{"id":68160,"date":"2018-12-10T22:32:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T22:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/332621"},"modified":"2018-12-10T22:32:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T22:32:00","slug":"survey-shows-devs-are-more-concerned-over-steams-algorithm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/12\/10\/survey-shows-devs-are-more-concerned-over-steams-algorithm\/","title":{"rendered":"Survey shows devs are more concerned over Steam’s algorithm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following Valve’s decision\u00a0to change their revenue share splits<\/a> and Epic’s launch of a new digital storefront, developers have many things to consider<\/a> now when it comes to publishing their games to Steam or not.<\/p>\n

Indie developer Lars Doucet\u00a0published a survey earlier today<\/a> reaching out to fellow devs\u00a0across the world spanning different communities, with some choosing to reveal information about their lifetime earnings on Steam.<\/p>\n

Doucet conducted a Steam developer survey in the past<\/a>, noting that this year’s results should be taken with a grain of salt given the time constraint, authenticity of some answers, and unintentionally ambiguous language used when asking questions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When asked what the more\u00a0important issues plaguing Steam were, devs\u00a0shared concerns over\u00a0“not getting screwed by the algorithm,” More transparency from Valve, and curation. According to Doucet’s survey, the results were pretty consistent among revenue tiers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“Given how much ink has been spilled about revenue share, it’s interesting to see that topic edged out by ‘Not getting screwed by the algorithm’, and\u00a0also<\/em>\u00a0to see this concern shared across revenue tiers — at least in this sample, it’s not just the < 250K crowd, it’s everyone, even the million+ earners,” Doucet\u00a0notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The survey also asked devs\u00a0to share their opinions about Valve, which Doucet points out has had an overall negative shift compared to last year’s study. “The ‘Western’\u00a0sub-group actually feels\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0negative about Steam than the overall population,” Doucet\u00a0points out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“The biggest thing that sticks out in the survey is that revenue share is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0developer’s #1 concern. I mean it’s way way up there (nearly tied for first in fact), but the top issue is not getting screwed by ‘the algorithm,” he shares in his\u00a0analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Even if Valve is\u00a0hearing<\/em>\u00a0developers’ concerns, they aren’t\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to them. The difference is that listening includes understanding, as well as acknowledgment,” he adds.<\/p>\n

“To Valve’s credit, they have added some improvements to the developer support system. But there’s still plenty of developers who feel shut out, and as this chart clearly shows the sentiment is getting worse.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The entire survey goes into more depth around how devs feel about curation and transparency, so interested developers can look at that\u00a0here<\/a>. Be sure to take the results with a grain of salt.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following Valve’s decision\u00a0to change their revenue share splits and Epic’s launch of a new digital storefront, developers have many things to consider now when it comes to publishing their games to Steam or not. Indie developer Lars Doucet\u00a0published a survey earlier today reaching out to fellow devs\u00a0across the world spanning different communities, with some choosing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}