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Refund rules steam12/8/2023 And that means we can get to our much-vaunted net number. In any case, that 30% cut is what you’re getting deducted right now, unless your game happens to have earned more than $10 million net in its lifetime. But overall, I certainly don’t want to be the person puzzling out how to submit sales tax to the Chilean authorities.) (I’d personally like to see Steam and other non-Epic Games Store platform services reduce their revenue cut for lower-grossing games. Yes, I can hear you calling plaintively, but is that a fair cut? *prepares 43-Tweet long analysis of the topic* So, now these things have been removed, Steam takes… its 30% platform cut. (You now have $825,000 of your notional $1 million.) Part 3: It’s time for Steam’s cut! Let’s say it’s 8.5% on average, though it may vary depending on country and state mix. )Īnyhow, looking over the portfolio I can see, this VAT/sales tax is between 8% and 9% of the gross. This started happening more widely in late 2018 after a U.S. That is to say, if a player is in New Jersey, they pay an extra 6.625% on top of the $15 game cost, and this % gets sent to the state authorities. (In the U.S., Valve does charge ‘exclusive’ sales tax in some states. So that obviously reduces your revenue further. Those country-specific taxes are inclusive, which means that if you sell a game for $15 in that country, and there’s a 20% inclusive tax, $3 of it gets sent to the local authorities. You can see the full list of countries here. Many countries demand that Steam pays them a sales tax - mainly between 10% and 20% - when a game is sold to a player in their country. Sorry.īut actually, it’s pretty straightforward. And you are willingly reading this newsletter of your own volition. Looks, I’m not going to lie, I have to talk about VAT/sales tax now. (You now have $910,000 of your notional $1 million.) Part 2: Factor In VAT & Sales Tax Payments This is the first deduction you’ll need to make from our gross to reach net. Even higher-refund revenue is a part of much-welcomed extra $.)īut concluding, let’s say your refund (& chargeback) dollar rate for this million-dollar grossing game was 9%. (But don’t forget that if you don’t localize, you may be missing revenue from those countries. Don’t need to rehash this one - it’s the opposite of the point above. Your refund rate is lower because of the countries you are selling into. Your refund rate is lower because your title is good! This is definitely a thing - if people like a game, they are less likely to refund it. They may be ‘bought in’, understand what they are getting, and less likely to refund. If you made an amazing bass fishing game, it’s likely that most of the people buying it will be bass fishing fans. Your refund rate is lower because your title is in a niche. Game 2: a 12.7% unit refund rate in the U.S. Two examples: Game 1: a 5.5% unit refund rate in the U.S. Certain countries - particularly China - tend to have a higher Steam refund rate. Your refund rate is higher because of the country mix you are selling into. You can do something about this! (Particularly the Early Access issues.) Perhaps it’s not what people expected, or it looks clunky, or it’s not sufficiently finished, if it’s an Early Access title. Your refund rate is higher because your game doesn’t make a good initial impression. But here’s my back-of-a-napkin ‘why is your rate low or high?’ comments: I’m not sure it’s that easy to change your game’s refund rate. Just looking at raw units, the highest recent refund rate for a game during a 1-month period was around 17%, and the lowest was around 3%. (Refunds from higher-priced countries skew the dollar refund rate upwards.) Actual dollar refund rate varied between 6.5% and 11%. In 2020, at least across the portfolio of games I have access to via my friends at No More Robots, average monthly refund rate by unit across the portfolio ranged between 5% and 8%. So it normalized to a non-terrible - but still non-zero - figure. But luckily, these were people who hadn’t played games much ‘catching up’ on games that would have been otherwise refunded many months before. This is - compared to console and iOS/Android policies - an extremely generous policy.Īt the time, there was significant concern around sky-high refund rates of more than 50%. Back in 2015, Steam introduced a much-expanded refund policy for those players who’ve played the game for less than two hours, and are dissatisfied with the title for whatever reason.
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