Keep in mind that Steam has a new tiered fee system by which Valve take 30% from the first $10 million in sales, 25% from the next $40 million, and then 20% percent on all sales after that. But the next time you hear about Valve's 30 percent headline revenue cut, keep in mind that the functional proportion of total sales the company receives is probably quite a bit lower. None of this necessarily means Steam's 30 percent cut of direct game sales is justified, or that Valve couldn't afford to lower its rates. Epic, on the other hand, provides very few of these services in exchange for the 12 percent cut on its Games Store (though the company does have a roadmap to roll out many similar features in the coming months). Beyond the mere bandwidth costs for game and update downloads, key-based sales can still access the same online lobbies, achievement and leaderboard systems, Steam Workshop inventory management, Steam server APIs, anti-cheat services, and everything else that comes with being on Steam. Remember also that Valve incurs plenty of costs for these Steam key sales. The results (for non-free-to-play titles) show that "on average, 72 percent of games are purchased through Steam, while 28 percent are purchased through third parties." And while that range can vary widely for individual games, the vast majority (80 percent) register between 50 and 80 percent of their reviews through direct Steam sales (You can view the raw, per-game numbers in this Google Doc). While these key-based purchases are still redeemed through Steam and can take advantage of Steam's suite of features, Valve actually takes no commission from sales that don't take place directly through its own storefront. The reason for the discrepancy is Steam keys, which developers can generate pretty much at will to sell through non-Steam storefronts and brick-and-mortar retailers. But a new analysis shows that Valve sometimes receives much less than that headline revenue percentage for some of the most popular games on Steam. And assuming Valve's quality control on refurbished models is any good (usually first-party refurbs are preferred to third-party ones), it's a great deal for what's basically the same thing as a new device.Since Epic started taking a 12 percent cut of sales revenue generated on its new Games Store, much has been made of whether Steam's baseline 30 percent revenue cut is justified. These are very considerable discounts - bigger ones than the last big sale Valve did, if we're precise. The 256GB and 512GB models, respectively, are usually $529 and $649, but they can be purchased for $419 and $519. The 64GB model of the Steam Deck, which is usually $399, can be had for $319 if you're willing to give a refurb a shot. If this is not a problem for you, Valve has just began selling refurbished Steam Deck handhelds at a decent savings compared to prices for new units. It's basically like a used device, except it got repaired by a third party and is fully checked to be in working order before it's sold again. They are, basically, devices that got returned because of a flaw or another issue - the issue is repaired, and the device is sold again at a much lower price. Refurbished devices are a great way to save money on hardware, especially if they're being sold by the manufacturer.
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