Steam developers speak: Maximum profits for Valve, minimum responsibilities
Interesting opinion piece on Polygon. Wonder what Crate’s feelings are on the topic?
Very few of those developers were willing to put their names to their criticisms, with one even saying that they were “pissing themselves in fear” about the idea of an off-the-record Discord voice call. Much like the Steam Workshop creator community, which lives in terror at the knowledge that Valve could cut off their income at any time, Steam developers know who holds all the power in the relationship.
”The whole way Steam handles reviews is so brutal and backbreaking to developers,” one developer with more than 500 reviews on their latest title told me. “I’m almost scared to talk about this because I’m scared of gamers knowing how much more power they have than they think.”
Steam’s review system often works as a support line, where players ask for help with everything from computer compatibility to lost passwords. This creates huge issues with the legitimacy of “reviews,” as developers are given few tools to handle things in a more effective way.
This feels like a pretty important piece and I have to agree that the system is slanted hard against devs. I have a feeling we may be seeing changes coming for devs on Steam after this article circulates. With that said its got to suck to be tied to Steam for your livelihood, just to survive, get seen, be noticed, you have to participate on Steam unless you belong to a select few of the “big” names like Blizzard etc. A 30% cut of every one of your sales right in to Steam’s pocket.