| JEMC said: Most respectable publishers and indie devs/publishers only launch a few games every year, usually less than half a dozen, so that scaling fee wouldn't be much of a problem for them. But the important part here is that those shady publishers that flood Steam with garbage launch dozens of games every year (some of them even every month!), so it's them who would get punished the most because that has to be the ultimate goal, to make it impossible for those kind of games and its publihsers to make money from them, thus making them end their actual business scheme. Also, in my example of a scale, I already said that Valve could implement some ways to balance the fee so it doesn't become a problem. And I'm sure Valve wouldn't want to make big publishers angry, so I doubt they'll be forced to pay any extra fee (if at all). |
I think scaling the prices up is completely beside the point. What it should do is scaling down. While there are publishers who put out a huge amount of games at once, most of them are just one timers who are looking for a quick buck. So the very first game should be the highest fee. My proposition is 1000$.
If you're serious about making games and want to earn a living with them, then 1000$ is tiny. Not to mention, Steam will refund this sum if your game sells a certain threshold. If you make a good game and it still fails to sell, there was probably another issue with it and you can either try again or hang up your dream or try to use other outlets. For example creating a free game and publicize it on itch.io to gain some fame beforehand. Making games is a business and it's absolutely fine to undergo huge risks when trying to create a business. Everyone else does that too and it weeds out people who shouldn't run a business in the first place.
I don't even think you would need a fee for more games if your first game was a verifiable success. But if your first game bombs it seems fair to demand the same amount of capital for the second.
I do not believe any developer who is passionate and serious about starting a business will be deterred by a small entry fee. And those that are not deterred are the ones that will in the end make the good games.
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