absolutely nothing to deflect from criticism of Steam.
Praising their various features comes a little closer, but still doesn't justify taking an entire third of every game's revenue. It takes a whole fucking lot of hypothetical work, which you imagine developers would have to do, to amount to the slice Steam takes right off the top.
What Valve offers that makes companies put up with that is their de-facto monopoly presence. They can sell many copies through Steam - or they won't sell many copies.
So you didn't actually read my comment, cool.
Then developers can release games off steam, and some do.
'There's other services.'
But steam has many features people want and use that would add development costs if every dev had to make similar tools in house.
' It takes a whole fucking lot of hypothetical work, which you imagine developers would have to do, to amount to the slice Steam takes right off the top.'
Lie better.
Do you think it's simple for a developer to create a friends list network, host/moderate community forums, host/moderate a mod website integrated into the game, achievements syncing, ability to share the game with friends, and integrate VR functionality for the above, on their own dime?
These are recurring ongoing costs for server and continued developmental changes, you are severely underestimating the time and money cost to create/host/maintain all those services?