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this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
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Steam Hardware
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I'm not defending them. I'm saying that a service has to be financially successful, something that many people on lemmy seemingly forgot after reading too much Marx. Are they making more than they need? Absolutely. But the value they are providing is just worth a great deal to devs and I just don't think that giving up 30% of your sales is a bad deal for handling the entire distribution. I've worked in E-Commerce for over 10 years now and 30% is like the standard fee for this kind of stuff - in many industries, the fees are way higher.
So, COULD they charge less? Very likely. But I don't really see why. The service they provide is just worth that much. I think it's a fantasy that companies can suddenly start to charge less just because they already have a lot of money.
Afaik, theyl aid off people across the entire company. The reason was a reduction in fortnite money, but the layoffs were even across the UE development teams.
You can. I just don't agree with that criticism. Valve does shitty things at times. The fact that they are really opaque when it comes to algorithms and support decisions is shit, the price parity rule, while being standard in the industry, is shit and the lack of control for early access games is pretty shit - we can criticize all that and more.
And yes, you can also criticize the 30% cut. That's your right. However, I'm just not agreeing with that stance. That isn't defending a company, even tho you're trying to frame it as such. That's just me having a different opinion. And you trying to frame disagreement as "being loyal to a company" is a great way to completely stifle a discussion. Why even argue at that point, just insult me and move on lmao.
No, the comment above brought up the stupid argument to defend them. You implying they need to to remain solvent is defending them too. How many yachts does Gaben have? How generously are the employees paid? Clearly they're making more than enough money with 30%. Where that number would need to be to not make a profit is unknown, but it's certainly far lower. You can understand this, right?
I said this already, but this is assuming the sales wouldn't happen if Steam didn't exist. I doubt it. The sales numbers would be approximately the same, provided by someone else. They just have almost full market domination, so you don't have a choice but to sell on Steam. It isn't because it's so great for the developers. It's because they don't have a choice.
"Thats just the way things are" isn't an argument. "Slavery is just the way we do things! You can't say it's bad! We wouldn't make a profit otherwise!" Not a good argument, right?
To help developers. It seems like you're purely capitalism brained. My argument was that it'd be better for developers. I didn't say they'd make more profit. There's a lot of bad things you can do to make more money. It doesn't mean you should. It'd be good for the industry if they charged less. It'd allow smaller studios to make a profit for more niche games.
Again, there isn't a choice (for developers). It makes it worth it in the same way it's worth it to hand over my wallet when someone points a gun to my head. It doesn't mean it's the best outcome for the developer if other options were equally viable.
IIRC, no. It was Fortnite specific.
What do you define "defending" as? You're making arguments supporting the behavior. Who in the world wouldn't define that as defence? I'm not framing it as defence. It just is.