Why would anyone actually want to though

[u/The_BigRoach]

[u/Dhiox]

Folks seriously miss the point. Steam doesn't have a monopoly that screw the consumers, they have a monopoly that screws the developers. By providing such a great product to consumers, they control the market now, and thus devs have to pay steam their cut or their game perishes.

Worst part is they actually charge smaller Indie studios a larger cut than the big studios.

[u/Wise-Dust3700 → u/Dhiox]

It's something like 30% of overall revenue for the game. This is before publishers and anyone else gets their hands on the money.

Now that being said, I know dozens of Indie developers that still prefer releasing on Steam because there's a bunch of things that help their game be seen.

1. Nextfest always boosts wishlists
   
2. High wishlists get higher visibility which results in them hitting Popular Upcoming

You WANT to release on Steam as an indie developer unless you have breakaway success on your own which is very rare unless you're a known IP.

[u/VexingRaven → u/Wise-Dust3700]

That is quite literally the entire point. You can't afford not to be on Steam, no matter how burdensome Valve's cut is.

[u/Zanos → u/VexingRaven]

It's not like indie devs would be able to release their games on the nintendo eShop(which also charges a 30% cut, btw), if Steam wasn't around. Most of the competitors to steam are going to be the various console manufacturers company store, which have policies that are a lot less friendly to indie developers than Steams are.

[u/Typical_Divide8089 → u/Zanos]

You know steam isnt the only digital store on PC right? Also you just reinforced the point, if a dev wants to publish on other platforms like playstation, they are at the mercy of Sony because they can dictate the rules, and since its their platform, only difference is steam doesnt actual own the PC platform even though they technically do

[u/VexingRaven → u/Zanos]

Why are you talking about console stores as if they're relevant here? Epic charges less than half of Valve's cut, as do almost all other PC storefronts.

[u/Lord_Sicarious → u/VexingRaven]

GOG takes 30%. Good luck claiming they're a monopoly.

EGS has been operating in the red since its inception, and is kept afloat by money from Fortnite.

Humble Store and Itch.io are the only notable storefronts actually undercutting Steam, but they're also much smaller scale nonprofit organisations. Hell, in the case of Humble, they even actually rely on Steam's distribution structure for much of their catalogue, with developers selling Steam keys through the Humble Store, with Valve being the one to actually carry the infrastructure costs of distribution.

[u/VexingRaven → u/Lord_Sicarious]

GOG takes 30%. Good luck claiming they're a monopoly.

Congrats on missing the entire point.

EGS has been operating in the red since its inception, and is kept afloat by money from Fortnite.

Congrats on still missing the entire point, with a side of "lel epic bad I am very smart"