Last week the results of the eighth annual State of the Industry Survey were released to the public, highlighting and revealing notable trends in the game industry ahead of GDC 2020 this March!
This long-running industry compiles responses from nearly 4,000 game developers, and this year's results suggest devs are showing heightened interest in developing for next-generation consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.
Download your free copy of the 2020 State of the Industry report here!
Many more interesting insights are contained in the full report, touching on everything from how game devs are feeling about the state of cross-platform multiplayer to where they sell their games and why.
With that in mind, today we wanted to highlight another intriguing finding from the survey about how much game makers disagree with Valve's choice to keep Steam's standard revenue split at 70/30 when competitors (like the Epic Games Store and its 88/12 split) in the PC games marketplace space are offering better rates.
Most devs don’t think Steam justifies its 30 percent cut; many suggest 10-15 percent instead
Each of the storefronts accessible to PC game makers offers its own terms and opportunities, and many offer standard revenue-split rates better than Steam’s standard 30 percent take.
With that in mind, we thought it would be interesting to ask our survey respondents what they thought a justifiable amount of revenue would be for Steam to take; 25 percent said 15 percent, making that the most popular response.
10 percent was the second most popular answer (with 21 percent of respondents), while 17 percent would be comfortable giving 20 percent of revenue to Steam. Only 6 percent of respondents felt comfortable with Steam’s cut remaining at 30 percent, while one in five admitted they weren’t sure what cut made sense for Valve’s storefront.
GDC 2020 runs from Monday, March 16th through Friday, March 20th. This will be the 34th edition of GDC, and now that registration is officially open, you'll want to take a look at the (ever-expanding) session schedule and your GDC pass options -- register early to lock in the best price!
For more details on GDC 2020 visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.