• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Matching Epic, Microsoft is slashing what it takes from developers to 12% on their PC store

Microsoft's warchest will ensure that it wins every business it goes into. It's just a matter of spending billions and outspending your competition.
 

Estocolmo

Member
Amazon is one example. I love it when people throw Amazon out there like every company is exactly like them (or has the potential to be exactly like them). There are far more companies that didn't survive which were of similar size (at the time) to Amazon who lost money prior to and after the dot com bubble.

Amazon only survived that long because of luck and fortunate timing - Bezos has admitted as much. You can only burn cash for a certain amount of time before it comes back and bites you in the ass. If you don't convert the cash burn to profit within a certain period of time then you're in trouble. Microsoft have much more leeway than Epic in that regard.
Isn’t it about the amount of pay off time they calculate with?
 

johntown

Banned
How many times does it need to be said. Steam does not always do the 30% cut. It is negotiable.

Of course garbage stores are going to offer a bigger cut. They don't care about developing their store they just want exclusives from greedy devs to try and force people to their store.
 

CitizenZ

Banned
I find Apple and Steams cut pretty offensive, to be honest. But developers don't have much choice.

And yet they will take up front cash to remain exclusive for a while to the highest bidder. Devs are in the driver seat today, if they are smart enough.
 
Amazon is one example. I love it when people throw Amazon out there like every company is exactly like them (or has the potential to be exactly like them). There are far more companies that didn't survive which were of similar size (at the time) to Amazon who lost money prior to and after the dot com bubble.

Amazon only survived that long because of luck and fortunate timing - Bezos has admitted as much. You can only burn cash for a certain amount of time before it comes back and bites you in the ass. If you don't convert the cash burn to profit within a certain period of time then you're in trouble. Microsoft have much more leeway than Epic in that regard.

I agree with you. At the same time, I think that Tencent has the kind of warchest where they can afford to burn money indefinitely in an attempt to secure large market share.

As for Microsoft, yeah, the Long Dark dev sets the record straight. These companies can host games FOR FREE and they still wouldn't make the ROI that they make on Steam.

THE END.
 
MS seriously needs to redesign their store if they hope to fight against steam or other stores.

Current WIN10 MS Store is a fucking piece of shit.
 

Gallard

Member
I hope moves like this gain more traction because that extra 18% means a lot for small devs like me. Here are some things I learned after launching my first commercial game on Steam.

Say you sold 500 copies with a price of $20 for USA. The math is not as simple as 500 x $20 x 0.70. Due to regional pricing, there are some countries where selling a copy will bring you as much as $1.50. In the end, I found myself most anticipating sales from US, Japan, and Western Europe. It really brought into perspective how good of a publisher deal Epic offers (200,000 units x 20 x 0.88 advanced). 200,000 units at USA pricing and not 3rd world pricing. That's a world of difference.

At 20,000 units sold, after expenses and other team members gets their cut, I'm not even at minimum wage. And this is with keeping my expenses as low as possible (living with family, free rent, and no eating out, etc).
 

Allandor

Member
While steam has an 30 percent cut on sales to devs epic has for a while tried to get devs over by having a cut of only 12 percent and now Microsoft follows as well.

From the article here.


Now that they are friendly against developers they only need to be friendly towards the consumers and make some proper stores.

Seems like steam is getting a lot of pressure, but will their dominance on the market be enough to ignore it?

Edit: It is only for the PC store at the moment.
Are they really matching? Weren't there articles that epic increased their share back to 30 a few month ago?
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
Very few people buy PC games from MS Store, and a Microsoft knows it. They barely even buy games from EGS. People go there to play Fortnite and grab free games. Microsoft basically isn't sacrificing any revenue because their main source of PC gaming income is trough Steam. If they really want to show the world how good they are, then lower it to 12% on consoles.

So Microsoft doesn't sell much PC games anyway, this is them trying to push Valve to lower their cut so Microsoft can get a bigger cut from selling games trough Steam. I bet Gaben is having a laugh.
 
Last edited:

JLB

Banned
Another desperate move to try and get some presence on PC that they've failed to do for the last 16 years or so is "pressure" on the competition? How does this make you more likely to use that as you admit basically broken service, considering Epic already proved "trickle down economy" false?

How is making even less money on it, suddenly going to get them to fix everything wrong with it, considering the only other store to pimp its low fees is also barebones with no features for users or developers with the only appeal being getting paid up front by Epic whether you sell or not?

Awesome, a lower fee, why did they return to Steam, this solves everything and makes them competitive, they should get off Steam! Here's what actual devs, with gamer customers and not billionaire CEO customers, or shills pretending to be devs or speak in favor of devs think.


Follow that string, that's The Long Dark's developer discussing it with someone pretending to be a developer or something, Idk, lots of gems in there showing how clueless people calling this some major development that puts pressure on anyone other than Microsoft itself is.

I guarantee if Steam offered a way to self publish your game without even the symbolic $1000 up front, with 10% only fee but then only match 1:1 the services and features of the "competition", separate from the main store, noone would use it as more than a free repository :messenger_poop:

And lol @ all the media praising it and at the same time making up excuses for why it doesn't apply on the console store where MS is making bank and has shit to offer to developers as long as they have a successful platform users engage with. That's not reporting, it's sucking company cock.


Its a completely reasonable opinion. Similar to Android devices; you might install third party stores, but no one use them, so devs have to go where the consumers go, and the owner of those stores can -and will- take a share of the cake.
 
Last edited:

mckmas8808

Banned
PC games.
Microsoft is reducing the cut it takes from PC games sold on its store from 30 percent down to 12 percent.
"As part of our commitment to empower every PC game creator to achieve more, starting on August 1 the developer share of Microsoft Store PC games sales net revenue will increase to 88%, from 70%. A clear, no-strings-attached revenue share means developers can bring more games to more players and find greater commercial success from doing so."

Okay, this makes sense now.
 

Irobot82

Member
Oh yeah.

That was a big one and they killed Nokia in the process.

Sad too, Zune was a beaut. The social aspect (seeing how many hours/times you and friends listended to musi) and squirting songs to friends were fun.

I also loved the WP UI. It was so good.......oh well.
 
  • Strength
Reactions: GHG

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Sad too, Zune was a beaut. The social aspect (seeing how many hours/times you and friends listended to musi) and squirting songs to friends were fun.

I also loved the WP UI. It was so good.......oh well.

Microsoft had at the time a huge reputation problem. For most normies windows was that pos that got in the way when they wanted to watch YouTube or wank to porn.

Smartphones taught users that computers needn’t be crap.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Good. No idea why these digital store owners were taking 30% anyway. They used to take 10% royalty fees and the retailer took 20%. For some reason, when they opened their own digital stores, they continued to take the 20% retailer cut even though datacenters cost only a fraction of what it costs to run retail stores. my company's data center doesnt even have a single person there. Whenever something happens, an engineer has to drive down there to reset it. Gamestop has dozens of stores in every city and employees anywhere from half a dozen to dozen people per store. Thats why they took that high cut.

12% is fair.
 

lyan

Member
Good. No idea why these digital store owners were taking 30% anyway. They used to take 10% royalty fees and the retailer took 20%. For some reason, when they opened their own digital stores, they continued to take the 20% retailer cut even though datacenters cost only a fraction of what it costs to run retail stores. my company's data center doesnt even have a single person there. Whenever something happens, an engineer has to drive down there to reset it. Gamestop has dozens of stores in every city and employees anywhere from half a dozen to dozen people per store. Thats why they took that high cut.

12% is fair.
30% is more justified if the game utilizes all the possible features that Steam offers, would be great if they let you opt out of some features in exchange for a lower cut.
 
I think people are missing the point about this. I could be wrong but i think as it stands if MS wants a game for gamepass on pc that doesn't have a native windows version they have to pay developers to make a windows version on top of what they need to pay to get the game on gamepass. What MS is hoping is that by giving devs the 88/12 split they (the devs) will make windows versions of their games from the jump.
 
Another desperate move to try and get some presence on PC that they've failed to do for the last 16 years or so is "pressure" on the competition? How does this make you more likely to use that as you admit basically broken service, considering Epic already proved "trickle down economy" false?

How is making even less money on it, suddenly going to get them to fix everything wrong with it, considering the only other store to pimp its low fees is also barebones with no features for users or developers with the only appeal being getting paid up front by Epic whether you sell or not?

Awesome, a lower fee, why did they return to Steam, this solves everything and makes them competitive, they should get off Steam! Here's what actual devs, with gamer customers and not billionaire CEO customers, or shills pretending to be devs or speak in favor of devs think.


Follow that string, that's The Long Dark's developer discussing it with someone pretending to be a developer or something, Idk, lots of gems in there showing how clueless people calling this some major development that puts pressure on anyone other than Microsoft itself is.

I guarantee if Steam offered a way to self publish your game without even the symbolic $1000 up front, with 10% only fee but then only match 1:1 the services and features of the "competition", separate from the main store, noone would use it as more than a free repository :messenger_poop:

And lol @ all the media praising it and at the same time making up excuses for why it doesn't apply on the console store where MS is making bank and has shit to offer to developers as long as they have a successful platform users engage with. That's not reporting, it's sucking company cock.

Microsoft are not desperate, they are improving every facet of its gaming division. They could give games away for free and you'd put some negative spin on it, this is a positive move IMO.
 
Worked well for search engines.
Worked well for browsers.
Worked well for app stores.
Worked well for video game consoles.
Worked well for server OS.
Worked well for [insert failed venture].
Worked well for cell phones.
Worked well for portable music players.
Worked well for tablets.

The reality is that Microsoft has no real successful products outside of Windows and Office. Everything else is just rounding errors and massive losses leading to failures.

Google has the same problem, as it turns out.
 

Denton

Member
The reality is that Microsoft has no real successful products outside of Windows and Office. Everything else is just rounding errors and massive losses leading to failures.
Xbox and gaming in general is (mostly) succesfull and their cloud business is massive.

And many years ago, MS also made some amazing PC peripherals.
 
Last edited:
Another indication that MS does not care about making money off its videogame efforts. Market disruption and influence is far more valuable.
 

Editaur

Member
I have the feeling MS might just end up buying another digital store like GOG some day and merge them.

Just realized gog is owned by CD Projekt. Interesting.
 

Kenpachii

Member
Nobody trusts microsoft, gamepass is useful when its given away for practically free. i don't see anybody buy games on the windows store unless they absolutely can't do it otherwise. Microsoft pulled the plug on PC so many times there is zero trust with there users.
 
Last edited:

KungFucius

King Snowflake
Id say its a smart move not a desperate move.
I agree. Especially with people who have gamepass. The games can be sold for a few bucks cheaper than on steam and devs can still get the same cut. I am the type of PC gamer that only cares about the games and the price so I am fine buying games on any store if it is at the lowest price available when I want to make the purchase.

I also fee that 30% is disgusting. It's fucking market power bullying. If we had real competition it would be similar to retail which is close enough to 12%.
 
episode 4 battle of yavin GIF by Star Wars
 
Worked well for search engines.
Worked well for browsers.
Worked well for app stores.
Worked well for video game consoles.
Worked well for server OS.
Worked well for [insert failed venture].

A perfect example of why so many GAF posts like this have their head up their own ass. It's Ricky Bobby, if you're not first you're last bullshit. Failures, iterations and buyouts are normal parts of business and growth. Market leading isn't easy and there's only one top spot. There is a specific cycle to innovation, first to market, growth phase, buyouts, few left standing etc. It's as old as the hills. Anyhow keep your hate boner for MS, it's not going to affect my enjoyment of their Xbox/PC ecosystem nor my enjoyment of Ninty's for that matter. Plenty of money and games to be made vying for the top spot or being the underdog.
 
I hope moves like this gain more traction because that extra 18% means a lot for small devs like me. Here are some things I learned after launching my first commercial game on Steam.

Say you sold 500 copies with a price of $20 for USA. The math is not as simple as 500 x $20 x 0.70. Due to regional pricing, there are some countries where selling a copy will bring you as much as $1.50. In the end, I found myself most anticipating sales from US, Japan, and Western Europe. It really brought into perspective how good of a publisher deal Epic offers (200,000 units x 20 x 0.88 advanced). 200,000 units at USA pricing and not 3rd world pricing. That's a world of difference.

At 20,000 units sold, after expenses and other team members gets their cut, I'm not even at minimum wage. And this is with keeping my expenses as low as possible (living with family, free rent, and no eating out, etc).
See the problem with that idea is, if yours is a game that struggles to find an audience on Steam and can't even break 2000 sales, Epic don't want you on their store.

On Steam you pay $100 and the whole store is yours to use. Whether you succeed or not from that point is only up to you and how good your game is.
On EGS you can get a publishing deal - if your game is good enough, has enough potential, and can pass their curation in the first place.

18% of zero, is still zero.

And... I very much doubt there are countries where selling a $20 game at Steam recommended regional price will net you $1.50, unless you've discounted it yourself. As someone who lives in the country that, until recently, was the one with the lowest recommended Steam regional prices, the lowest price for a $20 game here is the equivalent of $5. Which still gives you about $3.
And the math is indeed even more complex than that because Steam lets you sell your game outside of Steam, and takes no revenue cut on those sales.
 
Last edited:

Gallard

Member
And... I very much doubt there are countries where selling a $20 game at Steam recommended regional price will net you $1.50, unless you've discounted it yourself.
See Crosscode's regional pricing as an example. If you entered $20 USD as the base, Steam will auto-recommend a price of $2.40 for Argentina (that was the country I was referring to). Multiply that by 0.7 and you're already at $1.68. That's a far cry from $3. Factor in taxes or if you've got a partner, and you can see how I'd be at around $1.50 per sale.

I was exploring two different ideas in my previous post that could have been delineated better. My first point is that an extra 18% of income means a world of difference to small devs like me. To clarify, I've managed 20k sales so far, not 2k. And this is WITH a publisher's help. My publisher isn't some no-name company either. From talking with other devs and comparing steam player count and reviews, I know with good certainty that I'm doing comparatively better than a lot of my peers. There are a lot of devs struggling out there who like the 12% message that Epic is peddling, but don't want to get dog-piled.

Obviously, small devs like me wouldn't be getting Epic sweetheart deals to begin with. I mentioned that in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way since I was talking about regional pricing and it retroactively hit me as I was typing how much more impressive the sweetheart deal is when you consider that the 200k guaranteed comes at USA pricing.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
See Crosscode's regional pricing as an example. If you entered $20 USD as the base, Steam will auto-recommend a price of $2.40 for Argentina (that was the country I was referring to). Multiply that by 0.7 and you're already at $1.68. That's a far cry from $3. Factor in taxes or if you've got a partner, and you can see how I'd be at around $1.50 per sale.
Then don't follow the recommended pricing, it's just a suggestion by analytics, if yours is already cheap then don't lower it further. If you think Argentinians can and will pay for it you can ask for double that. It's up to you.

Lord knows many big publishers nowadays largely ignore it and price things the same or more leading to people bashing Steam's regional pricing for getting worse, as if they force anyone to make things more expensive, lol.

Feel free to not use Steam to launch your game either if the fee isn't worth what you get in return because you found all it offers elsewhere cheaper or you don't even want what it offers so you go where it's cheaper and they don't.

If you think you can get the 20k sales you said elsewhere go for it. Maybe in your case it will be true. In other cases going elsewhere would yield 2k sales so the lower fee wouldn't make up for shit. Nobody's owed success, it's capitalism.

Other platforms offer less, in tools or in potential users, so it's natural they ask for less in return, the insane thing was that they asked for the same. MS lowered the fee only for the side they're struggling, where they offer value they kept the same.
 
Last edited:

Gallard

Member
I followed the regional pricing because that was what my publisher recommended. It's not so simple to defy regional pricing, there are a lot of factors involved.

Feel free to not use Steam to launch your game either if the fee isn't worth what you get in return because you found all it offers elsewhere cheaper or you don't even want what it offers so you go where it's cheaper and they don't.
This seems oddly passive aggressive. I'm grateful to be able to sell my game through Steam. I expressed a simple sentiment that I hope the act of platforms taking a smaller cut gains more traction. Is that so controversial? If I had complaints about the president, would you recommend I move countries?
 
Top Bottom