Behold the whole story of every economy
I’d argue that that is entirely a good thing overall.
It means that Steam is very open to Indie devs (something we already know) that don’t make as much money but are passion projects for the creators.
If they’re making enough from the…let’s call them prestige titles…to be able to afford to give indie devs a place to host their passion projects and maybe get more eyes on it, than I see no problem with that.
No idie dev is going into it thinking they’re going to be next giant thing. They just want to share their work and maybe make a few bucks. And Steam gives them that, PLUS the chance that maybe they’ll be a Rimworld or a Hollow Knight; something that sparks a giant success for them.
Hey op, I see a lot of your arguments in the comments.
I have a challenge.
Name 5 things Valve could implement to change this that would not be to the detriment of indie devs.
This is not a joke. You have opinions. I want to hear them.
I’m also curious (since I see you pushing a decentralized market place in the comments), how you think a decentralized marketplace would function and what would be better about it.
I’m one of those that makes most of the money off a different platform. I’m not making it because the platform is helping me. It’s inertia. I’m the best in my category and so I dominate. Same for these games.
I believe that this is as much about game quality, over saturation, and marketing/inertia as it is about Valve in general, but I’m trying to understand what they think (based on the contents of the article) can be done to fix this problem for game devs.
Okay, but explain how consumer preferences are somehow Steam’s fault?
If you told me it was that way because Steam was boosting AAA games and suppressing indie titles, then okay, you have a valid reason to criticize Steam for that, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Candy Crush makes about a billion dollars a year. GTA V makes about 500 million from selling shark cards. Whatever happening at the steam store to warrant an article like this isn’t on steam, its 100% on consumers being dumbasses.
It’s also on many people wanting to play AAA games and there not being many good AAA games so everyone plays the same few good ones
I really dont get this, there have been and still are things you can very much criticise valve for but people come up with the most insane shit to criticise them for. “Uhh yeah this problem affecting the whole game industry is steams fault”. Also the top 1% are prolly aldo much much more expensive to produce so i dont think its as bad as it sounds at first but yeah.
Alternative Headline: Sturgeon’s Law Continues to Exist
Barely make anything compared to multi million companies
Solo dev games can make a fraction of what those giant games and the dev can live a very comfortable life. Etc: balatro
Very pointless article.
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But that’s the thing. It’s incredibly rare that a indie game becomes successful enough to sustain even a single developer. It’s like with every other entertainment industry. YouTube, OF, Twitch, TikTok, you are competing with millions of other people in exactly the same situation as you. I think it’s OF where you need to be in the top 25% to earn $1k per year.
Hard work and clever marketing can improve your chances of a success, but you still need to be extremely lucky to be noticed enough to make a living out of it.
I remember this talk about a developer making a living as a game dev. Not by making inspiring or “good” games, but by pretty much endlessly reskinning solitare games.
Have you ever considered the fact that these games suck?
Talking about statistics is not pointless, it’s quite interesting sometimes even.
Games like Balatro or Stardew Valley are absolute unicorns. Most smaller teams and solo devs that have a constant stream of some revenue through Steam need to work on the side to earn a living.
The point they’re making is pointless. Should have clarified my self better. I think this is an issue of behemoth companies are eating the big chunk of market and not leaving anything for the smaller creators to make a living. Same like McDonald’s is everywhere squishing smaller burger shops.
This a market problem not steam. The article points it like it’s steam’s fault. IMHO steam does its best to support indie devs. they even patch their games so they’d have a smooth release (sorry its a Reddit link)
This is why I follow reviewers and curators that sift through the bottom 99% to find interesting indie stuff. It’s absolutely jaw-dropping what never shows up on Steam’s store landing page or queues.
Splattercat is one such reviewer. He tends to prefer dystopia and post-apocalypse style stuff, and clearly works hard to bring interesting titles some more exposure: https://www.youtube.com/@splattercatgaming
80-20 rule still holds true, huh?
It would be weird if it didn’t follow a power law distribution.
Aka the Pareto Principle. Aka “80% of everything is shit”.
Aka “80% of everything is shit”.
That’s Sturgeon’s law (originally 90%). If you want to condense Pareto, it’s “80% of value is created in 20% of the time”.
Really topics against Steam are getting ridiculous.
Like ok. Is Steam supposed to force players to buy shit games too so that the distribution curve flattens?
I’m gonna pump so many AI shit games so I can get my fair share 🥰
Really topics against Steam are getting ridiculous.
Less ridiculous than the people defending a corporation who makes money promoting gambling to kids and that is owned by a billionare with multiple private yachts
Thats why steam is filled with indie games, because they dont make a dime and enjoy it.
It’s called Zipf’s Law and it’s a fundamental statistical probability formula found in many, many things, from languages to distribution curves.
VSauce had a good video covering this too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCn8zs912OE
Would think that could apply to most markets. Almost the weird 80-20 “rule” that goes for most things.
