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Discord Store To Offer Developers 90 Percent of Game Revenues (arstechnica.com)
DarkRookie2 shares a report from Ars Technica: Discord has announced that it will start taking a reduced, 10-percent cut from game revenues generated on its online store starting next year, one-upping the Epic Games Store and its recently announced 12-percent cut on the Epic Games Store. The move comes alongside a coming expansion of the Discord Games Store, which launched earlier this year with a tightly curated selection of games that now includes roughly 100 titles. The coming "self-serve publishing platform" will allow developers "no matter what size, from AAA to single-person teams" to access the Discord Store and the new 90-percent revenue share. "We talked to a lot of developers, and many of them feel that current stores are not earning their 30% of the usual 70/30 revenue share," Discord writes in the announcement. "Because of this, we now see developers creating their own stores and launchers to distribute their games instead of focusing on what's really important --making great games and cultivating amazing communities."
"Turns out, it does not cost 30% to distribute games in 2018," the announcement continues. "After doing some research, we discovered that we can build amazing developer tools, run them, and give developers the majority of the revenue share."
"Turns out, it does not cost 30% to distribute games in 2018," the announcement continues. "After doing some research, we discovered that we can build amazing developer tools, run them, and give developers the majority of the revenue share."
I'm personally interested to find out how this turns out. It may lead to innovative ways to tackle other issues in our society.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
I'm not a mathematician, but I suspect 70% of something is still a majority of that thing.
90/10 sounds great, but there has to be restrictions.
Because it would mean the store loses money if I were to offer games for $1 each (credit card would take a good 30% of that). Or if I offer it for free with a bunch of $1 items, again each purchase would cost a good 30%.
So unless they're going to restrict games to costing at least $5 or DLC costing at least $5, or basically approve only good games where people are willing to pay more for,
Of course, these make sense in situations where apps and such generally cost several dollars and where you don't have a huge proliferation of 99 cent apps where 30% barely covers the cost.
Begun the digital distribution wars have.
Now we can enjoy the same Balkanization that video content has been descending into.
Someday, somehow, some way, someone needs to design a federated distribution system for digital media. So all the vendors can have their own little stores with their own little terms and conditions and their own individual rates and exclusives and what-have-you, and the buyers can have one friendly interface.
Won't happen, because someone's precious branding. But a boy can dream.
This is about Steam and the Epic Games Store.
Steam takes 30%, the same as the historical retailer average. Remember when one of the selling points of digital distribution was that it would be cheaper?
Epic made their own infrastructure to handle Fortnite, and decided that they, too, could run a store. They decided 12% would be profitable. And if you use their game engine and publish on their store, they waive the 5% fee for using the engine.
Valve got wind of this and, just before Epic's new storefront was publicly unveiled, offered up a laughable tiered structure where they would tale smaller cut if you reached 10 million or 50 million in sales. That smaller cut was still bigger than the 12% Epic is taking. (And my guess would be that it's progressive, like taxes, so Steam takes 30% until you reach the next tier, then the lower cut only on sales above the threshold.)
TL;DR: Steam is dead. Discord is trying to bandwagon on Epic's win.
..that I will continue owning that game, at least to the extent you can own a digital object. That is the core value proposition they give me. Everything else is gravy (friend list, chat, game discovery, refunds, cloud saves, etc..).
Mostly, I just want to know that when I plunk down money on a game, it will stay in the list of games I can play for a reasonably foreseeable future. I trust Valve for that because they have some track record, and over the course of many years their terms have not significantly degraded.
I'm also just generally loath to install any new store or launcher thing. I don't want a Ubisoft account or a Microsoft store account or an Origin or Epic account. I barely tolerate having a Blizzard account.
Anyway, I don't wish these guys any ill will and I think Valve could use the competition - but I don't think the world can support too many stores over the long term.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Steam is the incumbent, where people have amassed large libraries of games and that has things like the messaging system and friends, so it also has some social control.
The fight is barely starting. I'm wouldn't dismiss Valve any time soon. Discord's strength is that it has a better messaging system that has supplanted steam friends for many gaming social circles. Epic's strength is a single title that is played by a very large and very specific category of players that haven't actually shown much interest in other kinds of games so far as well as a much stronger contact base among developers as an experienced engine developer.
So every party has unique strengths. The fight is on. We'll see how it goes.
Valve does keep making games. It hasn't been a month since their last game's release. It's just that they're increasingly divorced from the consumer side on gaming, being deeply specialized in maximally monetizing people rather than satisfying their needs, so their latest offering is just awful when contrasted against competition.
Citation: Artefact.
apple needs to lower there cut or add 3rd party stores
Then discord has a massive advantage for you, because Discord has become the de facto voice communication and text communication/social networking platform for all things gaming. So you'll have discord installed regardless if you're in almost any kind of gaming community with other people.
This is how you go from a decent chat and voip client, to a bloated behemoth.
Can not wait :/
I have reasonable confidence when I buy on Steam that I will continue owning that game, at least to the extent you can own a digital object.
And that extent is near-zero. Steam games come with DRM. You don't own the things you bought. Valve allows you to do some things because they feel like it. They have a track record and they're flush with cash at the moment, but if that changed they could simply pull the plug and walk away. They could also selectively screw over individuals. If your account is banned you cannot log in, download, or play any of your games. As a policy, they will not tell you why your account is banned, simply stating you violated their terms of service.
What are their terms of service?
This Steam Subscriber Agreement ("Agreement") is a legal document that explains your rights and obligations as a subscriber of Steam from Valve Corporation, a corporation under the laws of the State of Washington, with its registered office at 10400 NE 4th St., Bellevue, WA 98004, United States, registered with the Washington Secretary of State under number 60 22 90 773, VAT ID No. EU 8260 00671 (“Valve”). Please read it carefully.
SECTION 11 CONTAINS A BINDING ARBITRATION AGREEMENT AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER. IT MAY AFFECT YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS. PLEASE READ IT. IF YOU ARE A CUSTOMER WITH RESIDENCE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION, SECTION 11 DOES NOT APPLY TO YOU.
1. REGISTRATION AS A SUBSCRIBER; APPLICATION OF TERMS TO YOU; YOUR ACCOUNT
Steam is an online service offered by Valve.
You become a subscriber of Steam ("Subscriber") by completing the registration of a Steam user account. This Agreement takes effect as soon as you indicate your acceptance of these terms. You may not become a subscriber if you are under the age of 13. Steam is not intended for children under 13 and Valve will not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13.
A. Contracting Party
For any interaction with Steam your contractual relationship is with Valve. Except as otherwise indicated at the time of the transaction (such as in the case of purchases from another Subscriber in a Subscription Marketplace), any transactions for Subscriptions (as defined below) you make on Steam are being made from Valve.
B. Subscriptions; Content and Services
As a Subscriber you may obtain access to certain services, software and content available to Subscribers. The Steam client software and any other software, content, and updates you download or access via Steam, including but not limited to Valve or third-party video games and in-game content, and any virtual items you trade, sell or purchase in a Steam Subscription Marketplace are referred to in this Agreement as “Content and Services”; the rights to access and/or use any Contents and Services accessible through Steam are referred to in this Agreement as "Subscriptions."
Each Subscription allows you to access particular Content and Services. Some Subscriptions may impose additional terms specific to that Subscription ("Subscription Terms") (for example, an end user license agreement specific to a particular game, or terms of use specific to a particular product or feature of Steam). Also, additional terms (for example, payment and billing procedures) may be posted on http://www.steampowered.com/ or within the Steam service ("Rules of Use"). Rules of Use include the Steam Online Conduct Rules http://steampowered.com/index.... and the Steam Refund Policy http://store.steampowered.com/.... The Subscription Terms, the Rules of Use, and the Valve Privacy Policy (which can be found at http://www.valvesoftware.com/p...) are binding on you once you indicate your acceptance of them or of this Agreement, or otherwise become bound by them as described in Section
Indeed, Steam has been running 14 years now; the Discord app is less than 4 years old. Discord Inc. claims they've raised over $30M in investments... which is a drop in the bucket compared to what Valve and Epic are making from Steam and Fortnite respectively. Ten years from now, will anyone still use/remember Discord? They could crash and burn like MySpace or countless other social networks. Far more likely, they'll get bought out by, say, Microsoft, and get rolled in to Skype or something.
I'd only buy something on the Discord store if it were DRM-free and I could back it up.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
..that I will continue owning that game, at least to the extent you can own a digital object.
Do you have the game Satisfactory by any chance? This is a game that was recently pulled from Steam and is now an Epic store exclusive. Now I haven't heard much about it yet but I wonder, in 5 years when you want to go back and play this again will you still be able to download and run it having purchased it in the "wrong" store?
Apple's recent experience, and their terms of service saying that a customer may not be able to download the thing they bought if its not available on their store would suggest that this is actually a bad trend rather than a good one for consumers.
What makes Steam digital restrictions management superior to the lack of any DRM that's more common on Itch.io and GOG?