So thinking what would be a realistic idea … because “i don’t like it there for remove it” isn’t a problem nor a solution …
To meet in the middle of the road with Valve, we would have to combind what they ahve done so far, since, we know they will do …what they have already done.
I suggest a pay scale. Lets call it “Bronze Silver Gold”. users would need to search from inside that cat to see games (or “search within”)
Bronze:
$100 pay in, vote system, 30% cut to Steam, put into the “Bronze” category
Silver:
$2500 pay in, no vote, direct steam, 20% cut, added to “Silver” category, put into “new games” on steam frontpage
Gold:
$5000 pay in, no vote, direct steam, 15% cut, added to “Gold” category, put in “Premier” games on steam front page
I’m sure there can be other incentives and whatnot, just a quick idea of a scale
This allows “poor” people without time or money to develop their own projects to poop into the Steam outhouse, sorry, release their project
Also allows us to “be above” the shovelware guys, letting the pool filled with peasants fill up … lol
Also, players would know if they go fishing in the little pond what to expect. Maybe after X amount of sales, the game moves ahead to the next tier, or, becomes the “premier” of that category …
not bad but I don’t think it would fundamentally solve the problems
first of all I don’t think Steam will ever agree to reduce the cut from 30% since they apply it to big publishers/titles anyway - they have no reason to reduce it. with that in mind, to keep a difference in the % cut to steam per-category I’ll assume a 40% / 35% / 30% cut for Steam for Bronze/Silver/Gold
on to the specifics:
Bronze would be basically Steam Greenlight, with all its problems back (most notably, it’s a cheatable popularity contest rather than an honest voting based on perceived quality). true hobbyists with zero budget would still be buried with the shovelware (given that the shovelware still can make it through, see the popularity contest point)
Silver is like the current Steam Direct but just with a higher entry fee. rich kids can still push their shovelware through, which reduces this category to “pay more to get more exposure” but not really as a quality filter
Gold is like Silver, just in a higher entry and higher exposure tier. again, not a quality filter.
it’s not my intention to just push negativity on your idea, I just don’t think it solves much. sadly I don’t have a better alternative
Real quality can only be achieved with human intervention, directly (checking each individual game for assetsflipper, shovelware, runnability, …) or indirectly (negative reviews, downvotes, complaints, returns, …).
I use “quality” with care. For example, “Goat Simulator” is not what many consider a good quality game, but in terms of gameplay and fun, then yes it’s high quality. It’s a broken game afterall.
A decent sized fee would make the risk too much for your low tier abusers, but there is still a chance the risk is worth it others.
Without some form of human intervention, the issue isn’t going to go away.
That or people mass migrate to GoG Galaxy and Valve suddenly starts losing a bunch of money.
But given the basically print the stuff with CS:GO and the like, I don’t see that happening.
I think the incentive should be for the developer to make a good game, and not pay to play for storefront access.
If they said 2 star games paid 50% publisher fees
3 star - 30%
4 star games got 20%
Top 10 monthly trending indie games get featured in an article, and get an ad banner.
Maintaining 3 stars for first 90 days of the game, or sales pulled.
It would end a ton of the trashiness, as you wouldn’t want to waste your time on recycling a game with bad game play.
You would want to make it as good as you possibly could.
So someone spends 500$ in an asset store, and throws together 3 months of broken garbage.
Sell 1000, and steam takes 500$ while youve spent 3 months time and 500 on the dev. When it gets yanked.
So it would never make it to a digihom, or a shady studio production fiasco.
its not an easy one to solve. the fee might of helped a bit but it has its limits. the idea of charging 1000+ is not going to work and is not a fair system at all.
I take quality very seriously and will not release anything I’m not proud of. I spend many hours a day and years on making a game so when it comes to releasing my game and there is a fee of 1000+ I don have then what… .
I’m now not a serious developer?
is money a measurement of quality from a developer?
This issue will never be solved. why? because what I consider ■■■■ might actually be good from another persons perspective. its a matter of taste.
so even human control is not going to solve it. I think 100 fee is about right to “help” in this situation. but as they already know that it cannot solve it 100%.
They did the right thing here. not a penny more.
The main thing is the commission steam charges 30%. its way too much. it should be 15% to 20%.
The reason I say this is because steam is oversaturated which means it is far less likely that my game will be viewed in searches.
no exposure means that steam is nothing more than a hosting service.
if you sell on steam or not you will still be required to market your game. you can then point potential customers to steams hosting platform or an alternative that is much cheaper.
or you can use a publisher.
True, but from memory, the original idea was that you would get back all or part of the fee you paid once it was proven to be a legit game.
Or something.
I could simply be mistaken
To be honest, I don’t care about how much sh*t is on steam, I rarely ever see it anyway when I look for good new games (which I do in other mediums anyway). All the people calling for a higher entry fee just sound to me like they are angry their games don’t get enough exposure among all the mediocre / aweful titles out there.
Why do you even care about people wasting their money on asset flips and mediocre titles? Just have a look in the mirror, how much money did you spend this month already on stuff that you don’t really need and just bought because advertisement / media told you it’s cool to have?
Or is it that you are jealous they make money with little effort? You are free to do the same any time.
And no matter how many problems come with Steam, it’s still an amazing platform (just think about it, website, forum, workshop, achievments, user friendlist, chat, streaming, servers and serverspace for all the user content, database & synching, … and not to forget payment service, payment security, legal service & fees, … do you really want to do all that by yourself ?). 30% is a bargain for what you get.
Just be happy they offer the small indie devs with no money a chance to realize their dream and stop whining so much. Get better at your marketing game, it’s the same for every other business out there in the world. If you are not good at marketing, learn it, it’s not witchcraft.
I’m unhappy because a torrent of ■■■■ on the (effective monopoly) dominant platform for distributing games serves only to undermine consumer confidence in that platform. The result is bad for both the consumer and anyone who seriously wishes to sell a product on that platform.
I don’t think anyone here is ‘whining’, and certainly many aren’t whining for the percentage steam gets. That’s not the point here. Also it is easy to throw out ‘increase marketing’ arguments when marketing would arguably require far greater budget than the game in question (depending on the cost). The fact is anything in between is like ‘Angry Bird’ a would be a lucky strike, an unplanned success story out of the blue. Even they invested 50 million in marketing to make it an international hit.
Marketing is certainly important and i think anyone serious would take this into account, no one denies that. But to completely ignore steam’s approach is wrong from the dev community.
When EA and co went full gambling and micro on consumers, did they all say ‘if you don’t like it don’t buy it’, perhaps that would be the rational thing to say, after all ‘free market’ right? But in the end people took to the ‘streets’ so to speak and now are making changes that would have these companies think twice about it, which impacts the industry as a whole to the better perhaps, certainly for those interested in their games.
Finally Steam is/was a good platform that’s what made it good for indie’s in the first place, but even a clean bar can get messy and would need someone to remind folks to not get drunk and throw bottles around.
This is an argument I can certainly get behind, it just seems that most people complain about other things rather. Like that the entry fee is too low, which is absurd because it doesn’t even slightly have anything to do with Steams problems for indie devs.
Certainly, the monopoly of Steam is something to be very critical about and I personally have bought only 1 title from them since No Mans Sky came out, because I am still so disgusted that they haven’t even removed the fake gameplay trailer.
However, is it really Steam who is hurting consumer confidence? I still trust Steam not to scam me out of my money and deliver what I pay for. What hurts my confidence is all those indie devs who bring out titles with great promises and then either never deliver (abandonware) or “change” their game so much that it’s a completely broken mess at the end.
But this is, for one part, a result of the masses pouring new titles onto the market, Steam only makes that a lot easier. But without Steam, people would just publish their games on another platform or their own website.
For the other part, it’s the consumers fault for not only blindly trusting game devs, but also for being sheepishly ignorant for any wrongdoings by the studios of their favorite games. Just look at any well-selling game on Steam (or anywhere else), go and try to make any sort of constructive criticism, most responses you will get are personal attacks like you just commited a traitorous act of blasphemy.
It is a general problem of our current state of society and the careless consumerism most believe as the natural way of life. We as consumers have to change our ways of consumption, then platforms like Steam will naturally follow.
But with the current and next generations I have my doubts things will get better any time soon. In a society where it’s still more cool to own an iphone instead of having done some civic service or social activism, and where Youtube channels like PewDiePie are the most followed instead of people who e.g. help others, I am not expecting any change anytime soon.
Sure there is some uproar here and then when companies get too greedy, but do things really change? EA and the likes will backpaddle a littlebit, issues some PR apology and try the same game in a different way a little later. And it will work again, people will buy their stuff, they make millions and so on goes the tale.
Not sure how much sense it makes to discuss fees or human QA, as these are fully in the domain of Valve and they made it pretty clear - they don’t care what we think, they know better.
But to keep this thing rolling. Imho, low fees hurt small devs not only because of the garbage that is released but because it puts very little incentive to approach publishing of your game seriously.
With high fees, someone who can’t afford or risk couple of thousands, would be pushed in the direction of small publisher, loans, private financing and etc. - you know all that boring business stuff that you have to do when you run your business.
Small publishers would help not only with fees but marketing and communication. Even simplest marketing, done by people who know what they are doing can radically effect sales and is better than no or bad marketing. This would help people to learn how to “make games” where production is just 1 out of 10 things you have to do.
The funny thing is, in current situation, low fees are good largely for scammers as they don’t care about marketing. Meanwhile, trust of an average Joe in compulsory buying on Steam will drop so low that even built in review system won’t help as there won’t be anyone to leave a review. We are returning to situation where publishers become necessary again. Thank you Valve, you truly “liberated” game market!
And no matter how many problems come with Steam, it’s still an amazing platform (just think about it, website, forum, workshop, achievments, user friendlist, chat, streaming, servers and serverspace for all the user content, database & synching, … and not to forget payment service, payment security, legal service & fees, … do you really want to do all that by yourself ?). 30% is a bargain for what you get.
QUOTE]
website = well you don’t really get a website do you. And you really should build your own site if you’re serious about making games. its easy and can be learned in a day.
forum = This is not a forum in which you have full control. you can setup a forum in a day. if you’re serious about making games. its easy and can be learned in a day.
workshop = not needed and is more trouble then its worth. I would prefer to put time towards making another game.
achievements = easy to setup your own. a little MySQL and php is all you need. its easy and can be learned in a day
user friendlist = make ur own. easy
chat = make your own. easy
streaming servers and serverspace for all the user content = why waste you time for user content. you will need to monitor this content and its not worth it.
database & synching = be more specific?
payment service = the standard rate is 2.5%
payment security = that comes with any payment provider included in the 2.5%
legal service & fees = what legal services? be more specific. can you tell me when valve has used their legal services to protect a game developer getting sued? maybe its happened many times, its just ive never heard of a case.
Hey if you think its worth it then good for you. later when you’ve actually finished a game after many years of work I’m not sure that 30% will seem so small. that’s 30% of the sale by the way. no 30% of the profits. you better get an accountant and a long talk about what you will really make. your time is not free is it.
