So for the record I don’t know that this is relevant
My point was that you can’t really compare them because Steam provides a lot less value than Apple to developers, yet they still take a 30% cut. With Apple you get a lot more for your 30% than you do at Valve.
Followup question. Do you receive any of this stuff from Nintendo? Sony/PlayStation? They also take an 30% cut.
I don’t develop for consoles but a quick Google search shows that PlayStation provides support and even free development kits (special console hardware for development) to indie developers. They all obviously provide SDKs as they are the only ones who can.
Steam is great, but it’s just a storefront. Steam doesn’t get involved until your game is done and ready for sale. This is very different from Apple/Google/Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo who are much more involved in the entire development process than Steam.
I guess I’m trying to compare the bits and pieces that are the same across these platforms and that’s why I was wondering about developing for things like the steam deck. I agree that providing a development space and tools for development when you are the entity providing the hardware is different than acting as a management and aggregation tool with appropriate included services. I’m still reading this https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/home
And seeing if I can find answers to some of the questions I have about what services they do provide on the development side for the hardware they do sell.
Steam has multiple dev kits and various other tools available for free. Steam also has enormous resources available for after you publish that the companies you list do not have.
Really? Never heard of it. How does it compare to e.g. Visual Studio, XCode, Android Studio and the like?
