If not using STEAM or Mobile App-store, where?

If developer hate paying out of platform holder's share, 30%, he should release themselves.

But where? Make his own site and from there? anyway, release build file seems possible in any way,
but how to gather gamers and promote the game? This ads problem is same when using STEAM or mobile store.

 

Yes, that is basically it.

If you don't want to pay for something, you got to do it yourself. Which does translate to if you don't want to pay a digital storefront their share, you need to build up your own website, your own store, drive traffic to it yourself, on top of the usual promotion for your game.

Which is exactly WHY many devs and publishers are ready to pay Steam 30% (-ish, the exact cut varies and is unknown AFAIK)... they get something in return, an existing storefront, with a MASSIVE amount of traffic. This is mainly why you are paying that cut.

Still think 30% of your profit is a bad deal for that? As long as you are not EA or Ubi, I guess the answer should be no... and even then, its not like EA or Ubi really were able to ignore Steam to date. They tried their own storefront, and that seems to go well enough to justify keeping them up and running. At the same time, they still release their games on Steam too, because it seems some players flatout refuse to use their storefronts and will only buy games through their preferred storefront (not going to touch EAs Origin with a ten foot pole anymore after the abyssimal support I got when their crappy storefront charged me twice for the one and only game I bought trough Origin).


Hate it as much as you like. If you can get 10x the amount of sales going through Steam than trying to build up your own storefront, that 30% cut is still leaving you with 7x the amount of profit you would have made else.

Or do you think your own storefront will ever attract as much eyes to your game as Steam could?

 

You pay for having access to a large user base.

Aside from app stores, you can self-publish... I think there were "lesser" sites that allow you to put something for paid download (I think artists put brushes and stuff on one of those... forgot what iti s called). Worst case scenario you'll need to make your own store and automate payments.

As @giant-retro-allig said, exposure to large number of users will compensate for "loss" of 30%. I mean if you make one sale in your own shop and ten sales on steam, then obviously you'll earn more from steam, even with 30% comission.

 

@gian-reto-alig I already released some game to steam and google store, aside from google because there is no means to release mobile game other than those,

if only say about steam, yes basically I agree what you said, but also doubt about its effect because traffic was actually same before release through steam, 0~5 users download demo version in one day. And almost none actually paid that.

I enjoyed massive exposure and traffic only for 1~2 days from release day at steam.

AFAIK, over 100 games released at steam in just one day. And steam removed [New Game] category. Instead they adopt [New Popular game] category, this means, even if developer release their game, that game can be found at nowhere storefront category at all.

 

You will always have to pay someone, at least to get some store system to handle all refunds, taxes, legal stuff etc. as its almost impossible to run global store with self made system and as one man operation.

 

And if you release it on your own store, even less people will be able to discover it, and you'll get less exposure than one of those "100 games per day" on steam.

How would anyone know that you've released a game? At least steam can eventually put your game into recommendation queues. That ain't gonna happen if your game is not on steam.

 

Also regardless of where you sell your game, you can't just post it and expect it to start generating sales. You need to market it.

 

If your game fails to get traction, that can have a multitude of reasons, only one of them being Steam (and I'd wager one of the least likely reasons). Marketing it better and making a good game that really grabs the right audience's attention is the most important part, and also easily the one most people fail at.

 

Selling your game from your website isn't necessarily a bad idea (Mojang did that with Minecraft, and look how that turned out), but the visibility your game receives is usually worth the 30% that platform stores charge.

 

I guess just build up your site overtime, if you dont get any PR you game wont really sell on steam anyway, so you might as well drive traffic to your own site.

 

http://store.steampowered.com/tag/en/Indie/#p=0&tab=NewReleases

 

Well, go ahead, give it a try. See if rolling with your own storefront works for you. Good thing is, you can always go back to Steam later on, and compare the results.

My gut feeling is that you rather fight against the massive competition ON the Steam store... because you know what, THAT COMPETITION IS THERE ANYWAY!
The only difference is that it is way easier for customers to visit your store page because it is only on click away on the store they are frequenting anyway! Compared to the massive amount of searching that would be involved with getting to your store... not to mention that you most probably will not get ANY customer that just randomly happens to click on your game by chance (which makes quite some traffic for the less known games on the steam store).


Besides, I would like to know what game you put on the steam store. No offense, but we have seen a MASSIVE influx of mediocre and flatout bad games to Steam. Steam users are not stupid (not all of them), and are NOT interested in ported mobile games or something like that.
There is a good chance that either something is wrong with your game, or your store page if you got zero sales on steam.

Did you by any chance release the SAME game to the mobile app stores AND steam? That might be the root cause. Did you price your game to cheap (a sign of a mediocre game for many), or to high (given you don't have high quality smoke and mirrors screenies and vids on a watchdogs level of marketing BS, people will most probably see that the game is overpriced)?


Anyway, we know you can get a massive amount of sales on Steam. With the right game, at the right price, and if you do the right marketing thing. Before blaming the storefront, I would look into what you could have done better.