Steam's cut varies from developer to developer and is usually protected with an NDA, from what I understand, but dead reckoning I would estimate it only in the 2-15% range or else it just wouldn't be competitive (also see '80% off' sales). GamersGate, my personal favourite digital downloads retailer, charges only 2.5% -- but of course it doesn't offer the attractive features that gouging AAA companies like, like always-on DRM or in-app-purchases (although Crusader Kings II has GamersGate IAP, since GamersGate was originally a Paradox subsidiary anyway (and maybe still is for all I know!)).
Buzz on the net trends towards 30% or so, but I think that's mostly pollution from people assuming Valve is anything like Apple.
Well that is interesting. But i don't think Steam need to be that competitive for indie games for several reasons. Before greenlight, alot of Devs said getting on steam was very hard and they felt they lost alot of control and the contracts were strict or constrictive.
At any rate, the consensus was that never heard of indie companies needed Steam more than Steam needed them. Steam is in a way, a huge publicity for a hidden gem. Steam is almost like a publisher(imo) as it distribute and give a platform for Dev and New Consumers to interface. Also a part that was very blurry when asked about, perhaps because of NDA, is that it seemed to me that Steam wanted a say in how to go about getting more sales, managing the sales.
When Steam just redistribute an AAA game or any popular game, that has its own distributor, publisher and fame. Steam just has to distribute the software. So a lower % make sense.
But i have seen unheard of company getting their game on steam and getting massive bump (example: Dungeon of Dredmor), so much that at first they had trouble dealing with the influx and that they were amazed at how even bigger of a bump it was versus what they had anticipated... well in that case, a sizable % chunk isnt that unreasonable.
In brief; If i was Steam, i wouldn't want to distribute a niche game or unheard of indie game for 2-5%, but even just 5% on a game like games like Modern Warfare or whatever mainstream-all-publicity-no-soul-game that they make now would be more a better business prospect to me.
At any rate, whatever the price may be, a publisher or distributor get a cut, whatever that might be, they are a business. That can translate into more sales in the end, thus more profit for the indie dev, but on a transaction to transaction basis, the dev get more money per sale if he doesn't go through a distributor or whatnot and that is what i meant. At this stage, he can keep all the money of the fewer sales he got to fund devlopment. The few that wants to pay now probably wants to support the devs, not Steam.
Games such as this need more luvin!