I personally believe strongly that if Valve lowers their cut the average price I'll need to pay for games will go up.
That's a fair concern, and becomes an issue when it comes to a game one is interested in getting day 1/0.
Though if one takes into consideration games from big publishers such as S-E, Capcom, etc. they would price match the console price.
In the case of small or medium indies, they run the risk of alienating buyers as nowadays there is a price range of $5-20 (or EUR equivalent) for indie game releases. The cut isn't the only norm or standard in this situation IMO; a preset pricing 'standard' has been around for so long that any attempt to change it risky for the indie pub or developer themselves.
Games being priced at $70 on consoles for example hasn't made its way to PC gaming, at least not yet. Even if it did, it would be regardless of a lower cut than 30%.
This brings to mind something:
Part of the reason key selling sites are still around is because the 30% cut that steam takes has allowed legal key selling sites to sell steam keys at a lower cut than what valve takes.
In turn, this allows the key selling site to offer a better selling price for the game than steam (e,g, on Steam a game is discounted to $27, but key selling sites could offer it for $25 or a little less.).
This goes back to an earlier point I made: Game keys may not count towards steam's review system rating so a dev. could lose positive reviews on their game that would've helped its visibility. So while the dev would get a better revenue from selling steam key, it may not help visibility much, which is going to be needed in the longer run.
The concern of key selling sites getting impacted by a lower cut on steam is something on my mind, but there's bound to be a certain % valve could set their cut to that could not impact key selling sites much.
This argument that a lower cut for major successes is bad and the little guys should get the lower cut instead doesn't solve the issue for failing projects AT ALL.
First of all: Someone that needs 5 or 10% more to survive is quite rare in the first place. Either you are profitable with a 30% cut or your game tanks and those 5 to 10% wouldn't help you anyway.
If one were to buy this particular game, one would pay EUR 10, and the dev got a good cut from it; why is them getting a better cut from this such a bad thing?
Second: Learn to budget correctly! 30% is a known "expense"! Sure, you can't really know beforehand if your game is a hit or not, but you can budget your project that it will have a certain range that it would realistically and historically sell (if you have existing games/series or experience making games) or this is your first project and there was no guarantee that it will make money at all.
This comes off irrelevant when games are already priced between $5-$30 range, and have been for the better part of a decade. Budgeting is already done.
Third: WHO IN THE HELL is budgeting their games so precisely that they would be bankrupt at 30% and profitable at 20%??? And if you know that in the first place, then cut the expenses beforehand, because you know that you have a 30% commission!
There is an argument to be had on the expectations and wants of indie devs, but that shouldn't be something to use against indie devs getting a better cut.
Fourth: Even if the Industry standard gets down to 20% Most bigger companies will just pocket the difference and smaller devs and indies will just pump more money into the game because they think they have 10% more cash after selling the game. Now we have the situation that 20% is too much.
That is indeed something that's on my mind and an understandable concern. However, how can indies even increase their costs in game development when there are already many tools available for developing games?
Steam key selling sites have always been a major aspect of pc gaming that we prance with and use, such that this can only be an issue for a newly released game that would interest someone.
However, The concern of alienating a buyer due to a price point is something that could deter indies from raising the price of their games, and even if they did? The games would just get wishlistid and one would wait out for a cheap price down the line.
Sorry if this comes across a little aggressive, but the little guys versus the big guys narrative is bullshit.
No it is not because it has been the case on steam for the longest time now; not every small, let alone medium, indie game made is gonna be Among Us levels of success, and there are many such games on steam already. The key thing here isn't success; it's getting a better cut for the game they worked to develop, and now with how well steam is doing, I think valve should consider lowering the cut.
Several AAA Studios don't get 20% while small indies get it (Valhalla and Among us just recently)
Not size matters, but success.
"If indie devs work hard, surely they'll be rewarded'
That's a derogatory way to see things and a slap to the face of an indie dev that wants to make the game they want and just want to get money from selling it.
These points of yours come off as indie devs not deserving a better cut and giving reasons to deter from it.