Since the headline blew it, the game mentioned is called Cosmoteer.
You know what also justifies Valve’s 30% cut? Their outstanding efforts in getting games to run on Linux, and the overall impact that this had on the Linux community.
For most developers, that’s not much of a value. The Linux share of the gaming market only exists because of Steam. 99% of those gamers would just play on Windows if Valve hadn’t pu in the effort.
It is good for Linux though.
Just a few days ago, I wrote a comment about how you would theoretically try and become a significant competitor to Steam, and one of the points I raised was that Steam’s storefront and recommendations are very generous (compared to others). It makes a huge difference that even indie games can appear on the front page regularly, both improving user and dev experiences. Players find games that they enjoy, while devs pay a very small amount to get effective, targetted advertisements.
I found weird ass games like Age of Decadence because of steam. I dount I wouldve found that lovingly crafted load of slavic jank without steam, or atleast it wouldve been until Warlocracy made a video on it.
My library and tastes are pretty eclectic so I think Steam’s recommendation engine struggles with me lol. That said, I love how it sends me shit no one seems to know about at the time, like Kenshi, Volcanoids, PULSAR, etc.
Yeah, though my tastes seem to be a rather close to a venn diagram circle with Mandaloregaming which is disconcerting at times. Maybe a bit more post apocalyptia on my part.
Yeah it’s becoming a bit uncanny when I pickup a game and see Mandalore, SplatterCat, or AlphaBetaGamer covering it a few days later.
30% seems rather high
but… when they handle payments, refunds, advertising (within their application) and game download costs (server infrastructure?), etc etc etc. it doesnt seem that crazy.
at least, for a lot of indie developers, not having to worry about those things, might easily be worth those 30%
Not to mention the reviews, community hubs, workshop, video streaming and recording, controller support, cloud saves, family sharing.
30% may be a lot, but it’s not like they’re just sitting on it.
EA and Ubisoft don’t offer (most of) those features with their launchers where they do get the full proceeds.
Ah, Cosmoteer. Extremely fun for like 10 hours, then you realize there is nothing left to do. I guess that dev has made a fortune off of it though, so hats off to that guy.
Yeah I enjoyed it for longer than that but it just becomes so tedious once you have a few ships.
I prefer Starsector and Avorion.
