Is Valve profiting too much from every game sold through Steam? Maybe not. Despite all the criticism the company gets for its 30% cut, that percentage appears to be the norm. IGN reached out to multiple sources and retailers within the industry and found that most of them ask for the same amount.
This includes competitors such as GOG and the Microsoft Store. All of the console stores (e.g., PlayStation Store, Xbox Games Store, Nintendo eShop) demand 30%, too. And it’s the same story for Apple and Google’s mobile stores, as well as retail giants such as Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, and Walmart.
The only real outliers are Epic Games’s 12% and the Humble Store, which asks for 25%. (The latter only keeps 15%; the rest goes either to charity or back to the buyer as store credit.)
Valve even adjusted Steam’s rates late last year in what seemed to be a response to the pressure from Epic, but this change is likely only impactful to major developers. After $10 million in sales through Steam, Valve’s cut drops to 25% on all new sales, and drops again to 20% on sales after $50 million.