How & Why Steam Makes So Much Money

[@JamesDeal1982]

Totally agree. 30% is ridiculous. But they're Steam. PC Gaming owes its life to Steam.

[@williamfisher4037]

So true

[@awesome9174]

30% is pretty normal.

[@gilianderp2033]

30% is not normal for someone that didn't make the games.

[@fantasyfan998]

30% is steep however it's the norm. Apple, Google and Microsoft all take 30% on sales in their app store. It's unfortunate but it also provides an install base and advertising for the developer. It's a necessary evil I suppose. However, Apple started all of this with it's app store taking 30%. I think 15 -20% would be fair, but the community and features steam provide are nice to have.

[@fantasyfan998]

Alison Sanches Krinski I wouldn't say PC gaming owes everything to Steam. But you cannot deny before Steam PC gaming was highly fragmented. Steam essentially established a PC gaming community like an Xbox Live or PSN for PC.

[@Bargomorphic]

They can count to the billions, yet they can't even *count to three*.

[@viking8796]

0 to 100, real quick...

[@alomonwo]

fo show

[@BoxTM]

1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 billion...

[@garrettwelsch5328]

Half life three confirmed

[@Darkel.375]

1 2 billion

[@BlackEagle352]

The thing I hate the most about Steam is the fact that I still can't seem to find Half Life 3.

[@ZaidA4K]

Valve is making lots of cash so they don't need Half-Life 3

[@esc5085]

but we do ;-;

[@buckrodgers1162]

The thing(s) I hate about Steam, Here goes... 1: The Steam support department is more of an question than a department. That question being, "What support?". 2: It is the crappiest client out there. Now I'm not saying that "I hate Steam", but it has had so many things that fail to work as intended that it is pathetic. For instance a while back a few of the games in my library Steam refused to launch because it gave me an error of "The exe is missing". When I launched the game from the exe itself. Umm what? 3: Steam voice is complete shit and it has not seen any improvement sense it's addition. With VOIP programs like TS3, to name one, and Steam can't do a tiny bit better than what it has? But all in all yes, Steam has given PC gaming a true name and has made it what it is.

[@ZaidA4K]

you know why Steam matter ? because it a Community, you can't find that anywhere else, and Steam is almost the only Client that supports Indie developers, and its the only client that supports Mod developers. Plus The Steam servers are actually great they allow you to share pica & videos and podcast your game and it also has this special UI that makes it like a Pro console's interface. there are a tons of stuff that steam is great on, like the discounts and steam deals and refunds, those are good actually, and it's more than just that, you cant just kill steam, even Microsoft can't

[@williamhawkins6504]

Well what I hate is my steam guard code more specifically how it did not work and how valve did jack shit

[@VladiSSius]

What I love about Steam? 90% discount. What I hate about Steam? 5% discount. srsly

[@reallcy]

I love coupons, got a 90% off portal 2 and a 90% of The Binding Of Isaac.

[@jingyu97]

or stupid triple A franchise games that earn tons of money (top seller) that sell start from 60$ that barely get good discount even after a few years

[@Yomismo28]

+Yagami0128 (cough)Call of Duty(cough)

[@jingyu97]

Yomismo26 u got me :D i fucking meant cod

[@GamingXPOfficial]

Cairo Murphy u guys know out last is 4 dollars 80 percent off im buying it steam is awseome

[@FurryDanOriginal]

People writing here 30% is ridiculous... They probablly don`t know youtube takes 45%

[@Zuhma]

Google takes it. Not KZbin. But who cares. Because without Google, NOBODY would be making money off KZbin. Now since Google bought KZbin, people have careers on KZbin now.

[@FurryDanOriginal]

Bunlick KZbin belongs to Google, so it's the same.

[@DJTimeLock]

the government takes 50%...

[@klubstompers]

The military takes 50% of all tax dollars.

[@MrToren01]

actually its around 2/3 i believe but its not like we actually see it since most of it goes into developing stupid shit 80% of it which will never see the light of day, im in the national guard and all we ever hear about is budget cuts every single month.

[@kalamaroni]

"Steam takes 30% of all sales revenues." Saved you 8 minutes there.

[@YT_Keiji]

B-b-but, he said it was more complex than that... XD

[@Zood94]

Yeah, something about family, friends and time

[@s4iL_]

thanks, gave me time to jerk off

[@teddycouch9306]

I agree. This video is rambley af

[@jasonxjay3955]

That's what I was thinking.i just watched that whole video thinking there was going to be some unknown reason why steam made money,oh and there isn't.downvore video because it's absolute crap

[@SilverAura]

As a developer publishing on the Steam platform, I can say the claim that Valve requires all content to be some form of DLC is out right wrong. It's not required or even actively encouraged for free content. It's just a lot more convenient to make official content DLC for the same reason the game is on Steam to begin with - ease of distribution and ease of access for the end user. I'm building workshop support for my game, not because Steam requires it, but because I know I'll make for a much better experience building and sharing content in a single location that's almost entirely handled via the 30% cut Steam takes to manage all the backend stuff. If Steam required this level of control, modding would be impossible outside of Steam but it's not. Games like Skyrim can not only be modded but whole portals like Nexus exist purely for the purpose of externally modding the game. And in some cases, script extenders even require that you initiate the game outside of Steam since Steam doesn't know any better than to just start whatever EXE file was picked by the developer to be the "main game". Hell, look no further than Don't Starve to see that not only is modding external content on Steam games possible, but it doesn't even break compatibility between the two versions. Mods made for the non-Steam version function perfectly on the Steam version and assuming mods aren't exclusively released on the Workshop on the Steam version, they'll work perfectly fine on the non-Steam version. Hell, the mod files on Workshop versions aren't even different - they just can't be subscribed to and downloaded without owning the game. The files downloaded via the Workshop can be extracted and will function perfectly fine outside of Steam. I enjoy your videos but this bit of information is VERY misleading. Notch refused to release Minecraft on Steam purely on the grounds of not wanting to share a cut, and because he was doing perfectly fine on his own. It had nothing to do with Steam restrictions.

[@marinesciencedude]

Notch also knew that there were many self-publishing game devs that were inspired by Minecraft's self-publishing and therefore knew that putting it on steam would erase that reputation.

[@SilverAura]

marinesciencedude I don't think Notch was at all concerned about how his self-publishing affected the morale of other developers looking to self-publish or how an alliance with Steam would impact his reputation. He did sell it to Microsoft after all.

[@RookieN08]

I am very surprised how a Valve developer has time to post a comment on KZbin considering that Valve only has like 3 people working on the biggest PC platform, biggest E-Sport games and many other more Valve games. Valve could have used my apartment as their headquarter.

[@SilverAura]

RookieN08 Oh I'm not a Valve developer. I'm just a developer who's using the Steam platform. Worry not though, I adjusted the wording of my original comment to clarify that.

[@MaxContagion]

The only thing I remember reading on it released by notch was that steams terms wouldn't allow mojang to have the interaction with the community he desired. Not for sure what all that meant. Pretty sure that modding was never a issue for putting it on steam. The closest example I can think of is Terraria. It not only has/had modding support but some of the mods were equivalent to launchers that enabled and supported the mods and didn't require steam after the initial setup. That was when the game was only on steam as well. The best example of modding support I have seen on steam is Space Engineers. Space engineers lets a person load mods per save. The don't starve together is a close second. Mojang is looking shiftier more and more. Mostly do to the fact that they aren't keeping any of their original purchasing agreements. No modding API. No free update, expansion, ect for the life of the game. on and on. The closest I have seen was the free version of W10 minecraft for anyone that owned the java version. I am pretty sure that was a marketting stunt though. Pretty sure they won't keep the agreement to go public source either. Though the terms for that were rather loose.

[@avibest]

I love how you are using falcon pics to show emotion now lol

[@navonmyhand7999]

Me too. It's a nice touch.

[@lucadefranco3420]

And Danny Devito

[@benjaminwinter6988]

Yes, it is a good idea. Really kind of funny to. Of course, that was probably the point behind it.

[@harpreetkhattra7819]

H

[@OniricChef]

As a developer with a product on Steam, I can easily say it like this: Would you rather have 70% of a lot, or 100% of very little? The amount of people that use Steam on a daily basis, is the sole reason poor developers like myself are not working for corporate overlords, but instead can still have a steady supply of ramen, while working in our underwear at our own respective studio mini-apartments.

[@princestevenii.772]

Dude what's your game?

[@PASSPORTKING2106]

Yea bro what game you got?

[@cluelesscastelino150]

I wanna help tell me your games name So I can buy

[@niallmaw197]

Maybe you guys forgot about the multimillion dollar server equipment they need to have up at all times. Not to mention maintenance.

[@russeldioneo5187]

my favorite part about steam: steam summer sale!!!!

[@chancemcclendon3906]

Thats why summer is my wallets least favorite season

[@russeldioneo5187]

ChanceofAwesome Good one

[@DeluDreamer]

I'm waiting 4 weeks for the next sale. Can we just have sales forever?

[@SpoopySquid]

+Delusional Dreamer but if every day's a sale... no day is

[@algirdz]

I like Steam Winter sale too, it is great

[@rspy24]

30% is fair. Humble Bundle is just a store, they sells pretty much keys(with some exceptions) for others platforms, so, at the end of the day you will still use steam servers/bandwidth, also steam is not only a store, they also help you with the marketing, distribution, pricing and all that TAX mess around different countries (which is a nightmare if you are doing it alone), they have a super easy setup for Multiplayer games, I mean, did you know how much is the cost to have private servers for a multiplayer match ? A LOT (money and programming knowledge)! and with other companies you HAVE to pay at least the first month in advance, with steam, that service is already included in the 30% and it's valid for life, even if you are not selling any more copies of your game.. At the end of the day it's EASY and cheaper to make a game now with steam.. AND 30% is nothing against the 5$ developers used to make back in the day, with retail disk and full 60$ price.. so yeah.. I mean, there is a reason with steam is so beloved.. right? -And about this video.. You said "there is more than the 30% with steam!" but you NEVER talk about it! How about the ingame purchases? games like TF, CS, Dota make MILLONS every month! Also, they keep 10% of all the Community Market items! and how about the revenue of the steam controller? link? VR? source engine license?

[@ahoy_11]

D

[@YoItsDillan]

yeah I'd really like to know how much they make from the community market.

[@RiverVink]

+YoltsDillan nothing, it's virtual money. They take a cut of every transaction to limit inflation.

[@sarahkerr6049]

nope isnt why is it not 50%/50%

[@arturofernandez4058]

Isn't the source engine free if you publish the game in steam and make less than certain revenue?

[@kysle1885]

I read notch's autobiography he didn't pit mine craft on steam because he missed his flight to the US for the meeting and then never got around to scheduling a new meeting

[@LaughingWasabi]

Why Steam will always be better than Xbox Live and Playstation Network - its free

[@itsTyrion]

good ne. And I say that while having an Xbox 360 next to me.

[@jenot7164]

Free? What?

[@PIERCESTORM]

But you have to pay for your computer

[@PIERCESTORM]

@Neon Xbox Live is free, Xbox Live Gold isn't

[@matthewhay2038]

One of the reasons I'm saving for a high end pc

[@bagandtag4391]

Valve is probably making some crazy ass scientific experiment or a huge spaceship. They got to be doing something with that money!! Clearly they aren't using it in new games or basic customer support... (or human greenlight moderation)

[@Cemtleman]

They just blow it on hookers and coke.

[@SilverAura]

You're right, they're putting it into making a backend distribution system that is by far the absolute best for PC developers, period. All of Steamworks tools are available to any developer who takes the time to learn the API and utilize them. Thanks to their service, I've been able to implement full workshop support, achievements, leaderboard support, cloud saving, and automatic updating both to the main branch for everyone to download and to any number of individual secondary branches - either passworded or public, for testing. They also provide a dedicated storefront where people can buy your game, add it to a wishlist, and provide easy updates. Included in the package too is getting recommendations of your game along side other similar titles either in the persons wishlist, library, or recently played games, which can often appear dynamically on the front page. As someone who takes their development very seriously - despite it being something of a side passion project, Steam has made an enormous amount of work previously impossible without a significant budget or engineering knowhow, possible.

[@impishDullahan]

So the real world Abstergo? Or Abstergo's partner because Abstergo would be Ubisoft? Either way, Valve is a facet of the Templar Order. Time to don the robes, boys: There's assassinating to be done! (It's a right shame, really.)

[@sniff1197]

lol true

[@HarlowLovesGaming]

Maybe they're working on HL, Portal, and TF 3.. (Laughs hysterically at that which will never happen)

[@mhnoni]

Don't forget Steam have subsystem which means they provide the developer with actual running pc that run your server for 24/7 for the rest of the game life for online games .

[@mekniwassime2098]

yeah true

[@LtgRogerAirgood]

It hurts

[@mxcherryblue5943]

N nOni so steam maintains the servers of other companies games?

[@bunslinger]

steam has an approval system? how the hell do all these point-and-click anime games keep making it on there then?

[@MrChronickills]

because they sell

[@itz_drakmin]

ikr? I love anime as much as the next guy but geez guys, no one wants hentai in their recommended games list

[@ItsYoYoHo]

name one anime point ckick game..

[@sammacin4082]

Sakura clicker :^)

[@lostsoul723]

because they tend to have good story

[@mutzikatzi1]

1:55 If you want a game at 3 AM and buy it on steam, then you probably would also have to wait about 3-4 hours because of the fact that nearly every triple A title has +30GB.

[@trackex9783]

mutzikatzi1 Not if you have a good Internet Connection :P

[@motoson76]

mutzikatzi1 only 3-4 for 30gb? I download about 1 gig an hour

[@royalxd]

Hold my Beer, I have 80 MB/s.

[@shadowrune2493]

mutzikatzi1 damn it take about 3 day for a 30gb game to download

[@kippienl3013]

your internet connection is just too fucking bad i can just download over the 70gb in around 5 hours

[@akabhirav]

The steam sales. They should be banned. It's a crime on my wallet.

[@PASSPORTKING2106]

Yea what's y'all's names?

[@stllbreathnbut_y1844]

30% seems steep, but it's all digital. A retail copy of a game is $60. But once you factor in the $23 to manufacture the disk and box, $18 to ship it, and $32 that goes to the retailer, that only leave $3.50 for the developers to spend on hookers and blow. Suddenly steams looking pretty darn good.

[@joemosertv]

Disk and box doesn't cost $23 dollars to manufacture...

[@Rentorock]

And shipping a small box from china costs around $0.02

[@WolfSilverLone]

I think u missed the sarcasm here

[@SilverAura]

Yeah but doing your own advertising (whereas Steam automatically tries to push your game with similar games and guarantees a certain amount of front page visibility) and the cost of store self-space, both prime and the right to a spot to begin with, adds up real fast.

[@friesfish8749]

It does not cost that much to manufacture a disc and box

[@davidvanbremen3351]

Sale's are heaven. Love you steam

[@wolo1738]

fuck off

[@YouthEnergy]

Want free fuck you points? Google this ASSCOCK

[@bush870]

fuck off

[@dudeopinion9964]

Who is that, I've been seeing these every where, I googled it once, what's with that

[@davidvanbremen3351]

Dude Opinion it's just works like aids, everyone gets infected with it or something

[@brendethedev2858]

Plenty of steam games allow external mods without regulation. Kerbal space program, team fortress 2, and quite a few others. Minecraft could go on steam if they wanted it to. They just dont

[@awesome9174]

Very true. I don't think they fully did their research here.

[@brendethedev2858]

Ye

[@AuthorityCat]

Skyrim? Anyone? Like seriously Steam's mod support is as good as it can be. They even have their own in steam mod workshop, and you can still use nexus! It's perfect.

[@MattVidPro]

In the long run Minecraft made more money off steam

[@ezekiel0606]

would it be possible to choose between snapshots and updates like in the launcher of mc? cause usually to play a game in steam, you plainly have to update it

[@luciusrex8604]

Oh come on, Gaben. You habe a shit load of money. I hope HL3 will be revolutionary.

[@luciusrex8604]

*havr

[@luciusrex8604]

*shit.

[@johnnypt14]

2 things, Pootis: 1.You can edit your own comment when you mess up. 2.HL3 ain't gonna happen.

[@s0meRand0m129]

@@johnnypt14 but hey, we got Half-Life Alyx instead

[@knowlesitalls7600]

Also Steam allows the Game company to sell their game at RETAIL PRICE!!!! Usually, a game store like Gamestop will purchase the game wholesale for about 30 dollars then Raise the price by 100% so it will be 60$ retail price. So that means game companies that sell their triple A 60$ games on steam get oly 30% of that 60$ taken away per game which means that after you take out that 30% you get 42$ that means that the game company would be getting and extra 18$ in income from using steam! So let's say a game dev sells 1 million copies with either GameStop OR steam. Steam would make the game devs an extra 18 million dollars. You could buy a few WHOLE APARTMENT BUILDINGS with that kind of money so please buy your game on steam for PC gaming.

[@knowlesitalls7600]

I mean an extra 12 dollars I screwed up it's 12 million extra instead of 18 million

[@HistoricaHungarica]

Wait... The retailer doesn't even buy the game before it sells to the end user? Because your scenerio implies that. Let me elaborate: "Gamestop" buys 5 million copies of a game. Keeps it in a warehouse. Only sells 2 million copies. Who owns the 3 million copies? Because somebody MUST own them. And who profited from the 3 million unsold copies? Because somebody HAD to buy them from the developer/publisher.

[@knowlesitalls7600]

That fact motivates game devs to create better games *cough cough Hello Games ( No Mans Sky)

[@knowlesitalls7600]

Also the answer to that question is that GameStop overbought the amount of game they wanted. Which most companies don't do because they buy their storage from weekly to monthly to yearly or somewhere inbetween

[@HistoricaHungarica]

Marsh Knowles That doesn't change the fact that digital download hurts the publisher and developer more than physical release does. Because the unsold ammount of copies (that the distributor can't sell) still make profit for them. Sure, it's better for the customer that they affect IPs on the salary scale much more (the less people download a title the more likely the producers won't bother continueing it) but there is the catch of "Crono Trigger cases". Where the game was considered a cult classic and it didn't sell enough. In this case the producers won't continue to produce similar titles because they don't get enough downloads. BUT if the distributor takes the hit (which it can mitigate by later sales and so on) the producers won't have any problem.

[@thegroove14]

Make Half Life 3 and Valve will make more money than they do with Steam sales.

[@KayX291]

They are more interested in multiplayer games rather than on single player.

[@PrimordialNightmare]

Once Half life 3 is out for a few weeks, Valves reputation will have suffered heavily as it is probably impossible to live up to that strange hype that's going on there.

[@orionhan2431]

No... because actually making a game requires effort. In fact, the success of steam is incentive for them to not make anything

[@thegroove14]

***** Makes sense.

[@PrimordialNightmare]

***** I think the Risk might not be worth the possible reward.

[@IDontDoDrumCovers]

apparently not enough money to hire real support.....or more people to fix tf2 or make hl3

[@astikrasgabas]

why would they make hl3? they make 10x the amount of money from selling other games.

[@KidusYohannes]

Yea but imagine the immense success that release would bring them. The fact that the sequel has been prolonged so long, people are going to jump on it if it actually happens. But this would only be true if the is game very good, not some half hearted try. But then again, Valve is doing fine where they're at so they can just be lazy bastards if they want.

[@astikrasgabas]

If you look at most games today that have been redone most of them weren't as successful as the companies thought they would. Because imagine if you played a game when u were like 14 about 10 years a go or so. When the new game is released it gets hyped but most of that community is lost anyway because by the time they are 24 they are too busy with life

[@astikrasgabas]

For example I used to play games like crazy but now I can't because of university and woek

[@astikrasgabas]

Work*

[@dannda0545]

Did you forget the whole market place and the economy surrounding it?

[@Tom_KTM]

funny how he didn't mention csgo cases and the scam. 3 dollar case and a 2,50 dollar key and you get a fucking 0.03 cents skin... 👏👏👏

[@snakeskate3607]

RNG

[@patrickrestieri4892]

the value of the skins and crates is made by the community and not by steam. And seriously....scam? Do they say: You get a knife with a 99% chance? If you now wanna say, that knifes are too rare then you should think about the first sentence: The value is made by the community, that means: more knifes, less value. The only thing you could complain about is, that the keys are double the price as they were in the beginning of cases, but it seems they still sell enough so they get more money out of it^^

[@TheProfessi0nal115]

if you've played anything like dragons of atlantis, they sell you boxes with items in them that you can use. a box can say it has a chance at something insane like an apothesis grant which is needed for the 40 through 45 upgrades on homes and instead you get something crap like a blink for a 1 minute speedup

[@biohazardlnfS]

Patrick Restieri also guess he did not know he can trade and or outright buy the skin on the market

[@slowanddeliberate6893]

What happens to your games if Steam were to go out of business? Could you still play them?

[@AbbasKhan9364]

That's... Actually a good question :| Let's just hope that day doesn't come.

[@alexlelel]

I can play Valve's games without steam with SSE and even if Valve is bankrupt they are going to release a tool that allows you to play Steam games while Steam doesn't exist. It's the other developers that can enforce Steam but Valve games doesn't have such DRM.

[@MrCombatgiraffe]

i think you could still play them, with the exception of multiplayer games, it would be like steam offline mode so most games would still work. i think they would change something in the verification process that happens when you launch a game though.

[@altrazh_xd]

technically you don't, because you dont actually OWN the game you buy, you just have a digital license to play it on steam... its more like you rent the game from steam... thats the bad thing about steam (digital licensing in general) compared to physical things

[@joseluz5802]

The answer is no. It is highly unlikely that Steam will go out of business but if they do then any game in your library will become inaccessible upon its closure. Many PC gamers are in absolute denial about this but it is true.

[@RookieN08]

So much money yet they can't afford to hire more developers for two of the biggest E-Sport games, DOTA 2 and CS:GO.

[@somedesertdude1308]

and tf2

[@MNB730]

I saw that Dota 2 is updated pretty frequently, CS:GO on the other hands...

[@sintes88]

Quality over quantity

[@rconcepts5706]

dota 2 dosen't need more devs, csgo and tf2 does

[@rconcepts5706]

and of course hl3

[@Darkel.375]

you see my child falcon the secret is that I'm not human I am a being that requires money to survive I come from a planet where money creatures roam around there was once a weapon that destroyed my world I was the only one to get out alive but you must tell no one k bye babe 😘

[@Darkel.375]

Jibril A well yeah bit no one outside if gameranx' fan base will see it

[@tml9868]

I WILL TELL THE WORLD!!

[@Darkel.375]

TML but that would require friends

[@hellbilly7680]

sick burn

[@AceDreamer]

Praise be upon you, oh great lord Gaben, for steam sales have reduced piracy 1000 times more effectively than DRM because they offer user reviews and reasonable prices. Free demos used to be a thing, now you have to risk 60$ for a potential disappointment (No Man's Sky) But with player reviews, sales and the refund system, even when people pirate a game they like today, they will buy it tomorrow.

[@Bjorn308]

Favorite thing about Steam: It doesn't have Minecrap. Least favorite thing about Steam: It has tons of Minecrap clones...

[@levoGAMES]

Minecraft is actually a good game, it's the community behind it that makes it so disgustingly cringy.

[@kylesoler4139]

It does get boring after awhile. wait have they released an update after 1.9?

[@levoGAMES]

Kyle Soler yeah, they did. I don't actually know what it contains, but I'm pretty sure I read about a version 1.10

[@armadillito]

1.11 features were just announced. It's got some cool Stuff in it that's got me the interested again.

[@seanjhardy]

MinionOfDeth2112 the minecon cringe compilations make me want to die but that game itself is well made. Its just completely retarded and obnoxious players and Minecraft you tubers screaming and appealing the that audience that makes the game bad

[@jratk719]

Probably the best things about steam is that i can buy games from my childhood and games go on sale often which is cool. Also no monthly payment to play multiplayer.

[@princestevenii.772]

My favourite feature is regional pricing. My least favourite IS THE FACT THAT YOU NEED TO LEVEL UP to add more friends.

[@KFCMayn]

My least favourite part about steam: Russians on CS GO

[@SirMadridi20]

Racist fuck

[@torahibiki]

my least favorite pat about steam is CSGO in general, that game is cancer

[@torahibiki]

***** that's why I don't lol.... I Uninstalled that piece of shit Years ago....

[@torahibiki]

***** I like souls games.... and berserk.... fps are ok..... but csgo is by far the worse I've played...

[@torahibiki]

***** yeah but I was talking more like the manga.... the anime are infamous for being horrible lol... now of its anime we're talking about my top 3 are like this.... 1. CLANNAD 2. ONE PIECE (everything before the timeskip) 3. STEINS;GATE

[@MrUktemplar]

Steam needs that big cut.......our lord Gaben needs to eat or he will get mad and feed us to his Rancor under the floor of Valve! ......................................True story

[@xSS4x]

I wouldn't know, never used steam and never will. Get my games on GOG since they only support DRM free games and you don't have to install anything else beside the games you buy. I had to uninstall some games before because they switched to steam only client.

[@marzenr]

finally yessss

[@evernals]

I used to hate clients too but then i realise downloading a downloader to download a game is worse than downloading a one-off giant ass downloader in the first place

[@satanfornoskit]

I really don't understand why people have a problem with DRM. What is the problem exacly?

[@Qew1601]

yeah , dev need to make some money too

[@Stallion386]

DRM makes it harder to be a shitty person and pirate games. Some of it is beyond insane I must admit like all of the hoops you have to jump through to play an EA game on Origin, but for the most part it ain't that bad on PC.

[@RegretR3]

30% of a game dev's wallet == Steam. lol

[@zeliph]

I like how Valve and Steam somehow made an influence in Linux gaming in the last 6 or 7 years... It's cool that we're getting to see some Triple A games coming to Linux. Which is awesome!

[@OffixialGem]

I like it Bc u don't have to pay for service😊

[@1Piecer]

PC

[@Thetb93]

you have to buy at least one product of steam to have all functions aviable. like adding friends to your friends list.

[@thespookybanana6007]

I think he means stuff like monthly memberships to play online.

[@Loopylocokiller]

+MrFinn T. I don't see why that's a problem. If you're a gamer you're going to buy at least one game, plus this system keeps spam/fake accounts to a minimum.

[@OffixialGem]

1Piecer master race lol

[@tml9868]

You failed to mention that they take a cut from every market item sold

[@kelbyvelasquez493]

Good video but i'm a but disappointed in that I thought you were going to cover some basic logistics of steam's income/business. Just saying "they take 30%" of the developers cut was sort of underwhelming information.

[@Mattocon757]

hopefully competition will lead to valve getting its act together, being a bit more creator friendly and maybe for first time developers doing a deal where they take like 15% and go up like 2.5% for every game that they make to ensure the company is looking to improve on every game.

[@jaka.kragelj]

Lebowski's mouse pad at 2:28 ... that mouse pad really ties the workspace together.

[@bricebridges3814]

3 words: Steam Summer Sale

[@moth8550]

I beat Call of Juarez: Gunslinger in 4 hours on hard

[@amspook]

Nice

[@TexelGuy]

Oh the good old days, i love that game

[@semapon7149]

Good for you

[@jackcameron2142]

90's kids will remember this one

[@Dionysus878]

A great game!

[@ApexPredatorWithSungGlasses]

*Wow 30% cut?* How the hell Indie devs survive releasing games on Steam? o_O

[@alexeous]

Two words, Undertale

[@mathiasedvardsen1795]

ApexPredator_ is 20$ Enough?

[@mongothedestroyer88]

I love how Steam is able to keep older games alive and make them playable even if their original platform is no longer the latest tech.

[@masonmcdonald2566]

30% seems like a lot, but honestly, Steam is worth it. You make a good game and put in on steam, you WILL make money, despite the 30% going to steam.

[@jaydawn8704]

3.5B in revenue and they can't get some Live Chat Support...

[@kingwou]

you didn't explain shiet ... blablabla to finaly say nothing.

[@noonespexial3515]

Okay.

[@azharp9391]

then why are you here?

[@christiandeuctor3606]

Fist of all its shit not "shiet" quit trying to seem edgy and second of all do you even speak English?

[@Zachary3D]

But he's right though... I've felt they've been stretching it for sometime now. Stretching the info and their ideas. Love Gameranx, just my opinion.

[@kingwou]

im here to figure out "how & why Steam make so much money" and After 7 minutes of non-sens i still dont know how &why Steam make so much money. he didn't explain nothing

[@s1ndrome117]

what i hate about steam and community is that team fortress 2 unsual hats, australium weapons and gold weapons and csgo knifes and some skins are way too expensive like golden frying pain is worth 4000 $ and some csgo knives are 200 $ or even 2000 $ . i hate this thing the most.

[@TheWolfzable]

That's the community putting a value on their virtual items. Valve staff have only one thing to do with it. It's rarity. Blame the community for that not Steam/Valve.

[@misterfaust1435]

You do realise thats because of how rare they are, like gold.

[@MS-pz9wd]

+AstroGamer You're an idiot. aren't you?

[@elbuhdai605]

Actually, he's got a point. I think the idiots are the ones who would actually pay that kind of money for things like that. It's a model and a texture. Literally NO ONE outside of PC Gaming cares about your shadow daggers, no matter how rare it is to get them. Not to mention, if something happens to Steam (which is extremely unlikely, but possible), that item you spent hundreds on can be gone forever.

[@DylanGamingBoyisdumbxd]

They can't just have those free or else any F2P could have it. Those weapons are made for people to show that they know what there doing and NOT F2P.

[@outlawdavey7189]

My favorite thing about Steam is that it's a store that's also a semi-social platform. You can chat with your friends and make friends and play games with your friends. And there's price drops for games every once in a while.

[@sheabilladeau1392]

Darn good video dude. I love the music and the slideshow. Well played.Thanks for the info.

[@nscantling]

30% of every title sold... No wonder Valve quit making games.

[@digitalravager1836]

I was a hard head and avoided steam for the longest time. Now I love it.

[@lixmm24]

Falcons voice always makes me enjoy the video even more..

[@gamin4ever937]

I'm not the only one!!!

[@b.henriques9871]

watch some revxdev vids, his voice is sooo Fkn deep

[@thedankestjesus1094]

Did I just see you on a mcik vid Palanka?

[@TheRPGentleman]

It makes me cringe because I've heard so much of it.

[@b.henriques9871]

The Dankest Jesus probably

[@vincentortiz4671]

hey Ima not com out yet.

[@bricebridges3814]

I saw it

[@vincentortiz4671]

Harambe, u see everything u are god.

[@Moe-bz6by]

everyone like this so everyone sees it

[@vincentortiz4671]

nah I don't wanna com out yet

[@greenghostgaming3280]

me too m9 now get in the van

[@IceGlass0]

Hey falcon, I really enjoyed the video. I study industrial engineering and I'm taking a class on calculating costs and budgets, so I can't help but wonder what their costs might be. Do you think the money they put on their servers around the world, all those lawyers, executives and maybe the rent of a couple of places to fit all those things in would be somewhat comparable to those 3.5 billion dollars of revenue?

[@LukeOfTroy]

I started using GOG about 2 months ago. Haven't bought a steam game since then. I know I'm late to the party, and it's only a couple of months, and I'm pretty broke so I shouldn't be buying games anyway, but I'm gonna try and hold that streak for as long as I can. I know, GOG take 30 too, but they're the new darling to the old empire and as long as you're gonna support something, might as well be them.

[@joshuapalmer8780]

Anyone else find the music he uses around 3:00 super awesome? also.. 2000th comment

[@ΤΕΚΜΩ]

i knwo dude i really want it

[@hmmm6265]

I know this isn't the exact song, but Time - Hans Zimmer is kinda the same.

[@hammadwr]

Joshua Palmer agreed i wanna know the name of the track plz

[@yadielgonzalezvazquez]

Joshua Palmer Darude- Sandstorm

[@eshitvaprakash6681]

DARUDE-SANDSTORM

[@Dom13WorstNW]

I love how nobody cares that Valve basically has a monopoly on pc gaming. (including me )

[@LorenWII]

It's really difficult to obtain a monopoly in digital space using digital goods. Steam while being the largest, isn't the only virtual video game retailer. Anyone can open a virtual video game retail store and be successful. Sure, you might only be able to sell indie games at first, but if your site is friendly enough, and is just downright enjoyable, then you could definitely get as big as steam. As you see, without controlling limited resources, it's impossible to become a monopoly. Steam is just really popular.

[@Crazy_Gamer_OG]

They don't have a monopoly, they just provide the best service currently available. A monopoly is when there's no competition & there's plenty of competition in the digital distribution market. GoG, GreenmanGaming, Origin, Uplay, etc.

[@dragonx889]

Half Life 3 confirmed

[@djb5255]

Gameranx has officially replaced Extra Credits as my favorite gaming channel. I love your content!!

[@luisoncpp]

30% is the standard, even Humble Bundle Stores charges 30% (the 5% is Humble Bundle Widget, and that's a widget that each developer should put in "his/her" own website). Even when it can sound like too much, just remember that Valve has to host all the games in its servers, including the games that are not selling and only are wasting space(which are a lot). Also, a lot of people buy games in Humble Bundle, Bundle Stars, Indie Gala, etc. and they receive keys to activate the games on Steam. Many times the websites doesn't host any of the games that are selling, and just sell thousands of keys for ridiculously cheap prices. Many times there are games that generates like 100 copies sold on Steam but 5000 installations because the game was on a bundle. Valve doesn't receive any profit for that keys but still has to maintain the servers for the traffic generated by those sales.

[@Drakonya08]

55 SECOND SQUAD

[@fluflammin]

tru

[@thames1880]

Hi

[@thepooch2476]

Please include me I'm so alone

[@mariar.5800]

3:38 What game is that?! I need to know 🙈

[@wireduser3444]

INSIDE. That's the name of the game.

[@attar5358]

Inside.

[@novojitdas3997]

Inside store.steampowered.com/app/304430/

[@horseguy4503]

Inside (not sure)

[@AbbasKhan9364]

Inside. It's from the creators of LIMBO. Really good game!

[@Hi1337CS]

Summary: Steam takes 30% of the revenue.

[@etshArk87]

you go beyond steam, very nice video. You earned a subscription and a viewer of your incoming videos.

[@SystemZero]

I'm new to the PC world of gaming, this really helps with some insight about steam itself thanks

[@god5620]

would 15% not be enough?

[@gotthesinglelife]

You would think so but they can rob you blind because you have the largest player base so far which means more sales which is the trade off compared to other site and they know it.

[@nearousoldaccount707]

dude, you realize, that they still have servers to run, its not cheap moving around the amount of data that they do. 3.5, in revenue, not profit, how much of that was spent in operations costs, and employee salaries. not to mention microsoft and sony do the same shit for their stores, and game publishers do the same things with disc distribution.

[@OnionKnightRises]

Don't forget that this is still a better deal for game creators compared to not using Steam, since Steam is digital. The cost of creating the CDs, shipping them, and everything that comes with the physical aspect of it costs money

[@CanIHasThisName]

Well consider that it used to cos 40 000$ to release a patch on Xbox 360. On top of all the licensing fees and physical distribution costs. 30% is seemingly steep, but hardly unreasonable.

[@luisoncpp]

Maybe it would be enough, but 30% is the standard for most digital stores. Humble Bundle also charges 30% for the games on its store, the 5% mentioned in the video is for developers that sell their games through their own website(not Humble Bundle Store) but using a Humble Bundle widget.

[@Engipeer]

Steam sales

[@Superluffypirate]

3:56 what game is that. Seems like my kind of game so pls help :)

[@L1nkk9E]

Banner Saga, something from Kings Saga games. Or no wait, they could not sue them for using the word "Saga" in the title...

[@bigdaddyumi]

It`s Banner Saga. trust me it`s a shit game

[@Northwatch1214]

banner saga

[@Northwatch1214]

it's a pretty legit game

[@dOoObface]

Best thing about Steam is the shear number of games available there, and it is nice to open it up and see most of the games I have all in one place.

[@SuPeRNinJaRed]

7:35 I think you just defended the reason why steam takes 30% I'd like to see any indie sell their game (that easily) without it. You have to remember that 30% takes care of all of your holding, distribution, transactions (and arguably marketing). I have no problem with it at all. God bless the free market and the USA!

[@GrimHC]

Please, explain, how the csgo market works please

[@karwane1]

what is there to explain?you buy virtual key*=profit to steam.

[@tml9868]

You buy an in-game item from another player, steam takes a 5% fee on most games but on Dota 2, CSGO and TF2 they take 10%

[@GrimHC]

People think that buying a Virtual item is basically like conning, like 5000$ i try to explain but no one understands.

[@alexlelel]

Varoufakis (ex-Valve economist) has an article in his blog hosted by Valve about how Valve profits from skins.

[@clivetargaryen5014]

Implying xbone and PS4 business model are any better lol Stop sounding so butt hurt whenever you talk about any PC related topic

[@placate9051]

IKR, "oh they take 30%" this better than charging game Devs to update there games, and charging your consumers for online.

[@AnythingLogical]

It doesn't sound like he is at all. Hes just informing people on how much they take out of devolpers for their game to be on the website..

[@AnythingLogical]

Crazy_Doge_With_It downs

[@oceanicblues3847]

I love xbone

[@AnythingLogical]

Oceanic Blues You have downs too

[@stephenward2743]

Well this was a pointless video...we all know why steam is making bank.

[@awesome9174]

Because people can't resist Gabe's sexy body?

[@yorankoppes]

I love how steam handles cloud saving

[@sethv6707]

my ad loaded instantly and in its entirety. the video took 3 minutes to load and buffered every 10 seconds

[@Pandadox]

i m 1st dlisklike lol,

[@joereitan]

3rd

[@monkeyswag57]

you guys are douches lol. the video wasnt even out long enough to be able to rate it like that

[@joereitan]

monkeyswag57 hurr durr never heard that one before you fuckin idiot

[@hvans5603]

TRIGGERED

[@Christpapi0]

15th

[@shellymcmurrie]

My least favourite things about Steam are: It doesn't automatically verify before you purchase that a game will actually run on your machine. That shouldn't be too difficult for it to do since it knows your pc specs (or could easily get them if it wanted) but instead, you're left (as I am) with expensive games that will not, ever, run on your machine. (On my list of Steam games that don't work we see titles like: Bioshock, Bioshock Infinite, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow Of Chernobyl, Civ V, Total War Rome II and Total War Shogun 2 as well as some lesser titles - all of which my pc far exceeds the minimum specs for, yet can't run at all). This not checking thing makes wanting to buy anything from Steam a complete gamble. The idea that buying a game basically constitutes a Choose Your Own Adventure where if you can't figure out how to become your own IT department well then tough luck, it got old a good few games ago now. And the second thing about Steam I don't like, since I'm going on, is the way that you can't wishlist bundles because "reasons". Finally, the way that Steam seems to update games and then, as if by magic, they no longer work (including my entire Peggle collection). I like Steam for the reasons outlined in the video, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

[@limptoast]

0:36 Did you use my fellow brethren in a insulting manner?! What was I just talking about?

[@TCGView]

Amazon KDP takes 30-70% of revenue from selling eBooks on their platform. Yeah, it sucks, but when you have exposure and sell to an audience that large, you kind of have to eat it. I'm actually thrilled to sell books with them instead of going the traditional route as I've heard the author cut from traditional is even smaller.

[@AzmodeousNergul]

Didn't even mention the microtransactions for the "cards" to get the badges to allow you "perks" such as a bigger friends list. There's probably a few other small things like that, that I'm just not aware of as well.

[@SheosMan117]

Reasons why Steam makes so much/is so popular, according to me (feel free to comment): They were among the first. They basically got people into the idea of buying games digitally, which MS and Sony eventually copied for Xbox Live/PSN. Community. The Steam community is one of the best out there, it's very easy to share screenshots, upload mods, and find help for any game on steam in the forums, or help with any gaming related topic really, including Windows issues, or hardware issues. Greenlight. With Greenlight, Steam is as friendly towards the indie developer as it is to the AAA. Anyone can make a game, upload to Greenlight, and if it gets enough votes, become a full fledged Steam game. (Yes I know it's not perfect, but it's better than nothing.) Gifting. Steam is the only place where you can buy a game for a friend, it's impossible most everywhere else. Whether that's Origin, UPlay, Xbox Live or PSN. (I think Battle.net does though, and maybe GOG) It's free. Making a Steam account, and having access, is easily done, and costs nothing, unlike how Xbox Live and PSN both require a subscription. Feel free to add/correct anything here.

[@Hobbitstomper]

30% is not a lot when compared to the retail copies in store, where the developers often lost 60%-80% due to creating the CDs/DVDs, packaging, shipping and then the retail stores also wanted their cut. This often lead developers with only 20%-30% profit and on Steam they don't need to advertise, they don't need to invest time into going through the process of retailing and they get 70% in return. PS: the AppStore, Google Play, GOG.com, Windows Store, Humble Store... they all ask for 30% commission as well.

[@Wroxal]

When you said "Time is Money" the first thing that came to my head was the WoW Goblins.

[@CarthagoMike]

ordinary publishers used to take way more than 30%, making it very hard for new indie-devs to get into the market. You can say much about steam, but it does give much chances to those new in the world of gamedeveloping and the small code-for-fun teams.

[@madelyntoday7093]

Best thing: convenience. If I'm bored and just want to see what's out there I can look through steam to see what they have, my games are always available to me, and I can play them without a disc. There's nothing I dislike. I hope they treat the game makers well. Worst thing is probably a good thing in the longrun: there's a lot of notsogood games on steam, and some games are just way too complicated to play. But, that's probably a good thing because it means that games that aren't over market-researched and over simplified have a chance and consumers have a chance at buying something that's not just overproduced.

[@typical_moggie]

I've been a steam user since it looked like the in game menus for cs1.6... It was nothing like it is today and so many new features just make it a joy to use aside from being an online store for games and even software, it's better than everything else out there along the same lines because it has been around for far longer, had more thought put in to it and it pretty much had a userbase to start of with that "tested" the platform before it went mainstream.

[@MikeT2005]

One issue with the Minecraft case on Steam - ArmA 3. With ArmA 3 I can make a custom mod for ArmA and share it with my friends and my friends alone. In fact Armaholic shares hundreds if not thousands of Arma 3 mods which never goes anywhere near Steam servers. So saying you lose creative control/modding control when you put something on Steam is false, unless Arma 3 has some sort of special exemption.

[@AntonioKowatsch]

I love steam but I realized that it's missing a functionality that would take it to the next level. I can't say much more about it though seeing as I'm trying to find some investor to start my own platform.

[@junk116mb]

I like the various Falcon images throughout the video better than the cartoon animations of a falcon playing videogames...

[@AckwellOnline]

I have a video game on steam. I'd just like to say that I don't think 30 percent is steep at all, maybe for triple A companies or more established indie teams, yeah it's probably a little steep. But, for small one man teams or none established developers like my self it's perfectly reasonable. If I released my game for 11-15 dollars on my own website, I would most likely get a maximum of 100 purchases, if that. On steam you're most likely to get around 500 purchases in the first day just because their advertisement for new releases is remarkable and it really helps peoples dreams come true. Honestly, if steam took 50-60 percent I would be perfectly fine with that.

[@SyphistPrime]

A 30% cut isn't bad, steam is running the distribution service, servers to distribute it, absorbing fees to use credit cards, and even provides multiplayer games with an advanced anti cheat. The benefits of those plus the universal adoption of steam means the hits you take in profits could be less if you were to run it on steam rather than a 3rd party.

[@gradclvz3501]

Steam kills game piracy. Before Steam, the most expensive parts of a game are the advertising, packaging, and freight. I bought Skyrim including package and freight about $150.00. At Steam it only cost around $50. I can get even lower price from Steam if I wait for a certain discount day. Game piracy businesses were booming before Steam. After Steam arrived, all pirates are dead. One of the reason why Steam is so successful is because they recover almost all of the lost sales from game piracy market. I think Steam's 30% profit is very small price to pay considering the game developers would have lost more money from game piracy anyway.

[@gradclvz3501]

GamesterX . 80% of game piracy businesses in South East Asia are dead, the rest 20% are struggling to survive. South East Asia countries are one of the center of all kind of piracies in the world, they are still now. Since Steam arrived, game piracy businesses became no longer profitable. I am not quite sure about China since I heard Steam is banned in China. However, i also heard they tried to enter through local businesses.

[@alessandrocwilliam]

Love each time I see Dwight Schrute in these videos

[@TheScienceofnature]

I can't judge steam from a perspective of a developer because I am not, but from a customers perspective, its perfect. I bought Day of Defeat Source in 2007, I left university and got married, I have children and one quiet weekend, I began reminiscing my gaming days. I log into my steam account, there it was, Day of Defeat Source. I lost all my other PC games to damage or just losing them, but you can't lose a game that is on steam server. Secondly, I think that steam is good for developers too. If you are an indie developer and don't have a lot of influence in the distribution industry, steam sound like a good platform to launch your product on. It already has a well established community. You would otherwise have to be competing with battle.net and origin which might take a hit on your gross revenue. Its better to have 70% of a 100 million than 100% of a 100 thousand. You will find that products made by small companies are better polished than those by big corporates who sell titles than contents. So Indie developers might not exist without steam.

[@cyb1l__]

5:34 Scout: ...Basically... Kind-of a big deal.