Is Steam good for dev profitability *spawn

[dobwal]

Of course, and you'll note I also stated that PC probably still trails Consoles for EA. And why should we remove MMO's? It is a genre that exists both on PC as well as on Consoles for the large console game producers. Sony (DC Online, Planetside 2), Square Enix (FFXIV, FFXI), and others. Xbox One/PS4 has more future MMO's in developement that was shown at some of the Chinese gaming conventions.

Are we discounting them just because they haven't historically done well on consoles? Although Square Enix is making a killing off the PS4 version of FFXIV. Should we then exclude titles and genres that don't do well on the PC but do well on the console so we can form some sort of confirmation bias?

And then what will you do when those genres start to take increasing hold on consoles as well? Suddenly include them because now it makes console revenue look better?

Just because consoles are currently dominated by the "old guard" publishers doesn't mean it will always be thus. There's no reason why Tencent (arguably the largest MMO publisher in the world with holdings in Epic and Riot) may not at some point supplant some of the "old guard" on console as Sony and Microsoft try to make inroads into China. Or Daum and the plethora of Korean game developers who are currently PC exclusive but have an opportunity to try out console developement with the new generation of consoles. Perhaps we'll even see some of the Japanese PC exclusive developers port more titles to consoles with the eased access to selling indie titles on console.

But I guess if it makes console forum warriors feel better. Sure lets exclude any publisher that only started to consider consoles as a platform with the newest generation. I suppose if that sort of vein. You wouldn't have allowed Epic to be in discussions until they were successful on console. And of course CD Projekt Red wouldn't have been allowed in discussions until they were successful on consoles. Or perhaps you can include them, just don't include any revenue generated by games and genres that aren't doing well on console? Ridiculous.

As such we should also exclude any console developer that doesn't have a presence on PC, no? And just as ridiculous.

Just like the Console ecosystem has console exclusive developers, multiplatform developers, developers that rarely publish on PCs and some developers that rarely publish on consoles. The PC ecosystem has PC exclusive developers, multiplatform developers, developers that rarely publish on consoles and developers that rarely publish on PC.

Gaming revenue is gaming revenue. It doesn't matter if it does well on X platform but not on Y platform. It doesn't even matter if it exists on W platform and not on X or Y platform. At some point it may exist on W, X, and Y platforms.

Hell there are former console genres that barely exist on consoles anymore but are flourishing on PC (SHMUPs for example). Thanks in large part to Steam and the other online digital storefronts. And due also in large part to the frequent sales that bring visibility to those titles that otherwise would have been lost in the shuffle.

Regards,
SB

All water is water until you have to drink it.

Overall PC revenue does nothing to demonstrate that its worthwhile for a pub to support the PC with console ports through Steam. I believe it does especially because its all just a matter of expanding the number revenue streams for a franchise. If it weren't profitable no one would do it. Whether the PC market can by itself support a console like game with a console like budget is another question.

Overall PC revenue doesn't make Steam support a reality. The level of profit from actual Steam sales make that a reality. And if you want to have any clue to the profit seen through Steam, you need to parse out subs because they represent a game genre who profits aren't driven by Steam. Plus subscription based or f2p games are somewhat immune to piracy, which is why they are favored in the PC space.

Furthermore, big pubs trying to benefit from whats going on in the PC market isn't new. They have been doing it for decades. The fps genre, western rpgs and online multiplayer were basically popularized on the PC before being widely adopted by consoles. GTA and COD, which are probably the biggest franchises in the console space were former PC only wares. Heck, even Madden football didn't begin life on consoles. A bunch of big name devs and pubs in the console space all first cut their teeth in the PC gaming market. You could argue the success of the console market over the last 20 years has been driven by its ability to co-opt the PC market.

If whats going on in China and other asians countries is reproducible in the western world, the console market will find a way to adopt and repackage it for console gamers. Especially because its consoles and not PC cafes thats the dominate way western gamers consume games. But this is all irrelevant when the discussion revolves around Steam.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

But this is all irrelevant when the discussion revolves around Steam.

Except it is relevant. Those genres that are popular in China right now, are represented on Steam and not on consoles...currently. Basically for consoles to prosper in China, they'll have to adopt many of the things that make Steam so popular on PC. And what makes Steam so popular among publishers who do not have or can push their own digital online store.

And why is this limited to the big pubs? The thread title is about developers. Why discriminate among developer's just to make console revenue look better? Those big time publishers are going to have a hard time in China until they adopt more PC like distribution and sales practices.

And revenue doesn't even begin to address profitability. It's far easier to be profitable on Steam than it is on console due to the heavy reliance on console on physically packaged goods. Developer's can make a far larger profit on Steam with far less revenue.

Eventually the consoles will catch up, but it'll take time for them to ditch physical media. At least for the indie developers, however, it's closer to steam now. With indie title distribution being digital only. Now it just remains to be seen whether Sony/Microsoft will be willing to have the types of sales that can really drive adoption and awareness of some of the indie titles.

Regards,
SB

 

[scooby_dooby]

Well I can give our perspective, at least it's some real numbers.

We had a fairly successful mobile title, it received 5/5 from TouchArcade, a feature spot from Apple, and a feature spot from Google as well. In terms of critical reception we really couldn't have asked for more.

We then, almost as an afterthought, launched on Steam. We managed to get a couple days of featuring on Steam main page, but after 3 days we were gone.

On steam, we sold for $6, but sometimes on sale. On mobile we had various pricing strategies, everything from F2P + IAP's, to a "Full Version".

Here's what we took home (roughly) on each platform:
iOS - 26k
Android - 11k
Steam - 43k
PC Bundles - 10k+

Was Steam profitable for dev's? Hell frickin yes it was!

After scratching and clawing to get to the front page of the app stores, the payoff was not that great. Maybe we didn't price the game correctly, but for whatever reason, it just didn't pull in any major money, despite rave reviews, high ratings and tons of media exposure. Now we are gone from the charts, never to be seen again. A great mobile game many will never see.

Steam on the otherhand, was just steady and robust. Right out of the gate it made some serious money, and it continued to make triple figures every day for months, we recently scheduled our own sale, which generated another 10k+. Something you could never do on mobile markets without a publisher or some serious connections.

So from our standpoint, Steam is where it's at. It's the priority, it's full of gamers willing to pay decent money for quality games. It also creates a nice opportunity to port to other consoles/handhelds with relative ease.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Well I can give our perspective, at least it's some real numbers.

We had a fairly successful mobile title, it received 5/5 from TouchArcade, a feature spot from Apple, and a feature spot from Google as well. In terms of critical reception we really couldn't have asked for more.

We then, almost as an afterthought, launched on Steam. We managed to get a couple days of featuring on Steam main page, but after 3 days we were gone.

On steam, we sold for $6, but sometimes on sale. On mobile we had various pricing strategies, everything from F2P + IAP's, to a "Full Version".

Here's what we took home (roughly) on each platform:
iOS - 26k
Android - 11k
Steam - 43k
PC Bundles - 10k+

Was Steam profitable for dev's? Hell frickin yes it was!

After scratching and clawing to get to the front page of the app stores, the payoff was not that great. Maybe we didn't price the game correctly, but for whatever reason, it just didn't pull in any major money, despite rave reviews, high ratings and tons of media exposure. Now we are gone from the charts, never to be seen again. A great mobile game many will never see.

Steam on the otherhand, was just steady and robust. Right out of the gate it made some serious money, and it continued to make triple figures every day for months, we recently scheduled our own sale, which generated another 10k+. Something you could never do on mobile markets without a publisher or some serious connections.

So from our standpoint, Steam is where it's at. It's the priority, it's full of gamers willing to pay decent money for quality games. It also creates a nice opportunity to port to other consoles/handhelds with relative ease.

This makes me think that the Windows 9 platform in smartphones, if done correctly (AKA being able to run legacy windows x86 games/apps with decent performance), may rapidly become the mobile platform of choice for games.

I spent quite a bit of money on Android apps and games, but I would ditch it in a blink if I could get a full windows smartphone that could play my Steam titles on backlog using a X-Input gamepad.

 

[trinibwoy]

There are a few reasons why I buy way more steam games than mobile games. One reason is that I game much less on my phone - that's just a time killer on the subway. I won't sit at home on a weekend plugging away at my phone. So I'm usually playing only one game for a few months at time. Went from Angry Birds to Shadow Gun to Infinity Blade to Temple Run etc.

The other reason is that mobile app stores are a nightmare to navigate. The Steam interface on mobile /web/desktop provides a much better experience. Also there doesn't seem to be a reliable place to go for mobile game reviews. Even the top rated stuff on Metacritic looks weak.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Having played Bardbarian on Android and bought an in-app item because I wanted to give something back to the dev, I'm not surprised it didn't make money on mobile because it was easy to get the most of the game without spending a penny. I think the balance was wrong for maximum monetisation. Perhaps if it had less available without spending on unlocks, it'd have generated way more money? It had a lot of installs, between 100k and 500k on Android. Some of those would be people just looking and not wanting to play. You're looking at less than a dollar a user. On Steam, $43k at $6 a pop is all of 7k buyers. 7 thousand, maybe double that with sale purchases, on Steam versus hundreds of thousands on mobile. What if it had only been released for $3 on mobile? There'd have been far less than 100-500k downloads, but if 30 thousand, say, that'd have been 90k dollars, and more than Steam.

Point being, business model has a massive impact, and we'd need a large sample set for comparison. Just nosying a major publisher, SE has had 100-500k sales of FFIII on Android at £11. That's the same price as Steam and plenty of people have bought it. If only we could get the Steam purchases to see if it was more or less popular! But if FFIII had followed the typical mobile model and been F2P with in game items, it may have generated far less money. There's a fear to charge money on mobile, I think cultivated by the news covering the big money-makers who are F2P, but a more realistic model for indies may follow the PC model, and it may be just as profitable or even moreso.

It's a topic that needs lots of data to make sense of. I don't think there's even enough data available as I'm not sure some of the higher price bands are even being properly tested yet. I can see a general rise in maximum price for a piece of software though, so in a few years we might have much clearer data.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Having played Bardbarian on Android and bought an in-app item because I wanted to give something back to the dev, I'm not surprised it didn't make money on mobile because it was easy to get the most of the game without spending a penny. I think the balance was wrong for maximum monetisation. Perhaps if it had less available without spending on unlocks, it'd have generated way more money? It had a lot of installs, between 100k and 500k on Android. Some of those would be people just looking and not wanting to play. You're looking at less than a dollar a user. On Steam, $43k at $6 a pop is all of 7k buyers. 7 thousand, maybe double that with sale purchases, on Steam versus hundreds of thousands on mobile. What if it had only been released for $3 on mobile? There'd have been far less than 100-500k downloads, but if 30 thousand, say, that'd have been 90k dollars, and more than Steam.

Point being, business model has a massive impact, and we'd need a large sample set for comparison. Just nosying a major publisher, SE has had 100-500k sales of FFIII on Android at £11. That's the same price as Steam and plenty of people have bought it. If only we could get the Steam purchases to see if it was more or less popular! But if FFIII had followed the typical mobile model and been F2P with in game items, it may have generated far less money. There's a fear to charge money on mobile, I think cultivated by the news covering the big money-makers who are F2P, but a more realistic model for indies may follow the PC model, and it may be just as profitable or even moreso.

It's a topic that needs lots of data to make sense of. I don't think there's even enough data available as I'm not sure some of the higher price bands are even being properly tested yet. I can see a general rise in maximum price for a piece of software though, so in a few years we might have much clearer data.

Well the bulk of our revenues came from iOS, where it was actually launched as a paid title, for $0.99, with the IAPs on top of it.

Now, maybe we did screw up the monetization strategy, I feel like we certainly should've launched the iOS version for a higher initial price. Had we launched for $3, we maybe have made $60k+ on launch day. But the problem with taht thinking, is there are 1000 ways to monetize on mobile, and you _never_ know what the alternate reality would be. We priced at $1 in an attempt to ride the top of the paid charts... which didn't work out obviously, but it's a legitimate strategy.

In retrospect we should've:
1. Launched as a premium title on IOS, $3 without IAP's
2. Launched F2P from the start

The strategy of selling at $1, to ride the Paid Charts, certainly doesn't seem to have been effective.

On Android, paid games just don't sell. Period. So the only real option was F2P. Maybe we were too generous, but we still wanted to make a title we're proud of, that didn't implement shady f2p mechanics, so it's a tough position. For F2P version, we monetized users at around $.05 -.10/user. So for every 1000 downloads, we're earn about $50-100. Which is actually a pretty solid percentage. The issue is that we were never able to get any _major_ traction as F2P. Our total downloads on Android are 192,000, which leads to a lifetime revenue on the platform of around $12,000. We need 10x that traffic to start making some real money with F2P.


But I think the larger point, is that, with Steam you don't need to faff around. With steam, you just create a good product, and people will buy it. With mobile, it's a complete gong show. First you need to get featured, which basically forces you to get a publisher, or spam a bunch of google play employees, and even then, the returns, even if you ARE featured, are not event that great. The big F2P titles are sucking all the money out of the system, and no one is buying real games.

Sure if you're Square Enix, or some other proven developer, with existing press relationships, you can sell a premium title for $5+ and make a lot of money, but I can count the number of titles that do that on like 2 hands.

 

[scooby_dooby]

This makes me think that the Windows 9 platform in smartphones, if done correctly (AKA being able to run legacy windows x86 games/apps with decent performance), may rapidly become the mobile platform of choice for games.

I spent quite a bit of money on Android apps and games, but I would ditch it in a blink if I could get a full windows smartphone that could play my Steam titles on backlog using a X-Input gamepad.

Ya you would hope so, but for whatever reason Windows Market is like a complete ghost town. I have yet to see a single developer post any significant revenues from that store. I'm sure some are, but no one is talking about it...

Our own titles, which have been there since launch, and is free, gets almost no downloads.

I think it's all about ecosystem. No one wants to give MS their payment info when they've already given it to Google / Apple. But that's just my gut feeling.

 

[zed]

Was Steam profitable for dev's? Hell frickin yes it was!

Well I think the reason for that is obvious
competition against ~2000 games on steam vs 1,000,000 games on mobile
If the numbers were reversed and steam had the huge number of apps (which is does seem to be going with, see gamasutra for articles) then it would be a completely different story

 

[scooby_dooby]

Well I think the reason for that is obvious
competition against ~2000 games on steam vs 1,000,000 games on mobile
If the numbers were reversed and steam had the huge number of apps (which is does seem to be going with, see gamasutra for articles) then it would be a completely different story

I think there's multitudes of reasons, but ya scale is definitely a big one. Most of the mechanics of running an online store fall apart when the volume of apps reaches such a high threshold, and discoverability gets basically broken/abused. That's the current state of both iTunes and Play. It's not just that simple though, Amazon has far fewer apps than the rest, but sales on thier market are even worse. Same with Windows Market.

Another big factor is mindset I think. Steam users are just more into gaming in general, appreciate it as a worthwhile hobby, and are _used_ to paying for it. Your normal mobile used is not used to paying for anything (maybe they used to be, but have been re-trained), and doesn't really respect anything about the games they're playing or developers who made them.

For us, it means that mobile titles need to be better targeted at this audience. They don't need depth, they don't need high production values, they just need simple basic addictiveness. With Bardbarian, we overshot, and gave the market something that it wasn't really into. I think that's why the Steam audience was more receptive, they do respect the depth and production qualities, despite it being clearly a mobile port they were very supportive, great in the forums, and sales were relatively strong.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But I think the larger point, is that, with Steam you don't need to faff around. With steam, you just create a good product, and people will buy it. With mobile, it's a complete gong show. First you need to get featured, which basically forces you to get a publisher, or spam a bunch of google play employees, and even then, the returns, even if you ARE featured, are not event that great. The big F2P titles are sucking all the money out of the system, and no one is buying real games.

Yeah, I agree with that. I went off on a bit of a tangent for the 'mobile potential' discussion. Of course, Steam being good was never quite the original question. The topic was spawned as to whether Steam is more profitable than consoles, and more worth targeting than consoles. Steam as a platform is great for devs, especially indies, and the easiest way to reach millions of conventional buying customers. PC isn't making more money than consoles in the sector of the market that consoles sell to though. It's about on par with a console, although if there's a gangbuster console I expect it'll drop behind. Similar to mobile - mobile makes loads of money for some devs, but that money is pretty localised.

For some games like small indies, Steam is a great option. For larger games, it's a good consolidation of the PC market into a homogeneous platform like a console. So it's a Good Thing.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah, I agree with that. I went off on a bit of a tangent for the 'mobile potential' discussion. Of course, Steam being good was never quite the original question. The topic was spawned as to whether Steam is more profitable than consoles, and more worth targeting than consoles. Steam as a platform is great for devs, especially indies, and the easiest way to reach millions of conventional buying customers. PC isn't making more money than consoles in the sector of the market that consoles sell to though. It's about on par with a console, although if there's a gangbuster console I expect it'll drop behind. Similar to mobile - mobile makes loads of money for some devs, but that money is pretty localised.

For some games like small indies, Steam is a great option. For larger games, it's a good consolidation of the PC market into a homogeneous platform like a console. So it's a Good Thing.

That goes both ways, however. You could also make a statement that consoles aren't making more money than PC for the market that PCs target. Until it does... Like with COD (PC until they tried console). Minecraft (PC until they tried console). Warframe (PC until they tried console). Or console staples in the past. Like SCHMUPs (console until they failed there and now flourish on PC mostly). More platformers on PC than console now, etc.

Games are a fluid market that shift and change between console and PC and I suppose mobile now as well. What used to do best on one platform sometimes shifts to another platform.

Different publishers get more or less money from consoles than from PC. One or the other only looks better if you take the time to narrow the scope so much that it favors one or the other. It's confirmation bias at its best. Consoles are the best, hence narrow the definition of what is considered best until it is shown thus. The same could go for PC enthusiasts. PC is best, so narrow the definition of what is included until it is shown as the best.

But yes, your conclusion is good. Steam is good. Whether it is for indies or large publishers, it is good. Activision likely makes more profit (not revenue) from Steam as it does on any given console. But it isn't fair when you compare it to ALL console sales, that's like saying EA makes more profit from PC than it does from the EA store on Xbox One. You're grouping all console sales regardless of where it is purchased (PS4 storefront, Xbox Storefront, Retail storefronts, etc.) versus one storefront on PC (Steam). It's about as silly as saying console titles sell better than games sell on Amazon (limiting to one storefront).

In other words, comparisons become somewhat meaningless when you narrow the scope on one side while keeping the scope wide open and broad on the other side.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That goes both ways, however. You could also make a statement that consoles aren't making more money than PC for the market that PCs target.

Sure, I can agree with that. It's just the opening sentiment suggested Steam saved the developer by making a product profitable. Steam's just another revenue stream, or so it seems. It has lower overheads which is good, but also seems to sell less of a game going by the fact consoles revenues are higher than PC.

Different publishers get more or less money from consoles than from PC. One or the other only looks better if you take the time to narrow the scope so much that it favors one or the other.

Yep. We can either focus on certain genres and styles, or cast the net so wide that it's hard to read meaning into what's caught in it. It's a real shame there aren't more numbers for Steam. Valve could be an amazing source of information. I don't know if they provide a professional service or not for would-be publishers?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm sure there are numbers available to the Publishers. I do wonder if they also get numbers for their competition. That would be interesting. I know some sites have attempted to datamine the publicly available information that Steam presents, but I doubt that is terribly accurate or informative.

And as it's only one storefront, it'd be nice if there was some way to aggregate numbers from GOG, Desura (although that is only indie I believe), GmG, Origin, etc. Heck even Amazon, although their digital titles are split between Steam, Origin, their own digital delivery system, and digital delivery occasionally through other publishers. Newegg is also getting in on it. But again like Amazon, digital delivery can go through any one of a number of digital delivery systems although it tends to be mainly Steam for Newegg.

Basically, it's a mess trying to get any meaningful numbers for digital titles.

Regards,
SB

 

[scooby_dooby]

Steam has some unbelievable success stories, like Rust, was released in early access, and already sold millions of copies. Just insane amounts of profitability for the developer on a game they have not even finished yet, and a situation that truly could not happen on any other platform. I think Goat Simulator also sold a ridiculous amount of copies, and this is probably not a game that would move units at all on console.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I wonder the following: without console gaming and the potential day one 60$ customers...would a publisher even take the risk in producing an AAA game anymore? Because they know that e.g. a Steam only release have to compete with thousands of 1$ games and that customers typically wait for game prices to drop on that platform...it seems to me that this makes things way harder to predict and calculate.

Most games launches have the exact same curve, you make a huge amount of money in the first initial weeks, and then drop off to essentially nothing (at least compared to those first few days/weeks)

On most platforms, that's it.

The difference with Steam, is that it does these constant sales and promotion slots, and the people tend to buy in droves. That gives you a much nice tail for the 2years post launch, and allows you to generate a bunch of extra revenue that you couldn't otherwise.

As a concrete example:
* We had launched 5mths ago, and sales were down to around $1000/mth.
* We decided to do a 1week, 60% off sale, in the Steam Admin Console ($5 to $2)
* Steam featured us for 3 days in the "Weekly Sales" section, but the sale lasted for 7 days.

Results: $11,000 in extra revenue! For the time it took to click a few dropdown menus and submit a form. And no other platform _really_ offers a similar ability to boost your own sales. So that's pretty damn cool. We have another sale schedule for a couple months down the road. If we add Workshop support we may be able to get featured again on the front page, and that would be huge. I figure at the end of the day, we'll probably make about 50% of our money post-launch on Steam, which is crazy compared to other platforms.

I can only imagine what bigger titles are able to do. Must be nice

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The nice thing there with that Steam sale is that 11,000 USD revenue from a 60% off sale still generates the same profit as 11,000 USD revenue at normal price.

Whereas for a physical copy. 11,000 USD revenue from a 60% off sale would be far less profit than 11,000 USD revenue at normal price. The cost of the physical media doesn't change.

Regards,
SB

 

[Pixel]

You know, when Steam games go on big sales, is about the same time you'd see that game cheaper in a retail store.

So the question is how much money do publishers make on a $20 or $30 or $40 retail game? Do retailers still demand the noticably less and are royalties any less?

At the end of the day perhaps publishers only make $5-$10 dollars on a $30 retail game

 

[Silent_Buddha]

You know, when Steam games go on big sales, is about the same time you'd see that game cheaper in a retail store.

So the question is how much money do publishers make on a $20 or $30 or $40 retail game? Do retailers still demand the noticably less and are royalties any less?

At the end of the day perhaps publishers only make $5-$10 dollars on a $30 retail game

It wouldn't surprise me if a discounted 20 USD retail game made a smaller profit for the publisher than a discounted 5 USD steam title.

Hell, some of the smaller developers are making a profit at selling titles for less than 0.25 USD on sales. I've bought a few titles at 0.17 USD. At that price, I figured why not? Most of them I haven't even installed to try out, but some of them I have.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So the question is how much money do publishers make on a $20 or $30 or $40 retail game? Do retailers still demand the noticably less and are royalties any less?

As I understand, there is no flexibility on the fees. You end with quite a lot of flat fees on disks, from printing and fees to distribution and any buy-back offer you have for retailers. Below a certain price, physical media has to be pretty worthless to the publishers. That's why download titles offer a significant price advantage potential - it's in a position to go $20 cheaper than a disc title but still make as much money for the platform holder and publisher, and can go cheap and still make some money.