If you sell steam keys through your site you can't charge less than the steam price. In order to sell it cheaper on their site, it would have to be a non-steam version and they'd have to serve up the files themselves. If it's a multiplayer game it wouldn't be compatible, they'd need to switch to EOS or something else. realistically speak, developers could probably charge a bit less by providing that their own. it doesn't cost 30% to serve up the files and process some payments.

[–] bitwaba@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

it doesn't cost 30% to serve up the files and process some payments.

No, it doesn't. It also doesn't take $5 to make a cup of coffee, or $10 to make a plate of pasta, or whatever Netflix charges every month to serve up mundane low quality streaming video.

But unless you're proposing ending capitalism to fix the problems with valve's pricing model, there won't be any change to it any time soon.

The only thing that will get valve to have more competitive pricing for video games publishers is if they have actual competition that can siphon away games from their platform. It's not valve's fault that everyone else has made inferior products.

And there's nothing forcing you to publish on steam. If you don't think 30% is a fair exchange for handling file distribution and payments, you can handle your own file distribution and payments. Your game isn't forced to be on Steam.

[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

or whatever Netflix charges every month to serve up mundane low quality streaming video

Netflix isn't the service I'd point the finger at for low quality streaming video. That would be Amazon. They don't even have the problem that Max has where it always starts low and then evens out by the time the recap is done.

[–] Silentiea@lemm.ee 0 points 9 months ago

In fact, I'm fairly certain you're allowed to do both: sell your game for 25% less while hosting and processing yourself. You just can't sell your steam codes for less.