| mrstickball said: Monsta - that assumes that the DD website gives them 100% of the revenue. Not the case. Steam is a 60/40 split in favor of the developer. So a $50 game would earn the developer $30. Better than retail, but given the size of the sales base...May not be the be-all-end-all proposition for publishers to make money. |
You completely made that 60/40 number up... while I don't have exact numbers for Steam royalty rates (there's a very strict NDA on such things) numerous actual game developers have stated it's very generous/lower than everything else out there, and they take a smaller cut than retailers:
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/12017-tripwire-steam-does-not-exploit-indie-developers/
http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/casual_games/2009-January/003651.html
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=300537&page=3
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=888033
60/40 would certainly not be a smaller cut than retailers. Another says they have a comparable fee to Xbox Live Communities, which suggests that they are actually lower than even the retail licensing fees of the 360, PS3, and Wii. Valve also varries rates depending on the type of game like Nintendo and Sony (indie games and small games cost less).
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