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How Much Does GOG/Steam Take From Game Sales?

Posted by on May 2, 2013 at 2:23 pm
I can see how things could get confusing. Fez, FEZ, yeah?

How much money does Phil Fish get when you buy Fez? It’s something like $.30 on every dollar. But…

With the recent release of 2D/3D platformer Fez on GOG and Steam, creator Phil Fish is telling you to not buy it on GOG or Steam. Wait. Hang on. Instead, he wants you to buy it directly from his site via the Humble Store. Why? What is this madness? Royalties, man. But how do his numbers stack up?

Similar to Apple’s App Store, GOG and Steam take 30% off every purchase, the remaining 70% goes to you. If you buy Fez through the Humble Store, the Store gets 5% and Fish gets 95%. Much fairer, right? I sought a reliable source to confirm some of these quantities. Yep, GOG and Steam do take 30% off the top, but the Steam situation might be a little different. My source couldn’t confirm it, but he was privy to knowledge that if you manage to tie Steam’s advanced functionality into your game, namely Steamworks, then your game may be eligible to fall into a further sliding scale for additional dollars. This seems like an extra bit of homework for new games, but nearly impossible for classic titles where the source code is no longer available.

Plan your game distribution accordingly.

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