this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2024
1248 points (99.3% liked)

Technology

60067 readers
5098 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works -1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

The devs determine they need to sell X copies at Y$/copy, they then calculate what Valve's cut will be and add it over Y$

Example: You think you'll sell a million copy and want to make 10 millions to recoup your cost and make a profit so you need 10$ per. But the truth is that after everyone else gets their cut (publisher, distributor, taxes...) you're left with about 50% of the sale price going to you, that means your need to sell the game for 20$ to end up with 10$/copy going to you. If everyone else had lower margins and you got 70% of the sale price ending up in your pocket you would need to sell your game for 14.30$ a copy to end up with 10$ going to you. Everyone else in this example are the people who aren't part of the actual development cost, their margins are huge compared to the amount of work they accomplish, the proof of that is that they're making billions in profit, profit is revenue - cost, their cost is basically nothing, hosting content and distributing it costs peanuts these days and prices are only going down, so their profit is actually increasing passively over time. Because the devs need to set the price at 20$ instead of 14.30$ you're paying 5.70$ more for the same product and that 5.70$ is all going into the pockets of people that had nothing to do with actually creating the product you're purchasing.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

How is that different than selling anything else anywhere? You've picked a strange hill to die on, and your reasoning doesn't even fit.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works -2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It's not different, when did I say it's a Steam only issue?

[–] Harvey656@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

With your one word reply to the post.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I just added one more example that no one talks about. Find one of my comments where I say the other examples weren't just as guilty.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Oh now you haven't only been harping about steam for the last 12 hours? Now the problem is that everything is a monopoly? Lmao ok

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works -2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm talking about Steam because that's what this part of the conversation is about, funny how that works, right? I'll be the first one to call out any company who's owner/c-suite are billionaires. If we want to talk about PC gaming specifically then Epic is no better, neither is GOG. Decentralize that shit.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago

Ok kid. Have fun.