The head of the publishing division of Epic Games in Eastern Europe and the author of the analytical service Steam Spy, Sergey Galenkin, presented data according to which the average income of indie developers on Steam has decreased by 50% over the past 2 years.
At the same time, the total revenue from the sale of games on Steam from 2015 to 2017 increased by 25%, and sales of the first month during this period also increased by 25%.
At the same time, the revenue of major game publishers has hardly changed.
Revenue of publishers of games on Steam in 2015-2017, Steam Spy
“An interesting situation has developed. Valve began to earn more, the authors of top games — about the same, but average developers now get less,” writes Galenkin.
Sergey stipulates that in his calculations he operates with general values and does not take into account a number of factors: VAT and other taxes, the share of Steam, as well as sales and sales of titles outside the Valve platform.
Therefore, Galenkin defined his calculations as naive. The absence of these factors means that the actual amount of revenue may be 20 to 40% lower than the above, depending on the specific title.
The data also reflect a 146% increase in the number of indie game releases on Steam in July-August of this year compared to the same period in 2016 and 2015. This is due to the launch of a service for self-publishing Steam Direct games.
The analyst notes that the real effect of the introduction of Steam Direct is still difficult to assess, because through it, along with full-fledged titles, many crafts were published that only resemble high-quality games. For example, Vaping Simulator with Pepe the meme frog as the protagonist.
To get acquainted with the results of the study, follow the link.
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