In the ongoing saga of the Wolfire versus Valve lawsuit, which is continuing, we've been able to see a funny little look behind the curtain and Tim Sweeney was not happy with Valve.
Still, with 30% cut, it was never easier for indie devs to release their game before. Now it’s basically like “you made your own game in your garage or basement in your free time, then you log in to steam, fill some paperwork, set price, upload, and you can start selling copies already as you have link you can share on your social media and everywhere”. Some 20 years ago you’d need to find publisher that would like the game, be willing to invest in pressing CD/DVD and distribute this across the city/state/country/world/whatever. Then you had to market the game in paper magazines, online ads or wherever and hope people will see the ad/review and go to store to buy the game. Then wait for money to run the circle back to you. With much greater cut than current 30%, especially with indie titles. Even like 10 years ago, you’d have to be “green lit” for steam to actually sell your game, meaning you had to beg for a lot of clicks, to be able to put your game on steam.
Point taken, though I’d argue that it is slightly harder than it used to be before Steam opened the publishing floodgates completely, mostly because of the overwhelming amount of games that are ostensibly spam, not that Greenlight was that great a system either. It is, of course, probably quite hard to actually moderate the amount of games that get pushed onto Steam, but many interesting titles do get buried a bit.
I will not argue that Valve hasn’t changed the PC Gaming landscape in a very positive way, both for customers, as well as for developers. I also think that they are using at least some of their profits for some pretty good things.
I just also think that they could be doing some further good for small developers, while not sacrificing all that much profit, though, as I said, I am not really in a position to make an informed judgement on the feasibility of anything like that.
Still, with 30% cut, it was never easier for indie devs to release their game before. Now it’s basically like “you made your own game in your garage or basement in your free time, then you log in to steam, fill some paperwork, set price, upload, and you can start selling copies already as you have link you can share on your social media and everywhere”. Some 20 years ago you’d need to find publisher that would like the game, be willing to invest in pressing CD/DVD and distribute this across the city/state/country/world/whatever. Then you had to market the game in paper magazines, online ads or wherever and hope people will see the ad/review and go to store to buy the game. Then wait for money to run the circle back to you. With much greater cut than current 30%, especially with indie titles. Even like 10 years ago, you’d have to be “green lit” for steam to actually sell your game, meaning you had to beg for a lot of clicks, to be able to put your game on steam.
Point taken, though I’d argue that it is slightly harder than it used to be before Steam opened the publishing floodgates completely, mostly because of the overwhelming amount of games that are ostensibly spam, not that Greenlight was that great a system either. It is, of course, probably quite hard to actually moderate the amount of games that get pushed onto Steam, but many interesting titles do get buried a bit.
I will not argue that Valve hasn’t changed the PC Gaming landscape in a very positive way, both for customers, as well as for developers. I also think that they are using at least some of their profits for some pretty good things.
I just also think that they could be doing some further good for small developers, while not sacrificing all that much profit, though, as I said, I am not really in a position to make an informed judgement on the feasibility of anything like that.