Oooh, a hat! Who wrote the game it shows up in, runs the servers that do the matchmaking, and distributes the hat to the customers? Right, you did all the work. I'll remember that next time I play my favorite pikzen game distributed by the pikzen network and run on pikzen servers.
For reference, once cosmetics were introduced (and it was already getting old by the time), TF2 ran a good... two years? without matchmaking servers, only with a master server to list all the public servers. While it's not something you're running on a $5 DigitalOcean instance, it's not exactly super expensive either (especially considering they were down regularly). All the servers were hosted by the community. Microtransactions are the only reason the game got matchmaking.
But I don't know, call me a bleeding heart idealist, but if I'm asking people to come build things for me, I'm not asking for a 75% claim on it because the terrain belongs to me. People didn't ask Valve to make content for them. Valve asked them to.
Actually if I recall correctly, modders were largely making skins and other things for free and distributing them to other players. Then Valve developed a section of their online store and distribution network to allow those mods to be sold for at least some money. Now the split may not be what you consider entirely fair, but 8%, 25%, 75%, or 100% of zero is all the same.
A game without mods is a game. A mod without a game is just digital art. It's their engine, their game rules, their store, their distribution network, and their audience that they've reached with their marketing. Maybe they deserve a bit smaller share than they ask, but who are you going to sell these items to without a game engine, game rules, a store, a distribution network, and an audience to sell them to?
If you gave 30% to an app store, and 20% for marketing, and 25% for someone to vet your items don't break the game, what would that cut be overall? 75%.
No marketing is being done for items aside from announcing them in patch notes.
>25% for someone to vet your items don't break the game
That is not something Valve does, considering the amount of items that clip through models after release. Notwithstanding the fact that items they select are either from modelers that they're already in contact with, or items that were voted up by the community and therefore, tried.
This is exactly where the Polygon article is right. Steam is in a situation of almost monopoly on the market, and you have absolutely zero chances of ever being able to negotiate those rates.
Even the mafia takes less as a protection fee, and they do more work than Valve when it comes to their customers.
> No marketing is being done for items aside from announcing them in patch notes.
None perhaps for the individual add-on items, but there's been marketing to get people involved in the games for which the extra content is made. The audience is there initially because of the game, not initially because of the extra content.
> That is not something Valve does, considering the amount of items that clip through models after release.
That's a shame. I would expect that for the amount they keep they'd do some quality control.
If you want more control and a bigger share, make assets for a non-Valve game. Find an engine, some programmers, a musician, a level designer, and a couple of testers. Publish your own game. Of course, then you'd be splitting the game development share across all of those team members. So depending on the size of the team, 5% to 50% of the game team's share from your 70% from the sale of the game through the store would be that alternative, unless you're prepared to do it as a solo project. That, though, is for the sale price of the whole game rather than a single downloadable item. Then you can do the same with DLC packs. Indie games do tend to sell at lower prices than AAA titles, though.
and let you download said app as many times as you want...
i don't know how many times i've deleted games just to redownload them some time later. i could even continue with the same playthrough because steam kept backups of my save files on their servers.
