Valve's cut was never smaller compared to competitors. There's a reason why they insisted on all the terms of their deals (and sales numbers) being secret; they are still really brutal about not being able to share contract terms or revenue numbers.
Hell, I shipped a fucking game on Steam and I don't know what the % we gave them was (though I could probably figure it out by doing enough math on the sales numbers...)
One thing I do know (second-hand information, but from an expert) is that they even demand a huge cut from F2P games, despite the fact that F2P games have their own download, patching and payment infrastructure. They literally charge as much as they can possibly get away with, even when they offer near-zero service.
The quality of the services Valve offers for your money is also fairly low. The Steam API breaks constantly (usually because they are haphazard about changes and have near-zero automated or manual testing), is poorly documented, and is infrequently maintained. Valve can and will ship a Steamworks update that breaks a core part of your game, and leave it broken for weeks no matter how often you complain - unless you happen to have the phone number of someone at the company, or send them numerous emails. The APIs that do work are slow and limited. It's better than nothing, certainly, but not so magnificent that it's worth 30%, especially if you compare it with something like GAE or EC2.
That is fully my perception of it too. I really don't know why Valve is frequently so lauded as game-changer. They're just another store. With particulary shitty terms.
Discovery on Steam is a bit better than on mobile stores, I give them that.
I held greenlighting thing in high regard, but these days a lot of crap gets greenlighted so, meh.
GameStop is not a competitor to Valve unless you consider 'sells products to customers' a single market. Their competitors are services like Direct2Drive, Impulse, Humble Store, etc.
If someone actually wants to go out and pick up a box, they're not going to do that on Steam.
It's true that digital distribution in general offers lower costs than brick & mortar, but that's not specific to Valve. At most they were leading the charge on digital distribution with Steam, but even when they did that they were still selling copies at retail.
Hell, I shipped a fucking game on Steam and I don't know what the % we gave them was (though I could probably figure it out by doing enough math on the sales numbers...)
One thing I do know (second-hand information, but from an expert) is that they even demand a huge cut from F2P games, despite the fact that F2P games have their own download, patching and payment infrastructure. They literally charge as much as they can possibly get away with, even when they offer near-zero service.
The quality of the services Valve offers for your money is also fairly low. The Steam API breaks constantly (usually because they are haphazard about changes and have near-zero automated or manual testing), is poorly documented, and is infrequently maintained. Valve can and will ship a Steamworks update that breaks a core part of your game, and leave it broken for weeks no matter how often you complain - unless you happen to have the phone number of someone at the company, or send them numerous emails. The APIs that do work are slow and limited. It's better than nothing, certainly, but not so magnificent that it's worth 30%, especially if you compare it with something like GAE or EC2.