Charles Eli Cheese
Neckbeard Shitlord
You agree with someone who said that Valve doesn't have a sales monopoly because you can buy Steam keys from different stores.
It's like saying that Coca Cola has no beverage monopoly because every poor ass sells it.It's kind of retarded to have different prices for same source, mostly this is of no value to either the game maker or the consumer. And it's still basically a de facto monopoly though because steam gets a set cut any way you slice it, and they can refuse games as well, though this is just an issue for the lower end of the budget range.
You realize that what you're telling me is that Steam is such a monopoly that Valve can afford wholesale operations in addition to retail. Have you ever worked in the real world? Steam is the equivalent of Coca Cola, Nestle and similar virtual monopolies. They are so big that additional retailers simply allow them to close market coverage gaps, there isn't any competition if the money always end up in a single pocket.
You've both made a pretty fundamental mistake here, thinking that every Steam key is backed by a cut for Valve. In the case you buy and game on eg Humble Store and it's delivered by Steam key Valve gets nothing, 0, zilch, nada.
From Humble's Developer FAQ:
Q: What are the revenue splits?
A: Even though the Humble Store isn't pay-what-you-want we still are very adamant about supporting developers and charities. After deductions for payment processor fees (typically around 5%) the net revenue is split 3 ways: 75% to developers, 10% to charity and 15% to Humble Bundle to cover costs associated with hosting the content.
What assets do we need from you?
- DRM-free build(s) (if available)
- 10,000+ Steam keys
Where do the keys come from? As a developer you can generate as many as you like for no cost. Valve hosts and distributes the games pro bono, probably taking a very small loss on bandwidth for very large games. Of course they gain a lot too, from ecosystem and network benefits etc. so it's not pure benevolence, just pointing out that your assumptions are quite faulty here
Humble bundle is pure shit though. Developers make zero off that shit and it is a fake pseudocharity basically.
You put your game in there when you have milked everything you can get any other way and just do it for the exposure.