What do you think of Steam Direct?

Community Community & Industry Discussion
86

The shovelware storm is hitting Valve’s bottom-line really hard, they are losing money because consumers are losing confidence in their platform and buying fewer games (and a number of successful mid-tier developers no longer even use their storefront). It’s more or less an exact mirror of the games market crash 82-85 - when consumer confidence is low, consumers stop buying. In the early 80s this almost completely wiped out the console games industry, and it was caused by an over-saturation of low budget, poor quality releases. Atari allowed almost complete freedom for third parties on their platform - it cost Atari everything and they never recovered. Nintendo on the other hand were highly selective, and went on to massive success. This isn’t a coincidence, it’s an important consideration in market economics.
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Consumers confidence isn’t a big deal when you can easily get a dozen reviews from a wide range of sources in seconds, and there’s a built in 2 hour refund window. Consumers confidence isn’t an issue from the consumer perspective, there’s no problems with Steam unless you want to try to find a gem in new releases or in early access. It’s easy enough to find great games. The problem is from a indie developer standpoint, how do you get a fair shot versus a dozen other similar indie games that just came out in the last few months. Indie devs cannot rely on the store front to help build momentum or a base when there’s a lot of competition and no barrier to entry. But this has been a common issue for the last 2-3 years, here’s enough stories, write-ups, documentations, postmortems, indie talks, etc about that topic. Although cutting the **** games in half might make it easier to overcome that success wall.

Steams bottom-line is another topic all together. Steam doesn’t get as great of sales anymore, EA and Ubisoft all have their own store fronts (which have gotten better) that are pushing consumers away, alternative sites like gog.com and Amazon have been growing quick. Steam is just no longer the only option.

87

The upshot is that using a price barrier as a screen offers no guarantee of success or quality. It only means that someone has access to money. A game should be judged by its originality, effort, and entertainment value rather than by the size of dev’s wallet.

88

Steam mostly uses the Snowball effect. If your game sells well, it gets listed and suggested more, if it keeps selling well, that will happen more and more until it snowballs.

It’s hard to find any solid numbers on how it exactly works, we all know Valve likes to keep things behind closed doors, but from what I’ve heard, if you your game has a higher than average consumer view:purchase ration, that’s when it’ll start getting listed more. But there may be more variables that help the snowball.

89

You don’t pay taxes on business expenses. Imagine a grocery that buys a pound of meat for $9 and sells it for $10 – imagine if they had to pay taxes on the $10 sale price! In fact, the grocery deducts both the cost of goods sold, as well as the cost of sales (salary of the cashier, electricity for the meat cooler, etc) before calculating profits, which are taxed.
(That’s even before considering that a higher fee might actually be recoverable though sales – something like a reverse advance. We’ll see.)

If you’re not in the business of making games that people want to pay for, and if you don’t have a game that you’re confident people WILL pay for, Valve probably doesn’t want you to sell your game on Steam. (And, I’d like to say, I don’t want you to, either. There are other outlets for pure art or friends-exchange works.)
I can tell you with certainty that $100 is not enough of a filter. Maybe $1,000 is enough, maybe not. I’m sure it would be better than $100, if the goal is to significantly raise average game quality on Steam.

There are always exceptions in both directions. A starving artist gives away a gem for free. Or, a mediocre dilettante has a trust fund and more money than sense. But, by and large, good artists should not starve. It actually makes the art output of lower quality and lower quantity, overall, and people who like art, get less art to like, so everyone suffers.

90

Valve doesn’t have to give their shelf space away for free. Valve doesn’t have to deal with people who do not treat making games for Steam seriously.
It may be possible that you and your studio collaborators cannot possibly save up $1,000 in a year, but the question is how you and your collaborators got the computers that you use to make the game? Not to mention the thousands of hours that even the smallest, decent, game takes to make. Minimum wage in South Africal is $1.50. That gives you 667 hours of work for $1,000 – not even a full game. (Minimum wage in the US is $7.25 and in San Francisco it’s $15. Adjust as appropriate.)
If you somehow expect to make less than minimum wage while making your game, again, you’re not running it like a business, and thus a business like Valve doesn’t need to optimize for you. There are other outlets for non-profits.

Anyway, compare to grocery stores. Most large grocery chains will want you to pay a “slotting fee” for them to even consider allocating some shelf space for you. Doesn’t matter how delicious your Curry Sauce is; without a $50,000 slotting fee, you don’t go on the shelves of Safeway. (Repeat for Luckies, Ralphs, HEB, and all the other supermarket chains you care about.) , once you pay to allocate shelf space, they expect you to actually go into their stores and put the items on the shelves. They don’t even do that work for you. (And they don’t keep inventory other than on the shelves, either.)

Like it or not, business runs the world, and business runs on money, and if you’re not confident that your work will make its money back, business is not for you.

Now, the argument is “quality control will solve the problem.” While it’s true that quality control could solve the problem, it has two problems in itself:

  1. If you believe that the market will enjoy (and pay for) a different experience than what the quality reviewers currently prefer, you may be denied even though your game might do well.
  2. Someone has to pay for the quality review. And, the lower the cost is to get into quality review, the more junk the reviewers have to play through, which drives up the overall cost of review.
    If you believe that quality review is the way to go, I recommend you to go to a traditional publisher – they do exactly that; review game concepts and teams, and figure out which games they invest in and bring to market.
91

Luck is Flappy Bird. Capitalising on an unexpected viral video is just good business sense. Coffee Stain were doing just fine prior to Goat Simulator as it stands anyway.

Most games in the 80s had very low budgets and often one or two developers only - but we’re still talking about 30 years ago. It isn’t the 80’s any more and the industry has changed significantly. Nintendo enforced their quality by disallowing third parties access to their platform without licensing their proprietary lockout chips; a literal price barrier to entry on their system.

Valve aren’t very public with their figures, but tools like Steamspy can give you an inkling of what’s going on:
https://twitter.com/Steam_Spy/status/724962898909499392?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

Notably - game sales are down, way down.

Their first and only shareware game was Doom, which was something like their 15th game - by they were already well established and the game was hotly anticipated, the success of the game was n. The shareware version was just a demo, you still needed to order the rest of the game from their publisher if you wanted to play it and iD made no money directly from their demo as it was free.

False. They were largely published by magazines, which was the most common way to publish games in the early 80s, others were commissioned by more traditional publishers.

Indie studios by definition are a legal entity, and as such will likely have a budget since they are professionals (it might not be a huge budget, but it’s there). If you’re making something in your bedroom in your spare time, you’re going to be an amateur or a hobbyist. The word ‘indie’ is has been misappropriated by an awful lot of nobodies making games, which has almost certainly led to the devaluation of the term.

Reviews are demonstrably useless, and consumers have been increasingly losing faith in them. Most professional reviewers are now largely considered untrustworthy, and would rarely touch smaller indie games anyway. Steam’s own review system is littered with fake reviews, mis-categorised joke reviews, and one word useless reviews. It’s one of the other common complaints with Steam. Whilst the refund window helps, it shouldn’t be the answer to a barrage of drivel. Real retail stores don’t willingly sell terrible products because it damages other products in their store by association and loses their store reputation / face. Steam’s digital store is exactly the same.

This is the thing - it isn’t easy to find great games on Steam any more without considerable effort or knowledge on the part of the customer. It’s important to understand that those of us in this forum are not Valve’s average customer; their average customer is considerably less informed and relies a lot more on the store front itself.

In the ten year period between 2004 and 2014, 3827 games were released on Steam - that’s about one game a day, or 7 in a week, easy enough for the consumer to follow. In 2015, Valve stopped curating Greenlight submissions and 2964 games made it on Steam in that year - that’s nearly 60 games a week, which is much more difficult to follow. In 2016, 4207 games made it on to Steam, at this point, this is becoming a real problem. The store has reached a point where nobody wants to sift through literally hundreds of games a month to find the one or two that are worth buying. If that kind of growth trend continued, you could have been looking at over 6000 new releases this year.

92

We have no definition of ‘recuperable fee’ from them. Recuperable only means you can get something equivalent back. Usually, for sales platforms that means your fee is recuperable through the revenues you get from sales, not that they are going to give you your initial fee back through any mechanism. It’s similar to an investment advance for publishing. If you receive an advance from a publisher, their recuperable expense usually means that they get all of the revenues until the advance is paid back. In this case, Steam is likely talking about getting your fee back through sales. Maybe they’ll do that pre-revenue share, but they haven’t said yet, so for planning, it’s better to assume they won’t when budgeting for your project.

Here’s a repost of what I posted over there (note that my numbers do not include the Epic 5% share because that wasn’t germane to just Steam):

I’m not so disturbed by the change in general, but the huge range of potential fees bothers me. I think a low fee per game should be in place, no more than $200. Simply by having a per-game fee, there’s already a deterrent to crank devs who paid the one-time fee, toss out as much garbage as they can to see what sticks. Making the fee prohibitive to entry for new devs does nothing but I believe will discourage innovation as devs will be more likely to gravitate to genres and styles they see making money rather than trying new ideas. There has to be another way to ensure quality. To simply infer that anyone can easily raise a $1000+ entry fee when they are first starting is absurd for many possible reasons that we can’t ascertain without looking at each on a case-by-case basis.

There’s also the fact that, by announcing this without having the plan for Direct ready, available and known creates some chaos for those who are in mid-development based upon financials that assumed the $100 greenlight fee plus a percentage of revenue share (say, 30%). Now adding in a potentially much larger fee throws it out of whack, and if a dev has an existing funding agreement for their game, they may not be able to simply go back and try to raise more funds. They may be contractually limited by their funders in such a way that they can’t solicit additional outside funds. Frankly, I think they should be putting together the plan for Direct but, instead of offering a refund for those who previously paid the fee but haven’t published a game yet, give them their first game without the entry fee and stick to the percentage of revenue share. After that, they have to pay the fee for future games.

I’ll give you my circumstances, and am not doing so as a ‘woe is me’ tale but simply to show how this impacts a specific developer and why thought needs to be given to other new indie developers. In my case, there’s some background to be had. Ten years ago I had a six figure salary with bonuses working in IT. At that time, even paying a $5k fee wouldn’t have been an issue because one bonus would have covered it. Most people don’t have that, and thanks to cancer, I ended up not having it either. A multi-year protracted battle with cancer cost me my job, my savings and my health. To this day, I am still paying off medical debt (and I had good insurance when it all started). Flash forward to when I paid the Greenlight fee. I was ready and rearin’ to go, but my cancer returned and I had to put all of that aside. A couple of years ago I decided to forge ahead as best I could, but hit a brick wall in that it’s hard to find investors when you have to acknowledge you may not live to see the game completed. The same issue applies to a Kickstarter or other fundraising. Additionally, there are those aforementioned medical bills, so gaining additional credit is an issue for anything, let alone to publish a game.

Late last year, after I had beaten back the beast again for who knows how long, some very close friends pooled funds together to give me a shot at making the game. They stretched themselves to do it, and expect revenue sharing once the game is published. They know the risks from my health, but not those from Steam changing the fee structure. What they were able to pull together for me could cover a $200 fee without being too harmful (it would eat most of the promotion budget), but anything beyond that affects the quality of the game, because there’s no more funding well to go back to and funding equals time. Which means taking shortcuts on game functionality, Q&A, etc. For this indie dev, the fee structure means the difference between making a game of quality, making a game of less quality (which is what Steam is supposedly trying to stop), and just ending the game development now to cut the funders losses. It’s a bad position to have been put in at just halfway through the funds.

Let’s go to the next part of this, which is your ROI. Let’s assume a $2500 entry fee to split the difference in the ranges discussed. Let’s also assume a 30% revenue share with Steam. Finally, let’s assume that the cost of development is $10k. So you begin with a $12500 loss (as you haven’t sold any units yet) and need to account for revenue sharing. Finally for the setup, let’s assume that being a new dev wanting to have a chance to show quality before charging more, decide to price your game at $20 per copy.

Without accounting for your funders share or taxes, you need to sell approximately 894 copies before you’ve made a profit –

Per Copy Game Price: $20
Entry Fee: $2500
Game Dev Cost: $10,000
Steam Per Copy Share: $6 (at 30%)

Copies Sold: 894
Revenues: $17,880
Profit: $16

Now add in an additional 50% revenue share for the funders and you’d have to sell a total of 3,125 units:

Per Copy Game Price: $20
Entry Fee: $2500
Game Dev Cost: $10,000
Steam Per-Copy Revenue Share: $6 (at 30%)
Funders Per-Copy Revenue Share: $10 (at 50%)

Copies Sold: 3,125
Revenues: 62500
Profit: 0

According to gamesindustry.biz, the average number of shares sold per game last year was 7,188 vs 13,655 the year before (Average Steam game sales plummeting - Steam Spy | GamesIndustry.biz). So assuming a new game of quality has modest sales at best because it’s a niche game from a less popular niche, they may only hit that break-even point. Add in taxes, and it’s a failed game.

Even if the game sells the average number of copies, after taxes, it’s likely to not be enough to even fund another game of similar size and scope, let alone allow an indie dev to live off of. Now, I look at the long-tail of sales and assuming a number of games produced with a decent long-tail, and with enough games, you might survive as long as you get funders each time, but for that first time? It’s a deterrent, and as much as we all hope to have incredibly successful games, the reality is that the average is still ‘the average’ and we need to plan around it.

So I think the barrier to entry should remain low so that indie devs can get started. There has to be another way to ensure quality.

93

One of the suggestions posted in the announcement discussion thread was to have all games be required to have a free playable demo. I think that’s a good idea. I also think that there are some over there conflating early access with finished games, and I think both need to be addressed differently. E.G. - an early access game might have a higher fee than a completed game, to discourage the EA titles that just take what they can get and shut down.

94

So did they know before hand that the video would become popular? Sounds like luck to me. With some good marketing skills. (Like jumping on an unexpected viral video… Pretty lucky for them that video became viral…)
But this I guess is open to interpretation.

It’s the current year! So everything must be different?
It was their version of quality control. Everyone still had a chance given the market at the time.
There is crud on the playstaion Xbox and wiiu. all have lockout methods. We are talking about what the company decided was good for their system.
And also… Their were a lot of non approved games that got past the lockout chip.

What? keem, wolf3d, quake, and many other earlier releases such as catacombs3d, tank3d and the dangerous dave (I think dangerous dave…) games were shareware. (Not including thousands of other shareware games by other companies.)
Just go and download some of the shareware releases and see for your self. (I happen to own all of these of disks and floppies I bought years ago… I’m pretty sure they are real.)

Forgot about magazines. So you are right on this one.
But most of these magzines did not charge them a cent. They simply looked to see if it was good published it! Or bought the rights entirely. Like sub nodule by Romero, he sold it for $250 to the magazine.

That’s fair. Legal and all that good stuff.
But I guess all us hobbyists and Amateurs are a bunch of nobodies. That’s always nice to know.

I don’t know… Before I buy a game I definitely go and read the reviews. Wouldn’t you?
And if you can’t recognise a joke review… Egad that is pretty bad.

A reason we read reviews right? Or is the ‘average’ costumer not smart enough to read them?

A good reason to implement better quality control.
And a better marketing team at valve promoting the best one’s.

95

That’s actually a great idea!

That’s how we used to test if games were any good a while back!.

96

It’s a requirement for any game being considered for the XBox Early Access program. For myself, I’m working towards getting my playable demo ready for release later this month (not on XBA - just in general), but this change means I will be turning off multiplayer and achievements in the demo because right now it’s tied to the Steam SDK, and if I can’t afford the entry fee, that will all have to be replaced.

97

Well I wish you luck on you’re game!

If you couldn’t afford it you will have to replace it! Dang, you have way more at stake most of us here! Feels for you man.

98

Thanks! To be fair, my playable demo will likely get greenlit prior to the changeover, but I’ve been waiting to even start the greenlight process until the demo was ready so that I’d have something solid to show. I just don’t want to put up something dependent on Steam and set a false expectation just in case I’m wrong.

99

I think it’s a good thing. Removes the shady dealing going through greenlight trying to get votes. The amount of key giveaways for other games etc. May also keep out some of the ‘my first game’ titles from coming on the platform. It not going to solve all the problems but it’s a good step i think. Can’t see it being something like 5k but 150-500 I would think is OK price. If you’re not expecting to get that from the game is it really needing to be on steam in the first place.

100

Finally you have to pay per title, I can see how many people abused that, I had the same plan :3 Also, a generally higher paywall will remove a lot of s<3t. A lot of people assume if they release a game that they put “some work” on will easily get that 100$ back and in the best case they don’t have to work for their entirely life again. There is not much to lose for a lot of people. I don’t think a higher paywall will destroy the indie scene. It will give people who take their afford to publish a great game more exposure.
However, since Steam won’t get rid of 1 hit wonders, because there is still a s<3t ton of money involved, they should implement 2 categories for games that are 1. “trash from hobbyist” and 2. “trash from hobbyist that think their stuff is actually good by paying money to us + AAA games”. Youtubers can go into the first category and play lotto finding a stupid a<3 game that entertains millions of people and the more serious player who wants to stimulate his elite brain can go for the second category. Easy as that. Also, if Steam can manage to give russians lower prices for games, it can give other developers from poor countries a lower paywall for their games and give us a filter option for that just to be sure (hopefully the added paperwork will make sure you can’t easily release a game from bangladesh if you are not a citizien there :D). Now, can I be promoted for this flawless idea?

101

People over-complicate simple things.

They should just remove self/individual publishing and only accept game from LLCs.
Opening a company is not expensive, and shows you are serious about what you’re doing; no fee would be required from Valve.
If individual cannot stabilish his own company, find a publisher, there’s dozens out there.
Kill Early Access, that is a disease that came to life with the advent of Minecraft; just… bring back shareware demos, remove Early Access.

And that’s enough to solve a ton of current problems; kind of simple, really.

102

Demos are horrible from a developer perspective. There’s a decent Extra Credits video on the topic, Demo Daze - Why Don't Creators Make Game Demos Anymore? - Extra Credits - YouTube

And if every game had demos, there would be a giant chunk of potential consumers that would just play new demos every week and never buy any games. I personally would probably spend most of my gaming time playing various demos.

I really don’t think early access is a problem, at least for certain types of games. Typically games that would need a lot of play testing and have good replay-ability.

Darkest Dungeon
Nuclear Throne
Don’t Starve
Prison Architect
Kerbal Space Program
Factorio

They all benefited from long early access periods. Maybe just have more curation and content requirements for early access.

103

In my country opening a company is very expensive and taxes practically double.

104

If you can’t legally stabilish your own company, make a deal with a publisher;
Steam should not be a place for people to publish personal projects, that is a place for commercial games.
Individual publishing is the root of the problems really, even for the individual publishers themselves.

105

I agree with almost all of what @ambershee said.

I hope it will be something around $2k, maybe a bit more.

Steam could also create a “trash” section where games can be released without a fee, but by default people don’t see games from that section in the regular steam store, so they have to opt into seeing those games.

I also read through what the people in the unity forums think about this (there’s the same thread like here), and actually they are a lot more positive about it. Probably because Unity people are burned a lot more by the bad reputation their engine gets from all those trash games on steam.