I don't know the details. Valve doesn't tell me anything. xP

as we saw from the Wrack sales, as soon as it got on steam, all other sales dried up (even though the other DD sites also provided Steam keys). So for Valve it is an incentive to get as many games and gamers to make use of Steam, because they are then more likely to buy games there again. The more people use steam, the more likely it is that people will buy there also

Lessons for gog, maybe?

The % off Steam keys = 0 as stated on the Steamworks page. Steamworks itself and the benefits it brings is completely free, including providing any and all Steam keys for the publisher/dev to provide to third parties.

This may sound like a loss to Steam but every Steam key sold is a guaranteed Steam user and guarantees an active userbase which can lead to potential future sales even from those who don't use Steam regularly/haven't used it at all up to that point. Add to that it exposes them to trading cards for instance and the community market, popular free games like TF2/Dota 2 with it's ingame market, and obviously sales. There's many ways to potentially profit off a large user base, and that's still ignoring all the data it gives them.

Basically the patronage they get from people buying Steam keys is the benefit to Steam.

I think Steam is sort of in the period where it doesn't really need to get any percentage of those sales and the added userbase is enough for the bandwidth to pay for itself. I mean they're developing their 'own' console and an operating system for crying out loud, they have so much money they don't know what to spend it on.

I've heard that Gabe Newell uses dollar bills as toilet paper and has built a huge house out of coins.

Those would have to be very, very big dollar bills.

So they don't get any $$$, its just the exposure and *potential* customers who end up buying direct from the store right?. Interesting.
Anyway wonder how dumping greenlight will impact? hmmmm

If they dump it outright, It will probably open a floodgate of these...

Yes they Do they get about 40% out of it!

Steam gets 30% when you buy anything off their store, like directly trough Steam or trough their webpage. What Niggles was asking isn't about the store, it's about distribution of Steam keys by devs of the games sold trough Steam, or those sold by bundles and such - and Steam really does not get any cut out of that

Tons of fake accounts have been created especially in December, for card farming.

If a bundle costs 1$ and contains at least one game with trading cards, people will buy multiple instances of the bundle, create fake Steam accounts to hold the games, farm the cards on those accounts, sell them, transfer the accumulated money to their main account, and later sell the account with the games to someone who missed the bundle. The profit margins aren't very high, but that doesn't seem to stop them.

Steam hasn't suddenly become much more popular than it already was. They definitely are still gaining in popularity, mostly because digital distribution is a growing market in itself, but not at such a staggering rate. They just implemented a system (the trading cards) which entices power collectors/traders to create tons of fake accounts. Add a month in which card prices raise due to special holiday cards and badges, and you get your increase in account numbers. These fake accounts will even count as "active" because the traders need to run each game for 2-4 hours in the background so that the cards will drop.

No they get Nothing out of that!

Who? Steam? They get new users signed onto their service, presumably buying more games.

Basically, if Steam wanted a cut out of Steam keys, far less indie devs would actually give people Steam keys, and less people would sign on to Steam, which means less money for Steam in the long run. That's what Steam gets out of that.

That's Disgusting! Hmmm.. I have a friend with LOTS of badges that I seem to not be able to get! Now I think I know what he May be doing! I won't dob him In though I won't do that because he's a friend!

Yeah, But that's It isn't it? They Don't care it's all about Moneymaking that's why there are No real Good Innovative titles nowadays titles like for instance Bad Mojo or the Uninvited! It gives me the Willies! the sales pitches are like this is the newest best thing you play it and you feel Ripped off!!