Valve "followed" 1.7 million Steam users for over a year, and now reports those gamers spent $20 million on microtransactions and another $73 million on games and DLC
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I've been on steam for over 4 years and I've spent a whopping $0.99.
You monster!
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Valve says the data proves "Steam isn’t just a storefront—it provides social community, game discoverability, interactive events, and a deep set of game-enhancing features to attract and retain players who will be checking out new games in the future."
I think it proves that Steam is the largest storefront on PC and that PC is growing and replacing other platforms.
PC is the fastest growing market. Consoles are slumping and I think the return of Steam Machines done right would accelerate the market shift.
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Lmao... it's not Steam hate, it's the people buying the MTX. I wasn't clear enough, my bad.
Fair enough
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I was specifically refuting, "They’re the only ones safeguarding the industry," and how they got to their refund policies matters when it comes to that statement. I was not here to throw a gauntlet down, insult Steam's honor, and challenge anyone to a duel. I prefer to shop on GOG these days, when possible, but my Steam profile says I have 991 games in my account, and I bought most of those. Valve and Steam have done lasting, measurable good to this industry and medium, but that doesn't mean they're safeguarding it or that it's all good news. As to the thing about ads, I don't think that model would actually work with the PC gaming audience, and I think Valve prohibiting it is just so that their audience still finds quality products on Steam and spends more money. Valve's best behaviors and worst behaviors are motivated by profit.
Valve's best behaviors and worst behaviors are motivated by profit.
That's where I disagree. Valve is not a publicly traded company. It is not beholden to shareholders to strive for profit above all else, and it shows in Valve's leadership.
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The 1.7 million customers who originated from a top 2023 release
This wording is a bit strange, are they tracking the new steam accounts that signed up to buy a specific 2023 title (like Baldur's Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, or Starfield)?
If so it says more about the specific demographic attracted to that unknown title than it does about Steam in general.
Edit:
The methodology is explained here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/4145017/view/751641001553035271
To gather data illustrating the effectiveness of that approach, we went all the way back to 2023 and identified the biggest 20 releases of that year. We looked at every new first-time purchaser generated by those products (that is, an account making a purchase, or redeeming a Steam key, for the first time) for a total of 1.7 million new users.
Yeah, that's a bit strange. Not everyone starts their account by a big game. My current steam account is quite old and first games were the ones I could afford back then as a student: indie titles, freebies, maybe one big game at some point. My previous account was only for HL / CS.
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$20 million on microtransactions
Please don't.
$73 million on games and DLC
$42 per person average? Those are rookie numbers!
20 million divided by 1.7 is about $11 per person, which isnt really that high.
I also think theres a distinction to be made between microtransactions in f2p titles and microtransactions in AAA premium titles. I logged something like 4000 hours in Mechwarrior online and I bought mech packs because I wanted to support the devs.
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PC is the fastest growing market. Consoles are slumping and I think the return of Steam Machines done right would accelerate the market shift.
They'd be a shoe-in now that Valve developed Proton so well
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Valve's best behaviors and worst behaviors are motivated by profit.
That's where I disagree. Valve is not a publicly traded company. It is not beholden to shareholders to strive for profit above all else, and it shows in Valve's leadership.
Just because they are private doesn't mean Gabe doesn't like to make a ton of money. Dude owns tons of yacths and would like to own more. I love Valve and think they are the biggest ethical company in gaming. But they're still a massive corporate monopoly. No one is perfect, and they did do things that hurt people. No need to be publicly traded to also be evil. Trust but verify.
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Valve's best behaviors and worst behaviors are motivated by profit.
That's where I disagree. Valve is not a publicly traded company. It is not beholden to shareholders to strive for profit above all else, and it shows in Valve's leadership.
Striving for profit is a quality tied to being a company, not being a publicly traded company. Everything they do is in pursuit of making more money. Often times, that means making the best store out there so that we shop with them instead of their competitors, which is how it's supposed to work.
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I don't think microtransactions are inherently bad, they are just used in the most greedy, money-grabbing ways.
There are some free-to-play games that don't restrict your access to any gameplay at all as a free player, which can only be subsidized by microtransactions. If it's just cosmetics, and they're priced fairly, I wouldn't feel any concern over it.
I say this as someone who will put 100 hours into a f2p game and maybe spend $10-20 on a skin or two. I feel that it's fair to spend that much after reaping so many hours of play.
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I don't think microtransactions are inherently bad, they are just used in the most greedy, money-grabbing ways.
There are some free-to-play games that don't restrict your access to any gameplay at all as a free player, which can only be subsidized by microtransactions. If it's just cosmetics, and they're priced fairly, I wouldn't feel any concern over it.
I say this as someone who will put 100 hours into a f2p game and maybe spend $10-20 on a skin or two. I feel that it's fair to spend that much after reaping so many hours of play.
I'd be with you if I still got to keep the game and the skins I bought in perpetuity, but that's basically unheard of.
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20 million divided by 1.7 is about $11 per person, which isnt really that high.
I also think theres a distinction to be made between microtransactions in f2p titles and microtransactions in AAA premium titles. I logged something like 4000 hours in Mechwarrior online and I bought mech packs because I wanted to support the devs.
I think that's entirely fair.
I do wonder how much of that money has gone to the developers themselves, and not just some executive
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The Next Fests might count. They kind of fill the role that something like PAX does, encouraging you to try out demos.
Yeah I’d say that counts. It definitely feels like a community event to me and doesn’t cost money to participate
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$20 million on microtransactions
Please don't.
$73 million on games and DLC
$42 per person average? Those are rookie numbers!
I feel like a lot of the microtransaction revenue is DLC as well. But like someone else said, there are the rare games that are free to play and don’t have super predatory mtx like Path of Exile or The Finals.
Fuck paying for them in full priced games though
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Striving for profit is a quality tied to being a company, not being a publicly traded company. Everything they do is in pursuit of making more money. Often times, that means making the best store out there so that we shop with them instead of their competitors, which is how it's supposed to work.
Everything they do is in pursuit of making more money.
That's where I'm saying you are wrong.
Publicly traded companies are beholden to their shareholders, and MUST strive to make money above all else. Privately held companies can put that profit motive behind other more important motives. Sure, does Valve want to make money? Absolutely - we've all got to make a living.
But is that their ONLY goal at the expense of everything else? Also, clearly not - or we'd have ads on every steam store page, we'd be paying monthly for steam, and you've seen all the shady, shitty things that all the other wanna-be steam competitors have done. So clearly valve does not value profit above everything.
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just did the math, I've averaged about $165/yr on steam, with very little (though not none) microtransactions. like maybe less than $50 total in 15 years.
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Everything they do is in pursuit of making more money.
That's where I'm saying you are wrong.
Publicly traded companies are beholden to their shareholders, and MUST strive to make money above all else. Privately held companies can put that profit motive behind other more important motives. Sure, does Valve want to make money? Absolutely - we've all got to make a living.
But is that their ONLY goal at the expense of everything else? Also, clearly not - or we'd have ads on every steam store page, we'd be paying monthly for steam, and you've seen all the shady, shitty things that all the other wanna-be steam competitors have done. So clearly valve does not value profit above everything.
That's just not true. They're seeking profit by attempting to be the best place to spend your money. Epic would love for Valve to charge users monthly for Steam, but they don't, because it would just drive people away from Steam. They stand to make more money by doing what they're doing. This is not a public versus private thing. Arguably the negative that comes along with public companies is that there are more short term incentives at the expense of long term profit, but they're both doing what they do for profit.
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Would that even count as a "whale"?
Less than 20 dollars per user on "microtransactions" which the article goes on to define as "in-game transactions". And 73 dollars on direct steam purchases of games/DLC which very well could just be a single newly released game.
So... one "battle pass" or two or three cosmetics for a live game and a new game or a season pass or two of DLC for an older one?
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just did the math, I've averaged about $165/yr on steam, with very little (though not none) microtransactions. like maybe less than $50 total in 15 years.
I think I probably have a similar average on my 18 yr old account, except the only microtransactions on my account are credits from selling any hats, skins and duplicate weapons I unlocked for free in TF2 and CS
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That seems like a lot, but that's <$12/user in microtransactions and ~$43/user in games. That's like.. 2 microtransaction purchases and a couple indie games each.
