Deadus wrote...
One of the devs on the torchlight forum mentioned steam got a percentage, didnt mention anything about an upfront cost, nor did he specify, saying they strike different deals with every company. I'd assume its similar for every game.
K, the way that this works is that it is negotiated up front. When you are working with a large publisher, they take care of this beforehand and usually have existing relationships that specify how your title gets onto the various platforms and what comes back to the publisher in terms of the revenue stream. This gets you around (or at least part way around) many of the platform specific requirements that it takes to be able to get a title onto a platform and approved for distribution in that channel, build the preorder page, etc.
If you arent working with a large publisher or you are bringing an old game onto the platform, they want a demo or a game all ready to go and look at and then they will start the business discussion with you on whether its a good choice for the steam platform and whether or not they think it is a good fit for the games library.
From the financial end of things, yes I have done business with steam before but all of the stuff you get from them basically is under NDA once you start the relationship. The SDKs, the documentation, even the terms of the agreement, because each agreement is different and steam does not make pricing public for all of the obvious reasons. So anyone who has ever really worked with steam will never be able to tell you real specifics of what thier agreement was like.
In general terms, think of it kinda like using a lawyer on contingency. They take X percent off the top of the game sales. They turn over the rest of that money, MINUS REASONABLE FEES, to the publisher who has established the relationship. Included in there, depending on what you have negotiated, is usually some bandwidth cost and depending on what other services they are providing, appropriate coverage for those. Steam is much more than just a dumb storefront. There is tracking of buying, buying vs platform specifications, traffic patterns, media performance, etc. Maybe the more appropriate analogy is the records companies because there is a base cost for the platform stuff that has to get covered before you get money back. Its not "free if you dont win" kind of thing.
Anyway, for a game like this, the number of copies sold and the money goes back to the publisher, they take thier cut and the appropriate royalties usually make it back to the development house, usually minus the appropriate expenses. Because bioware is in-house to EA, I dont know the specifics of how that works, it may vary somewhat from how the usual developer/publisher relationship works.
DLC however is usually a direct no-cost stream because its not shelved and it doesnt go through steam. Unless you use a business model like the Empire Total War expansions. If the DLC is valve distributed, then it usually works similarly. In Burnout and EAO and games of that nature, the download and store experience is direct. MUCH more of the dollars spent in that channel make it directly to the publisher/developer depending on the agreements between the two. But the publisher also hosts more of the infrastructure for that. Thats one of the reasons you see DLC pushed more aggressively these days.
Its a revenue stream that has been made available by high speed internet connection and is much "cleaner" in terms of being free from other parties fees and expenses before it gets back to those who made and published the content.
So $50 answer to a $0.40 question but there you go....
Modifié par Lord Clocks, 31 octobre 2009 - 01:07 .
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