Do RPGM dev's hate Steam?

[woootbm]

This is something I've been wondering because I've felt like there's some kind of stigma towards putting your RPGM game on Steam (at least on these forums).

I'm not sure I understand the mentality. To compare to itch.io, Steam has a much larger user base but costs a small fee to put your game up. Steam also takes a cut of your profits, I'm not sure if itch.io does. But these are all business reasons (and Steam is- objectively- the better business move).

So where does this disdain come from? Both are completely flooded with trash (RPGMaker and otherwise). Is it seen as some kind of elitist platform? Is it to make your game 100% DRM-free? Am I imagining this?

 

[JohnDoeNews]

I personally think itch.io is a nice platform to start, because it is free. Here you can post games that are just a few scenes, or a first chapter, even if you end up abandoning it to never finish it. (At least if you don't charge for your games). It is also handy if you want to upload games and embed them to your own website, which is great to promote your work or just show of what you can do.

Steam is next level. You pay $100 before you can even put your game online and on top of that you pay a % (i believe 20%, could be 10%) for every sale you make. This is not a problem, if your game is 100% finished and actually ready for release.

And lets be honest, 99.99% of all rpg maker games are never finished and will never be ready for release.

I won't trash talk steam, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you are absolutely sure your game is all finished and ready for release.

Also your game has to be good enough to sell. If your game is just so/so, then you might never make that 100 bucks back.

 

[Arthran]

I personally can't think of any time I've seen anybody explicitly expressing disdain towards Steam. However, given how many people complain about the cost of MZ, and the cost of plugins, and the cost of DLCs, etc... It's probably safe to assume that a lot of people consider the $100 Steam fee to be a non-option. A lot of people are unable/unwilling to invest any money into their games.

Steam also takes a cut of your profits, I'm not sure if itch.io does.

Itch.io lets you choose which percentage cut you want to give them (0% is an option).

*edit*

... and on top of that you pay a % (i believe 20%, could be 10%) for every sale you make.

Steam is 30%, IIRC.

 

[Tw0Face]

costs a small fee to put your game up.

As far as I know, you will need to pay a $100.00 USD fee for each product you wish to distribute on Steam. If, for example, you have 3 games you want to put up on Steam, that would cost you $300.00 USD accordingly. For me, having developed 13 games and assuming I would want to upload them all to Steam, that would be $1300.00 USD already. That said, putting my games on steam wouldn't make any sense for me, as I couldn't even be sure I would be able to cover the costs that arose just by offering my games there.

 

[JohnDoeNews]

Itch.io lets choose you which percentage cut you want to give them (0% is an option).

I believe the cut for itch.io is always 10%. I might be wrong, but I never saw an option to give them more, or less.

 

[Arthran]

I believe the cut for itch.io is always 10%. I might be wrong, but I never saw an option to give them more, or less.

10% is the default, but you can change it in your Seller Settings.

Spoiler: Itch Help Documentation Snippet

 

[JohnDoeNews]

Okay that is cool. Never knew that. Giving them 0% is even een option too? Doing that is really not a cool move though.

 

[Eliaquim]

Hi there!
I guess the real problem with this, regardless the game is finished or not, is indeed the $100 fee.

For countries that have $ as their currency, maybe is not that much, but here in Brazil, $100 is sometimes almost half of the minimum salary. Like four or five times the Brazil currency.
Don't know about other countries.

There is also the fact that I believe I big amount of users from RPG Maker is not an adult. Maybe they don't have a job yet, etc...

But as others said, even if a person has the money for steam, I believe they also prefer to start on Itch io. Since it's free to upload a demo/alpha/pre-release, get feedback, improve the game, and see if their game is really good.

Then after that, put on steam.

 

[woootbm]

Yeah, itch.io definitely sounds like it makes sense on the more hobbyist side of things. I can see people wanting to get their stuff out their and churn out content as they grow. Me, I just polished my little nugget and put it out there because it's a bigger platform, heh.

For me, having developed 13 games and assuming I would want to upload them all to Steam, that would be $1300.00 USD already. That said, putting my games on steam wouldn't make any sense for me, as I couldn't even be sure I would be able to cover the costs that arose just by offering my games there.

I mean putting 13 games up at once is bad business anyway; you'd be competing with yourself. If it were me I would just slowly trickle on my best works one at a time, test the waters. Like the company Spiderweb Software did (not an RPGM dev, but similar product).

$100 is sometimes almost half of the minimum salary. Like four or five times the Brazil currency.
Don't know about other countries.

To be frank, I assumed the $100 was in consideration for such countries. I would have expected the fee to be $1000 or more. For a point of reference, I've heard numbers like 50k for consoles (or 25k, or something. Tens of thousands). Not sure how this works nowadays since consoles have gotten more indie-friendly.

Game dev is expensive

There is also the fact that I believe I big amount of users from RPG Maker is not an adult. Maybe they don't have a job yet, etc...

Such people should not be trying to sell a game...

 

[JohnDoeNews]

Such people should not be trying to sell a game...

Why not? A kid that worked on their game for a year could possibly bring out a better game then some adults in the same time period.

Not sure if it is allowed to sell games on those platforms as a minor, but if not, then their parents could do so for them.

And kids making their own money before they are an adult is not always a bad thing. I myself used to work in a supermarket after school. This made that I had money to buy myself a computer, a camera and everything else I desired.

 

[woootbm]

Not sure if it is allowed to sell games on those platforms as a minor, but if not, then their parents could do so for them.

Exactly this. Sure, the parent thing is a possibility. That just strikes me as a pretty ugly thing. This is a form of income, so taxes will be involved. Not to mention if your game is actually successful... maybe I'm cynical, but these things can go poorly.

 

[ATT_Turan]

This is something I've been wondering because I've felt like there's some kind of stigma towards putting your RPGM game on Steam (at least on these forums).

Personally, I wonder where you got this from. I've never heard anyone speak disparagingly against the act of putting games on Steam, and in terms of existing games I know I see way more Steam links in signatures than itch.io or other sites.

 

[Raizen]

I have games that are only on itch, and ones that are only on Steam, it depends on what was the objective with that game and I think most people think out the same. The Steam fee is to put a small wall for lower content/quality games, even though we know it doesn't exactly work that way...

Anyway, the itch games I posted were more JAM games, small games or learning process with gamedev, they aren't made to have a big profit or anything, and my guess is they would sell pretty bad on Steam, so paying $100 just for the sake of them being there is not a good move. The Steam games seem better to go with something that will surely hit the $1000 mark at least to get back the $100, so that the fee seemes almost non-existant.

Basically I do the following, if a game has the potential to reach the $1000, the Steam fee is basically free so I'll go with Steam, if it is a simpler game that I did most for learning or a Jam or anything like that, I'm more confortable putting it on itch and places alike.

Anyway, I still think if you don't care to spend on the fee, always go with Steam, the reach is just absurdly higher, if you do, then opting just for the higher quality is a safer bet.

 

[AphoticAmaranth]

I don't hate steam or anything. In fact as a player I might sometimes prefer steam for their cloud save, achievements, workshop, and trading cards. However, as a developer, I'd rather use and support itch. I like how itch has more options to customize your game pages/developer profile, and doesn't charge an upfront fee. Also, itch is a small indie team focused on empowering creators. Valve/steam is your typical corporate storefront.

Of course steam will have a larger reach, but unless I am sure I can break even, I'd rather stick to itch first.

 

[Andar]

another aspect from steam is the historical one.

when steam was still free to put up games through greenlight, steam got swamped with incomplete and bad RM games - because the RM was the cheapest game developing engine out there at that time, and thousands of people had dreamy eyes about making a quick buck not realising that game development is more work for less return than almost anything else.

that caused a stigma on steam that RM games are always crap, which took decades to vanish.
but during that time most people here considered steam to be difficult for the problem of overcoming that added stigma.

 

[Iron_Brew]

Steam is such a great platform - unironically - I don't think anyone really hates it?

I've seen a few people be grumpy about the 30% cut, but the $100 gatekeeping seems like such a non-issue in the grand scheme of things. In addition to that, being put out by the 30% fee to trade in that marketplace makes no sense to me personally.

100% of 70% of the money you make by being there is better than 100% of the 0% of the money you make by not being there. At most you lose $100 and you get access to - let's face it - every PC user on the face of the planet.

Not distributing on steam due to the size of the cut they take feels like cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's not like Steam have some kind of exclusivity deal that says you can't also use other storefronts, it just gives developers access to a wider market, which means more potential sales.

TL;DR - Steam rules and I can't think of a single reason not to distribute one's game there.

 

[Plueschkatze]

I have not read through the full thread, just the first few posts, so sorry if it already was mentioned.

I want to add something regarding the Steam Fee discussion... unless they changed it very recently, you will make your steam direct fee back if you make enough sales! It's a recoupable thing. Last I checked it was paid back once you crossed 1000$ in sales.

 

[TheMeowingFox]

Steam is such a great platform - unironically - I don't think anyone really hates it?

I've seen a few people be grumpy about the 30% cut, but the $100 gatekeeping seems like such a non-issue in the grand scheme of things. In addition to that, being put out by the 30% fee to trade in that marketplace makes no sense to me personally.

100% of 70% of the money you make by being there is better than 100% of the 0% of the money you make by not being there. At most you lose $100 and you get access to - let's face it - every PC user on the face of the planet.

Not distributing on steam due to the size of the cut they take feels like cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's not like Steam have some kind of exclusivity deal that says you can't also use other storefronts, it just gives developers access to a wider market, which means more potential sales.

TL;DR - Steam rules and I can't think of a single reason not to distribute one's game there.

Problem is, not everyone can cough up $100 and be fortunate enough to make the money back with sales. And from what little I've seen that some have mentioned already, Steam users are more likely to ignore RM titles due to the stigma.

It doesn't help that for one good RM game that's finished, dozens of bad ones pop up like weeds and further aggravate this bias against RM.

Itch.io just seems more creator friendly to me, tbh

 

[Iron_Brew]

Problem is, not everyone can cough up $100 and be fortunate enough to make the money back with sales. And from what little I've seen that some have mentioned already, Steam users are more likely to ignore RM titles due to the stigma.

It doesn't help that for one good RM game that's finished, dozens of bad ones pop up like weeds and further aggravate this bias against RM.

Itch.io just seems more creator friendly to me, tbh

I dunno, to me itch feels somewhat unprofessional? I get that not all creators are trying to be professional, but in being creator friendly I can't help but think it loses something in its usefulness to consumers.

Probably precisely because it has zero gatekeeping, and less than no curation in terms of the projects and products that end up there. Their algorithm for what gets put in front of potential buyers is also deeply unfriendly to games which do not meet certain criteria; and they are not terribly transparent about that (in contrast to steam who have nearly two decades of storefront and backend work to demonstrate and mould their policies).

Steam as a platform is used industry-wide and is (much more importantly) commonly understood. Sure, the backend is painful and antiquated, and Steam Support are famously unhelpful (unless you're using Steamworks in which case they're great) but that simple $100 fee really helps to keep people who have no business polluting the platform with shovelware from... Polluting the platform with shovelware.

Now, all that said, let's not forget: 40 games a day get released on Steam. While not everyone has the hundred bucks to front, clearly enough people do that it isn't that effective of a deterrent in reality.

You also get that hundred bucks back when you cross the threshold of a grand in revenue, so unless your faith in your product is so low that you don't think it'll even sell enough money to that back I don't see it as a barrier to entry at all.

Hell, if you have your game on itch, you can take your first hundred bucks of revenue and use that to finance the Steam release and suddenly have a whole new revenue stream.

 

[gstv87]

I've been hating on Steam since way before I got RM.
I had a number of mods for TF2 that I had to hold indefinitely because of Steam's picky packaging procedures.