Valve doesn’t overcharge me.
They provide an excellent user experience. They have one of the few stores where you can actually get reliable user reviews. Their return policies are generous. I’ve never had any problems with fraud or scams. Their search and recommendation functions are pretty good.
To me, that’s a great deal and they’ve earned every penny of their markup.
Vale literally and probably does and has. 30% of revenue is not a reasonable fee for basically anything. That’s a Mafia markup.
Like lmfao, it takes dozens to hundred of devs like 5-7 years to make a game like Baldur’s Gate, and you think that Valve deserves 30% of all of their sales for managing the same basic storefront they built 20 years ago.
That’s absurd.
“overcharge” is entirely in the eye of the purchaser not the devs. Given the difference in user experience between Steam and any other launcher (sadly even/especially GOG), Steam charges less than I’d be willing to pay.
No, it’s a fucking monopoly 30% extortion fee.
Like honestly, have you ever even contemplated running business in your life?
What do you think you pay 30% of REVENUE for? Go ahead and list of out expenses for any normal business that chew up 30% of revenue. We’ll wait to see how comparable they are to the glory that is Steam’s two decade old launcher.
You seem to be operating under some notion that particular work deserves a particular amount of pay. That’s backwards. People pay for what they get, not for what the seller’s cost of goods.
We know that Larian is doing very well financially. Their devs are happy and well paid.
What exactly is the problem with the launcher? It works fine.
smeg@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
And if their percentage was unreasonably high, their competitors would sell at lower prices. Strangely, they don’t. Which tells us that Tim’s complaints are nothing but bullshit.
E_coli42@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They don’t because they are not allowed to. Valve makes game developers sign a contract that if they want their game on Valve, they cannot put it at a lower price on any other store.