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this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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And? If they sell at the same price as Steam but with the store taking a smaller cut they'll make more money per sale.
A lower price may attract more buyers, leading to more money overall (rather than only seeking to maximize each individual sale)
And which platform has the most potential buyers, by a long shot? Steam. That's why you're usually seeing all time lows on the Steam platform, because the sheer amount of buyers outweighs the per sale loss.
If a dev wants to make X per game, they could get X with a lower price point on Epic. To still get X, they could sell the game for a lower price on Epic. That lower price may get some people to buy the game who wouldn't buy it for anything more.
The game can still be sold on both Steam and Epic, which is the whole point of this discussion, so Steam having a larger userbase is irrelevant.
Maybe for AAA devs. I'm thinking of indie devs as well, who may not be thinking of "big business extract max profit no matter what" optimizations.
You also seem to be leaving out of the equation that some customers will buy a game for $15 but not for $20. If selling at $15 on Steam would give too little money, but selling for $15 on Epic would give enough money, it doesn't seem absurd selling at $20 on Steam (with the biggest market) and for $15 on Epic (with the higher margin) to reach a few extra customers with the lower price point.
The reason games go on sale so often is because lower prices can mean more sales. Lower middleman cuts can allow for lower prices.
If the userbase is irrelevant then X per game is also irrelevant. X per game matters only in the context of how many sales you'll make. There's a strong correlation between sales and userbase because more users means more potential sales.
Steam's userbase is irrelevant in the example I'm explaining because they can still sell it on Steam. They won't lose Steam customers by having a lower price on Epic.
You wanted to know why there aren't all time lows on other stores. You agree that the lower the price gets the more people are likely to purchase it. But then you think userbase is irrelevant?
Let's say there are 10 million gamers in the entire world, 90% use steam 10% use Epic. Not that it matters but I'll add it anyway to further prove the point, Epic takes 10% and Steam takes 30%. You make a game that 50% of all the gamers in the world want to buy at a certain price. Let's say you have no issues selling on Epic and you sell at full price ($60) to the 50% of Epic customers. You make $60 * 0.9 * 1 mil * 0.5 = $27 million. On Steam your game doesn't sell at all on full price but at 50% off all potential customers will buy the game. So with a 50% discount on Steam you will make $60 * 0.5 * 0.7 * 9 mil * 0.5 = $94.5 million.
You can literally have Steam take a bigger cut than Epic and sell the game for half a price and still make more money on Steam because the userbase plays a huge role in how much money you'll actually make. That is why you see all time lows on Steam, because you can sell your game for cheaper than any other store and still make more money on Steam.
They can sell on both Steam and Epic.
Now that is actually irrelevant information. Nothing I said refutes what you've said and it refutes nothing I've said. It's not even something I've overlooked because my example is built on the premise that the game is sold in both stores.