this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2024
443 points (98.5% liked)
PC Gaming
8568 readers
346 users here now
For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki
Rules:
- Be Respectful.
- No Spam or Porn.
- No Advertising.
- No Memes.
- No Tech Support.
- No questions about buying/building computers.
- No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
- No Let's Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
- No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
- Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates. (Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources. If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's not like the value added for that 30% tax isn't there. Steam has made so many things so easy that it's easy to forget what things were like decades ago.
If you were an independent game publisher, you had to figure out how to set up a web storefront, a content delivery network hosted in perpetuity, take payments, do multiplayer, add in-game chat, map every weird joystick and gamepad in the universe to your control scheme, achievements, friend lists.... And every game developer had to do that independently because there was no public solution, really. The friction to enter the indie dev space was so much higher.
Also, steam does not force you to use their store- you can generate steam keys and sell your game away from the steam platform. The only thing that they enforce is if you sell it for a lower price elsewhere, they'll de-list your game. Which I think is reasonable.
You can use the same argument about Musk or Benzos as well. Clearly, they are over charging for the value or they wouldn't be billionaires.
Steam could give the same value on 2% taken and Gaben would probably still be able to afford at least one of his 6 mega yatchs. But there's indie companies that are struggling where just an extra 10% would go a long way.
In the end, Gaben and his friends greed is killing indie companies, affecting the quality and amount of games we get and is having a detrimental effect on the industry.
Yet because Gaben has a really good pr team and managed to convince everyone he's "not your average billionaire", we now have comments comparing him to Jesus and applauding his monopoly as being the only good one. Fucking hell.