Posts Tagged ‘Steam’

An interesting piece by Darryl Still, international publishing director for PC publisher 1C, on Retail v Steam.

They have taken one unit for each of their top 30 stores” he told me. “There is just no demand from their customers”.

“I glanced at my screen, hit refresh and advised him: “In the time it’s taken you to tell me that there is no demand, Steam has sold 45 units”.

“As a generalisation, retail would pay these guys a maximum of 40 per cent of what they made. So on a £29.99 game the publisher would receive about £12 (and on a sub-licensed deal, we would then only get about £4.25 of that) – minus return, write down and consignment costs.”

“When would we get that money? Well, payment would be by the end of the quarter.”

“So, let’s say £10 per unit sale goes to the publisher, £3 to the developer/sub-licensor, and it’s in your bank five months after the customer has paid out £30.”

“Compare that to the digital model. On a £29.99 sale, the digital partner will pay the publisher – or in many cases direct to the developer – between 60 and 70 per cent, by the end of the month following the sale.”

“Wow. To recap: on a sale over the counter today, we can have our £3 by the end of March, or on a digital sale, we can have £20 by Christmas.”

“Remind me why we should choose to go with retail and decline to let Steam sell the game?”

Read more :  OPINION: Retail vs Steam