this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
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Steam Hardware

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[–] realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 1 points 2 hours ago

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?

Yes. But nobody knows. It certainly is lower. But again, and this is the last time I say this: A service needs to be finanically successful. This business is more than just it's operating cost. On top of that, I'll say this one again: The service is just worth it. Nobody in the world offers such an easy handling of the entire distribution chain combined with such a massive audience.

“Thats just the way things are” isn’t an argument.

While that's true, that wasn't my argument. My argument is that 30% is usually a fairly decent sweet spot for a platform when it comes to running a distribution system. I've build quite a few marketplaces in my time, and the standard fees were between 20% and 40%, all depending on how much work the platform had to do.

Again, there isn’t a choice (for developers).

There's plenty of choice. You can choose not to sell your game on steam, put it on the EGS exclusively and accept that you're never going to reach the audience you'd do with steam. Now you just gotta figure out if the lesser sales at 12% are more profitable than the more sales at 30%.

What do you define “defending” as?

You make defending sound like I'm a company white-knight that'll defend a company from any wrongdoing ever, which simply isn't the case. Valve does some shitty things and I have called them out for it. I just don't think the 30% cut is bad in any capacity.