At the tail end of last week, Valve announced a new revenue sharing plan for publishers on Steam that simmered all weekend. In a nutshell, the company is reducing its own cut of the sales of games that perform exceptionally well.
“When a game makes over $10 million on Steam, the revenue share for that application will adjust to 75%/25% on earnings beyond $10M. At $50 million, the revenue share will adjust to 80%/20% on earnings beyond $50M. Revenue includes game packages, DLC, in-game sales, and Community Marketplace game fees. Our hope is this change will reward the positive network effects generated by developers of big games, further aligning their interests with Steam and the community.”
Games that earn less than $10 million will continue serving up nearly a third of their revenue to Valve for the privilege of being on Steam. The general consensus is that Valve considers the big games more valuable and is willing to cut them a better deal to entice them to the platform, which presumably increases Valve’s revenue and marketshare overall or Valve wouldn’t do it. On the other hand, it’s easy to see why smaller studios would be a bit miffed by the rich-get-richer scenario.
What do you think about Steam’s new revenue sharing plan?
Leaderboard: What do you think about Steam's new revenue sharing plan? (Multiple responses possible.)
- It seems reasonable to me. (16%, 74 Votes)
- It's a good thing because more big games will come to Steam. (10%, 45 Votes)
- It seems pretty unfair to smaller games. (21%, 98 Votes)
- I don't care that much as long as the games are good and my price doesn't go up. (13%, 58 Votes)
- I don't even use Steam. (1%, 6 Votes)
- This makes me want to use Steam less and MMO launchers more. (6%, 27 Votes)
- Maybe Valve could try promoting small games too instead of burying them in favor of blockbusters everyone's already heard of. (28%, 128 Votes)
- Something else (tell us in the comments!) (1%, 3 Votes)
- No answer / view tally / elf butts (5%, 22 Votes)
Total Voters: 313
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