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Tim Sweeney emailed Gabe Newell calling Valve 'you assholes' over Steam policies, to which Valve's COO replied internally 'you mad bro?' (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Digital marketplaces use a near monopoly to extort developers into accepting these inflated cuts. I simply will never accept an inflated rate caused by a monopoly as a good thing. Without that near monopoly there is no way they could maintain a 30% cut.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Without that near monopoly there is no way they could maintain a 30% cut.

I admit, it sounds high to me - like I said above. But I also got 0 clue, for all I know 80% of that are their costs. 🤷 Lack knowledge to judge that. At least in digital space 70% go to the makers, and usually 20-25% remain at the end, not 2%-8% like with physical goods.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I think the high profit margin on digital goods is almost entirely due to the more efficient distribution of the Internet vs a supply chain, not because steam enabled it. If anyone deserves that cut because of the lower cost of distribution it's the people that created the Internet, and thank God they were publicly funded scientists and not corporations.

Also keep in mind that the infrastructure of the Internet charges a usage fee, not a percentage of profit. If I change $5 for a game on steam vs $60, is steam really doing more work to justify a percentage fee?