Quoting: x_wing

Quoting: scaineI follow a lot of indies on Twitter who genuinely despise Steam. Not just for taking a 30% cut, but for taking that cut and giving almost nothing back. They argue that the lure of the biggest audience for gaming is useless when Steam's algorithms are geared to only highlight AAA or "popular" content.

Valve implemented the discovery queue and curators recommendation. And during the sales, you have to explore the discovery queue in order to get a trading card. At least in my case, I was able to discover many nice games with the DQ.

Yeah, honestly, me too. I think the point is far wider than one or two experiences though. I certainly find many, many hidden gems by following the many, many "hidden gem" curators on Steam. I also get offered a lot of free keys as a contributor to this site, but none, preceisly zero of these gems/keys ever appear on the hundreds of times a week (is that an exaggeration... maybe, but not by much) that I visit the Steam front page.

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Quoting: orochi_kyo

Quoting: scaineI follow a lot of indies on Twitter who genuinely despise Steam. Not just for taking a 30% cut, but for taking that cut and giving almost nothing back. They argue that the lure of the biggest audience for gaming is useless when Steam's algorithms are geared to only highlight AAA or "popular" content.

The same argument and frustration is often voiced around Play and Apple's store - they take their 30% cut but unless you magically put out the next minecraft, factorio or limbo, you're gonna languish with pitiful sales until you go out of business.

So, good luck to the lawsuit. It's doomed though, for sure. I'm no lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that you have to have some fairly hard evidence that Valve actually abused their market position to suppress competition. And the clauses in question have already passed muster in other law suits... so I'm not sure the point to all this is.

LOL, I can't even think why this was brought to the table, the 3 stores/services have something in common, they'll leave almost every game these "poor" devs dare to submit to be there.
SO of course these guys want more attention to their game. Of course, they would like to be in the front all the time. Of course, they hate Steam because Valheim and other quality games appear in the front Store.
Damn Steam showing me Fall Guys, Valheim, or any Total War game in the front store instead of the spinning toy game or those hentai VN's with furry characters, or that horror game where the player gets stuck at doors.
That doom algorythm that show me quality indy games instead of the buggy and trashy ones. OMG please Steam put whatever trash this poor devs submitted so I can complain again Steam is not doing quality checks.

Oof. Okay, you're the third, or fourth/fifth, whatever, to make the "they were shit all along" argument. So... fuck no. They were making thousands.... THOUSANDS... pre-algo-change. Then hundreds post-algo-change. Explain it.

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Quoting: PTLyon

Quoting: scaineThe same argument and frustration is often voiced around Play and Apple's store - they take their 30% cut but unless you magically put out the next minecraft, factorio or limbo, you're gonna languish with pitiful sales until you go out of business.

I'm sorry but that is the case for all creative industries. Most musicians do not make it and will never be able to make a living out of their music career. Same goes for actors. Video games on PC are a very open market, the barriers to entry are getting lower and lower, you even have free game engines nowadays, so anyone can jump in and try his luck. That necessarily means more and more people will not make it, there isn't enough market for everyone. Even if Steam drops their cut (and I think they should), allowing devs to get extra 10% or so won't solve people going out of business due to poor sales.

Yeah, totally true. My only point, which I'm fast-beginning to regret making, is that if a bunch of (for the sake of argument,50) musicians were on Spotify and making lets say £10,000 a month that's great. Rosy. But then Spotify notifies them that they're making a change to how recommendations are made to listeners. They say the change will be made at the end of the month. The following month, those 50 artists are now gobsmacked to discover that £10K a month has become £1K a month.

Ach, no big deal. Probably just increased competition, right? It's an expanding marketplace. Or maybe those artists were just a bit shit all along? Somehow?

That's the argument being made here. I don't buy it.

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Quoting: Tuxee

Quoting: scaineThe point is how they get popular. If the algorithm was fairer for new titles, then indies would have a better chance at leveraging Steam and becoming the next big thing. But since it doesn't, they never hit the front-page and the same tired (but popular) games are constantly regurgitated on the carousel and in the discovery queues.

My carousel:

Total War: Rome - Ark - Rimworld - Under Leaves - Last Epoch - Poly Bridge - Rain on Your Parade - Space Haven - 7 Days to Die - Universim - Project Hospital

Quite a mixture I'd say...

Discovery New Releases:
Battle in the City - ADD - Lair Hockey - Neon Nights (Boooobs!) - Creatura - ....

An endless stretch of indie titles. And in all honesty: neither do I pay attention the carousel (never) nor do I care about the queues. Must have been the first time that I clicked through the first couple of entries.
Interestingly are all those successful indie titles not only successful but also f*cking good. Hundreds of them: Dead Cells, Everspace, Limbo, Factorio, Mindustry, Opus Magnum, Stardew Valley, Terraria, Among Us...
One could say: That's the reason. And not because they got a popular spot on the carousel.

Ah! That's the reason ! That's why these devs, who got thousand plus sales before the algorithm change, suddenly experience less than a hundred sales afterwards? Good to know. Quality of games. Quality... that... suddenly, within weeks... deteriorated exponentially...?

Okay.

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Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: omer666

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: toorI feel now that my money should rather go to Valve than to them for sure.

They haven't been a part of Humble Bundle for years.

Rosen and Graham have been CEO and COO of Humble Bundle up until 2019, and are still in the company today as "advisors" after stepping down. Source [External Link]

I think the confusion is that Wolfire sold Humble Bundle to IGN in 2017, even though the CEO's of Wolfire stayed on the Humble board as advisors, while also being CEO of Wolfire. A bizarre arrangement.

Quoting: scaineThese aren't popular games, but they're solid games that used to get exposure. Now they don't. So the 30% cut by Valve, for these devs, is particularly insulting, because Valve is adding precisely no value. Indeed, many of these indies saw (for the first time, ever, over years) greater sales via Itch, than on Steam.

The algorithm is a real problem indeed, but it doesn't mean the cut is unfair. People these days want to get everything for free and they realise later on why it was so cheap. Steam does take 30% but they inject it back in functionality, infrastructure and (sometimes open source) development.
Epic spend most of their money into buying exclusives, which are AAA games. In the end both consumers and indie developers get screwed but no one seems to care.

I'm tired of arguing this on behalf of the various indies I follow on Twitter, but I'll say it one more time - these Indies used to (past tense) get great value from Valve, by way of large customer base and a tiny bit of exposure to engage that customer base. As of the 2018 change, that is no longer the case.

There's simply no point in justifying a 30% cut by promoting services that will never be used... because no-one knows these games exist, since the algorithm doesn't give any exposure. It used to be a tiny sliver. Now it's not even that.

Personally, I suspect that Valve realised that a non-curated store was a terrible mistake - it led to uninteresting, fringe and plain "bad" titles being surfaced on its front page. Therefore this is simply a way to push those titles to the bottom of pile without actually taking the bad press that shutting them out would generate.

Just a shame it pole-axed the indies at the same time.

Andyou still speak in past terms, still referencing the 2018 stuff.

And now you talk abot the non-curated store that led to "uninteresting, fringe and plain "bad" titles being surfaced on its front page" - what? How many of those unsatisfied devs are actually the ones that people complain about?

What's your point. What are you asking me? I'll do my best to answer on behalf of the devs I'm now apparently defending.

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Quoting: omer666

Quoting: scaineWow... why do you think I keep repeating it?? Maybe because people are constantly parroting the same tripe counter-argument that "it must be competition" or "their game must be crap", ignoring the fact that these devs were previously selling in the thousands, then a day later selling almost nothing. Literally a day, btw. Quite a few devs shared sales graphs of the month it happened.

So why do you quote a post with none of those arguments in it? You say publishing an indie game on Steam isn't worth bothering any longer, I tell you this is true, but it doesn't mean the 30% cut is the issue here, which is the real subject at hand in the lawsuit.

I'm making this argument (on behalf of the Indies I follow) on multiple threads, so I might have lost track of who I was quoting. Sorry. But in any case, my point is that a 30% cut is only justified if Valve add value. They used to, but with the algo changes, they now see no value at all. Honestly, I'm losing track of the various attacks on this position, so genuinely, apologies if I've misread what you're saying.

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Quoting: omer666

Quoting: scaineI'm tired of arguing this on behalf of the various indies I follow on Twitter, but I'll say it one more time - these Indies used to (past tense) get great value from Valve, by way of large customer base and a tiny bit of exposure to engage that customer base. As of the 2018 change, that is no longer the case.

If you are tired of repeating the same argument, why do you keep repeating it?
I read it and acknowledged it, but it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. What I can state is what I obviously see most of the time: people like Steam as a software, as a product in itself, and someone has to pay for it. If you don't charge developers, then you will have to charge customers for the premium features. What do you think is the best compromise?

Wow... why do you think I keep repeating it?? Maybe because people are constantly parroting the same tripe counter-argument that "it must be competition" or "their game must be crap", ignoring the fact that these devs were previously selling in the thousands, then a day later selling almost nothing. Literally a day, btw. Quite a few devs shared sales graphs of the month it happened.

And no-one is suggesting you don't charge the devs. Where did you come up with that crazy idea?? Again, the indies were generally happy before the algo-change. Sure, maybe they wanted a smaller cut, who doesn't?

But after the algo-change, they're screwed, so the 30% cut of now pitiful sales is doubly frustrating for them.

As for a good compromise? Who knows. I'm repeating their arguments second hand. I have no skin in this game. However, I suppose they'd want the algo changed back to where they got occasional glimpses on the front page, whereas now they get none. Just a guess though.

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Quoting: amataiIs it really the algorithm ?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/552623/number-games-released-steam/ [External Link]
There are more and more game on steam, people tends to also buy and play games from a few year ago especially as game tend to get support for years concurrency is not just new game but also all the game released on the last few years. 100 milions players is not that much when there is 40-50 thousand games compared with the one thousand or so DS game for the same userbase.

It's really the algorithm yes. Devs saw their sales fall off a cliff. That doesn't happen with natural growth of the market.

You can't buy what you don't know about. Sure, a bigger market makes everything worse, but it doesn't have an overnight effect on sales drying up.

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Quoting: omer666

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: toorI feel now that my money should rather go to Valve than to them for sure.

They haven't been a part of Humble Bundle for years.

Rosen and Graham have been CEO and COO of Humble Bundle up until 2019, and are still in the company today as "advisors" after stepping down. Source [External Link]

I think the confusion is that Wolfire sold Humble Bundle to IGN in 2017, even though the CEO's of Wolfire stayed on the Humble board as advisors, while also being CEO of Wolfire. A bizarre arrangement.

Quoting: scaineThese aren't popular games, but they're solid games that used to get exposure. Now they don't. So the 30% cut by Valve, for these devs, is particularly insulting, because Valve is adding precisely no value. Indeed, many of these indies saw (for the first time, ever, over years) greater sales via Itch, than on Steam.

The algorithm is a real problem indeed, but it doesn't mean the cut is unfair. People these days want to get everything for free and they realise later on why it was so cheap. Steam does take 30% but they inject it back in functionality, infrastructure and (sometimes open source) development.
Epic spend most of their money into buying exclusives, which are AAA games. In the end both consumers and indie developers get screwed but no one seems to care.

I'm tired of arguing this on behalf of the various indies I follow on Twitter, but I'll say it one more time - these Indies used to (past tense) get great value from Valve, by way of large customer base and a tiny bit of exposure to engage that customer base. As of the 2018 change, that is no longer the case.

There's simply no point in justifying a 30% cut by promoting services that will never be used... because no-one knows these games exist, since the algorithm doesn't give any exposure. It used to be a tiny sliver. Now it's not even that.

Personally, I suspect that Valve realised that a non-curated store was a terrible mistake - it led to uninteresting, fringe and plain "bad" titles being surfaced on its front page. Therefore this is simply a way to push those titles to the bottom of pile without actually taking the bad press that shutting them out would generate.

Just a shame it pole-axed the indies at the same time.

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Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: scaineThe same argument and frustration is often voiced around Play and Apple's store - they take their 30% cut but unless you magically put out the next minecraft, factorio or limbo, you're gonna languish with pitiful sales until you go out of business.

And the solution would be what? Everybody is always screaming for CoMPetItiOn... and when they have that and lose against other more popular titles, it sucks. Go figure.

The point is how they get popular. If the algorithm was fairer for new titles, then indies would have a better chance at leveraging Steam and becoming the next big thing. But since it doesn't, they never hit the front-page and the same tired (but popular) games are constantly regurgitated on the carousel and in the discovery queues.

There's also a huge amount of opacity around how that algorithm works. It used to be "okay" for indies, but a couple of years ago (maybe 2018?) it changed, and multiple indies saw their revenues destroyed. They weren't even being surfaced during sales. It put some studios out of business.

You can't force being popular. No algorithm in the world can change that. It used be be "okay" for indies, because there was less competition. Less games that would take away your attention.

Valve already tries what they can with Game Festivals and whatnot, where they highlight hundreds of games.

Do people complain about Bandcamp or iTunes or Amazon, because their unknown albums and movies aren't able to compete with Taylor Swift and Star Wars?

The algorithm did change that. It's nothing to do with competition. Sure, you can't force being popular, but even 1000 sales for an indie were important and they got those sales, year after year, sustainably. Then the algorithm changed (devs were informed by Valve that this was happening, but no details as to what it meant) and 1000+ sales turned into less than 100.

So, multiple indies reporting that their sales literally fell off a cliff, as a result of this one change.

These aren't popular games, but they're solid games that used to get exposure. Now they don't. So the 30% cut by Valve, for these devs, is particularly insulting, because Valve is adding precisely no value. Indeed, many of these indies saw (for the first time, ever, over years) greater sales via Itch, than on Steam.

Yeah, and they change the algorithm again and they constantly tune it and they have the Steam Labs (they just released the new store to hopefully improve visibility), but when you are one in 50000 games, how is Steam supposed to give everybody the same exposure?

And if they aren't happy on Steam, they can just leave and be successful elsewhere, like Itch. Free market.

They're already on Itch? What's your point here? Mine is that multiple indie devs are aggrieved by a 30% cut because Valve adds no value. Nobody said anything about "same exposure". All the indies want a moment in the spotlight. Valve used to do that, now they don't.

Also, no, they don't change the algorithm that much - they announced this change. And it crippled many indies.

You know what? Maybe you're right, and they do change it all the time. That doesn't change the argument that a 30% cut of nothing is still nothing.

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