I’ve worked in retail and in tech. Tech infrastructure is expensive, but they save a metric fuckton by not requiring physical space. You could fit the entirety of all of valve’s Tech infrastructure in a single building. Of course, they don’t do that - they have it distributed in data centers all over the world. But they are renting space in server racks, whereas Gamestop is renting thousands of retail spaces for 100 grand a year, another 100 grand each on staffing them, and a metric fuckton on inventory. And their cut of the sales is tiny.
People saying they charge 30% are wrong. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo charge 30%. Gamestop’s margin on a new game is like 10-15 percent. They make more on used games, but only if they sell. Their 100% markup on used games versus what they pay doesn’t mean as much when lots of those games go unsold. At least new games can be returned to the manufacturer.
That is not true, they have multiple data centers. I completely disagree on the costs as well. A single high capacity switch can cost tens of thousands (of which they have probably hundreds) and that’s not even mentioning storage, electricity, rack space, server cost ($$$$). The land is the cheapest part of data centers.
Have you worked in or with a data center? It was most of my job for 6 years.
I didn’t mention Steam’s cut of sales, but I do want to mention that you can refund steam games as long as you don’t play them for longer than 2 hours. This is actually better than GameStop or retailers who normally only accept returns of sealed, new copies. So I’m not sure why you’d being that up when it defeats your point.
I’ve worked in retail and in tech. Tech infrastructure is expensive, but they save a metric fuckton by not requiring physical space. You could fit the entirety of all of valve’s Tech infrastructure in a single building. Of course, they don’t do that - they have it distributed in data centers all over the world. But they are renting space in server racks, whereas Gamestop is renting thousands of retail spaces for 100 grand a year, another 100 grand each on staffing them, and a metric fuckton on inventory. And their cut of the sales is tiny.
People saying they charge 30% are wrong. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo charge 30%. Gamestop’s margin on a new game is like 10-15 percent. They make more on used games, but only if they sell. Their 100% markup on used games versus what they pay doesn’t mean as much when lots of those games go unsold. At least new games can be returned to the manufacturer.
That is not true, they have multiple data centers. I completely disagree on the costs as well. A single high capacity switch can cost tens of thousands (of which they have probably hundreds) and that’s not even mentioning storage, electricity, rack space, server cost ($$$$). The land is the cheapest part of data centers.
Have you worked in or with a data center? It was most of my job for 6 years.
I didn’t mention Steam’s cut of sales, but I do want to mention that you can refund steam games as long as you don’t play them for longer than 2 hours. This is actually better than GameStop or retailers who normally only accept returns of sealed, new copies. So I’m not sure why you’d being that up when it defeats your point.
Hundreds of things that cost tens of thousands of dollars versus thousands of things that costs hundreds of thousands a year.
You’re literally saying that Steam’s server costs are orders of magnitude less than Gamestop’s retail store location costs.
That is literally what I’m saying, yes. I take it you have never worked on the operations side of data centers?