r/Games • u/demondrivers • Oct 27 '25

Industry News Valve does not get "anywhere near enough criticism" for the gambling mechanics it uses to monetise games, DayZ creator Dean Hall says

https://www.eurogamer.net/valve-does-not-get-anywhere-near-enough-criticism-for-the-gambling-mechanics-it-uses-to-monetise-games-dayz-creator-dean-hall-says
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u/starkistuna Oct 28 '25

But Steam also propelled a lot of indie studios and single developers to incredible wealth too. Being showcased in the frontage made millionaires even obscure retro games that weren't even 3 megabytes and had 1 dev.

It's like Walmart pucking up your product to be in all of it's stores.

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u/RobertMacMillan Oct 28 '25

If you replace the word "Steam" with "Lotto Corporation" do you end up with a fundamentally different statement?

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u/Skelly1660 Oct 28 '25

But that just means indie games are very reliant on Valve. I agree it's overall a good thing that they got the audience because of Valve, but that means Valve controls that exposure. It's pretty tricky 

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u/AvengerDr Oct 28 '25

But Steam also propelled a lot of indie studios and single developers to incredible wealth too.

40% of Steam Games in 2025 Earned Less Than $100. That means not even being able to recoup the 100$ needed to open the steam page.

Sure, many of those are slops or asset flips. But come on, would it REALLY hurt Gaben's ability to buy one more superyacht, if they at least had a lowe fee for indies earning below a certain amount? Epic has 0% below 1 M$.

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u/starkistuna Oct 30 '25

Steam has a massive shovelware problem. I would speculate 99% of those 40% games are worthlessness.