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this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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Exactly what is Steam doing now? AFAIK only charges fees sales of games through the Steam platform, from which developers get a LOT of value.
This isn't about that, Apple hasn't fully committed to those plans. This is about their existing rules which have applied to a long ass time.
What value are they getting, other than making use of Steam's market dominance? And having DRM added? And that's worth 30% of their income?
Steam DRM is not mandatory.
Unfortunately being listed on Steam is.
I mean that's obvious isn't it? What would be the point of a developer using Steam and having their game not listed on it? What are you trying to say?
It is obvious. That's the point. Steam dominates the market to the extent that you can't have a successful launch without paying them a 30% tax. This is how monopolies work.
Reminds me of the monty python sketch, "what have the romans ever done for us? except sanitation and roads and canals and public health" lol.
Steam gives devs a huge marketing presence that smaller devs simply wouldn't have otherwise, it gives countless high bandwidth distribution servers that automatically scale to demand, you can integrate the largest PC social community for matchmaking or other multiplayer features, you get a community page where people can post fan content or mods, etc.
That is worth way more than 30% to most devs. The only ones who it's not worth it for are huge companies like Blizzard and Epic who can manage all that themselves, hence why they're pretty much the only ones who don't sell games on Steam.