30% fees are insane. Those cost are passed down to us the consumer. We get shittier game because a third of the profit goes to these marketplaces.
I get the epic hate bandwagon but what the fuck is up with the constant bootlicking? Google sucks for doing this and all the other platforms as well. They ALL employ monopolistic tactics to keep their moats, stop defending them because the circle jerk tells you too.
I’ll happily pay these 30% if it means I get quality services for them:
- high speed download servers
- reliable cloud saves
- automatic, non intrusive updates
- discussion forums
- easy mod management
- friend networking, multiplayer services
- responsive and uncomplicated support
(using Steam as an example here)
People always act like those are to be taken as granted, but if you have ever worked in dev/devops, you would know that there’s a lot of work maintaining each one of them.
Also, you can use these services for as long as you want, despite paying for them with a single one-time purchase.
Of course, if the platform doesn’t provide any services or benefits, your point stands. In that case just avoid it.