I’d argue that that is entirely a good thing overall.
It means that Steam is very open to Indie devs (something we already know) that don’t make as much money but are passion projects for the creators.
If they’re making enough from the…let’s call them prestige titles…to be able to afford to give indie devs a place to host their passion projects and maybe get more eyes on it, than I see no problem with that.
No idie dev is going into it thinking they’re going to be next giant thing. They just want to share their work and maybe make a few bucks. And Steam gives them that, PLUS the chance that maybe they’ll be a Rimworld or a Hollow Knight; something that sparks a giant success for them.
I’m not sure how they started, but Brotato came from a very small studio, and rose up to top-played on Steam Deck and some other charts. It made their creators a lot of money, because they were lucky, sure, but also because they made a very good game and had a platform to sell it from.
As far as I know, Valve’s monetisation scheme for developers is also quite fair. I might be one of those fanboys, but I think they deserve it to some extent. There’s much worse players out there, and with the money Valve is making and the market share they have now, they could absolutely be one of the bad ones and not care.
I believe that there’s always luck involved to some extent. You have a very valid point, though, if a game is THAT good, at some point success becomes the only plausible outcome. So definitely not a hill I would die on.
If they’re making enough from the…let’s call them prestige titles…to be able to afford to give indie devs a place to host their passion projects and maybe get more eyes on it, than I see no problem with that.
Valve is a for profit company, you have to pay to upload your games there and they take a cut of any sale. The article literally say that most games don’t make anything.
Sure. You have to rent a stall at farmer’s market if you want to sell your corn, too instead of selling it to a larger distributor. No body is saying otherwise.
The point is that having Steam as an option as an indie dev rather than having to connect to a larger publisher in order to get your work out there, is a good thing. The fact that some titles don’t make money isn’t part of it. It’s the fact that Steam at least allows these devs to cut out the middle man (the publisher). Maybe it’ll work and be a hit. Maybe it won’t. But at least they have the option to try.
No dev should consider releasing their game on the private store/platform of an evil corporation that promotes gambling to kids and who’s ceo is a billionare with a fleet of megayachts. Many devs have no better option because they are trying to make a living and catch up with life (unlike valve ceo who makes billions through questionable practices). If the market is so much centralized around certain publishers and distribuition platforms you can thank greedy corporations that for decades shaped the system to be what it is.
So in your mind, no one who is self-publishing a book should put it on Amazon. No one who is trying to sell their product on etsy should use PayPal. No one who is just trying to get rid of a few things around the house should use Facebook Marketplace… etc…
Welcome to reality. Sometimes the best of a bunch of bad options has to do. Should these companies all be put int he ground. Yes. But if we let perfect be the enemy of good, we never make any progress.
So in your mind, no one who is self-publishing a book should put it on Amazon. No one who is trying to sell their product on etsy should use PayPal. No one who is just trying to get rid of a few things around the house should use Facebook Marketplace… etc…
Exactly, don’t use these platforms they belong to evil corporations who among other things are helping israel government in a genocide
Welcome to reality. Sometimes the best of a bunch of bad options has to do. Should these companies all be put int he ground. Yes. But if we let perfect be the enemy of good, we never make any progress.
You are on lemmy defending corporations, ask yourself, are you making progress?
I’m saying that if you’re an author (for example) that wants to self publish instead of trying to find a big publisher to accept your manuscript, what are you going to do? Email a copy to anyone who wants to buy it? No…of course not. Similarly, if you’re a dev who wants to release a game without going through a big publisher like Activision or Bethesda or whatever…what are you going to do? Other than Steam and Itch.io, there aren’t many places to do that.
Does it suck? Yes. But the reality is that if we want to get our work out into the public, regardless of monetary concerns, we have to roll around in one mud puddle or another. Our only choice (until that changes) is how deep of a puddle we choose to get in.
if you’re a dev who wants to release a game without going through a big publisher like Activision or Bethesda or whatever…what are you going to do?
I write about it here on lemmy
Other than Steam and Itch.io, there aren’t many places to do that.
Why there aren’t many places to do that? How was it in the past? What changed? How you can improve that?
Does it suck? Yes. But the reality is that if we want to get our work out into the public, regardless of monetary concerns, we have to roll around in one mud puddle or another.
To me it sounds like the reality is that you are choosing visibility over doing what is good
So, choosing what’s good and losing visibility would en me up as a non-visible altruist.
Nobody would buy a book from a guy on a street. They’d go to a book store that is owned by a business man who offers books in exchange for money that he pays for the rent of the book store, for the salary of the staff and for himself.
You can, of course, sell on the street. But how much do you think you would sell just in the street compared to a publisher or just a random book store that asked you to pay for them to take some bookshelf space?
Money is where people are. Nobody goes on the streets to buy books. Peoole go to a book store to have variety of choices and to find something that they are interested in. Imagine you’re interested in sci-fi and you’d have to run around the city to find a street book vendor that wrote his sci-fi novel just fo sind out his novel is crap?
You’d go to a book store 99.99%of the time.
Now change “book” to “game”. See the point?
And, if we talk about decentralized. That might as well mean “free”. If the community holds all the games, devs are paid but community is left aside?
Lemmy doesn’t earn money. Maybe only donations. If we sell games based on donations to the service, who decides which dev gets paid and how much? In other words, this would be close to “free to play, ingame purchases” than to an actual game store.
BTW, some devs already locked their games to their own stores so here is this “street book vendor” type devs (more like publishers) that sell their games only there. But their service is crap, and everyone wants to buy in steam. 🤷
I’d argue that that is entirely a good thing overall.
It means that Steam is very open to Indie devs (something we already know) that don’t make as much money but are passion projects for the creators.
If they’re making enough from the…let’s call them prestige titles…to be able to afford to give indie devs a place to host their passion projects and maybe get more eyes on it, than I see no problem with that.
No idie dev is going into it thinking they’re going to be next giant thing. They just want to share their work and maybe make a few bucks. And Steam gives them that, PLUS the chance that maybe they’ll be a Rimworld or a Hollow Knight; something that sparks a giant success for them.
I would argue that a significant amount of them are but that’s not the point.
I’m not sure how they started, but Brotato came from a very small studio, and rose up to top-played on Steam Deck and some other charts. It made their creators a lot of money, because they were lucky, sure, but also because they made a very good game and had a platform to sell it from.
As far as I know, Valve’s monetisation scheme for developers is also quite fair. I might be one of those fanboys, but I think they deserve it to some extent. There’s much worse players out there, and with the money Valve is making and the market share they have now, they could absolutely be one of the bad ones and not care.
Is it luck though?
It’s hard to make a game. It’s much harder to make a good game that pushes all the right buttons.
I play some of these games that probably make well under average, and there are very distinct reasons why they didn’t take off.
I believe that there’s always luck involved to some extent. You have a very valid point, though, if a game is THAT good, at some point success becomes the only plausible outcome. So definitely not a hill I would die on.
Valve is a for profit company, you have to pay to upload your games there and they take a cut of any sale. The article literally say that most games don’t make anything.
Sure. You have to rent a stall at farmer’s market if you want to sell your corn, too instead of selling it to a larger distributor. No body is saying otherwise.
The point is that having Steam as an option as an indie dev rather than having to connect to a larger publisher in order to get your work out there, is a good thing. The fact that some titles don’t make money isn’t part of it. It’s the fact that Steam at least allows these devs to cut out the middle man (the publisher). Maybe it’ll work and be a hit. Maybe it won’t. But at least they have the option to try.
No dev should consider releasing their game on the private store/platform of an evil corporation that promotes gambling to kids and who’s ceo is a billionare with a fleet of megayachts. Many devs have no better option because they are trying to make a living and catch up with life (unlike valve ceo who makes billions through questionable practices). If the market is so much centralized around certain publishers and distribuition platforms you can thank greedy corporations that for decades shaped the system to be what it is.
So in your mind, no one who is self-publishing a book should put it on Amazon. No one who is trying to sell their product on etsy should use PayPal. No one who is just trying to get rid of a few things around the house should use Facebook Marketplace… etc…
Welcome to reality. Sometimes the best of a bunch of bad options has to do. Should these companies all be put int he ground. Yes. But if we let perfect be the enemy of good, we never make any progress.
Exactly, don’t use these platforms they belong to evil corporations who among other things are helping israel government in a genocide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_involved_in_the_Gaza_war
You are on lemmy defending corporations, ask yourself, are you making progress?
I’m not defending anybody.
I’m saying that if you’re an author (for example) that wants to self publish instead of trying to find a big publisher to accept your manuscript, what are you going to do? Email a copy to anyone who wants to buy it? No…of course not. Similarly, if you’re a dev who wants to release a game without going through a big publisher like Activision or Bethesda or whatever…what are you going to do? Other than Steam and Itch.io, there aren’t many places to do that.
Does it suck? Yes. But the reality is that if we want to get our work out into the public, regardless of monetary concerns, we have to roll around in one mud puddle or another. Our only choice (until that changes) is how deep of a puddle we choose to get in.
I write about it here on lemmy
Why there aren’t many places to do that? How was it in the past? What changed? How you can improve that?
To me it sounds like the reality is that you are choosing visibility over doing what is good
So, choosing what’s good and losing visibility would en me up as a non-visible altruist.
Nobody would buy a book from a guy on a street. They’d go to a book store that is owned by a business man who offers books in exchange for money that he pays for the rent of the book store, for the salary of the staff and for himself.
You can, of course, sell on the street. But how much do you think you would sell just in the street compared to a publisher or just a random book store that asked you to pay for them to take some bookshelf space?
Money is where people are. Nobody goes on the streets to buy books. Peoole go to a book store to have variety of choices and to find something that they are interested in. Imagine you’re interested in sci-fi and you’d have to run around the city to find a street book vendor that wrote his sci-fi novel just fo sind out his novel is crap?
You’d go to a book store 99.99%of the time.
Now change “book” to “game”. See the point?
And, if we talk about decentralized. That might as well mean “free”. If the community holds all the games, devs are paid but community is left aside?
Lemmy doesn’t earn money. Maybe only donations. If we sell games based on donations to the service, who decides which dev gets paid and how much? In other words, this would be close to “free to play, ingame purchases” than to an actual game store.
BTW, some devs already locked their games to their own stores so here is this “street book vendor” type devs (more like publishers) that sell their games only there. But their service is crap, and everyone wants to buy in steam. 🤷