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Comment by cowthulhu | Hacker News Reader

I disagree with the statement "The reason game developers are willing to give Valve 30% of their revenue is because the Steam marketplace is packed with super gamers who throw money at games they have no intention of playing."

I believe the actual reason is that Steam has a near monopoly on PC game distribution, and you'll get a lot of hate from consumers if you distribute on competing platforms (Epic) but not Steam.

Taking it a step further - 30% of revenue seems absurdly high for what Steam offers (see the app store for a similar racket), and I hope Valve faces much stiffer competition in the future so they're forced to bring down their cut.

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I like Epic and GOG and have no issues using them for exclusives, but the reason I prefer to go to Steam is because of the player reviews, which the other platforms don't have. I don't know how much moderation costs and whether that justifies their higher percentage, but as a user, they gained my trust in a way that the other platforms haven't.

I think the moderation is almost all automated, Valve has was too few employees to do much manual moderation.

Totally agree Steam is a great platform, I just hope for more competition from other great platforms.

Unlike most monopolies (or near monopolies), Steam and Valve have remarkable levels of goodwill in their user base. The users don’t feel ripped off.

Unlike iOS, alternatives are available, but universally are not preferred by the customer base (except maybe for GOG, which positions itself differently in the market)

30% is outrageous, seeing how profitable app stores are. If Steam charged, say, 10%, it could be the Netflix of videogames because making your own store to get a piece of the pie wouldn't make financial sense.

Maybe 15% if you employ enough people for support or audits. At 10.8 billion profit in 2024 with less than 500 employees, it seems like a racket.

I read that the cost were higher during the physical distribution era, not idea if true or not.

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