This is actually a huge joke on the film and television industry. Back when Napster blew up the music industry was in a full panic that their industry would die while film and TV were cozy because the media was too large to mass-pirate compared to music.
The music guys figured it out. Cheap subscriptions with massive catalogues that don’t disappear.
Movie and TV still hasn’t figured this out.
If you didn’t sample 4chan in that time you missed out on a lot of Internet culture. Not everyone posting on there was. It was really entertaining to watch the shitshow.
Do you think any indie developer has the means to achieve a lower cost to distribution and promotion if they try to sell and support the game themselves?
Valve solves many problems for developers and these problems aren’t imaginary and free to resolve.
Not saying 30% is justified for all games, but if you want a quality title it’s going to cost more than just development. Since the Unity debacle we’ve seen some developers even say openly that costs of promotion and support dwarf costs of development.
Air Canada does this shit on their flights. Disgusting.