Plus, as a developer, you're not required to go through Steam, if you don't think it's worth it.
There are plenty of other options (Epic Games, Microsoft Store, etc.), each with a different revenue share arrangement. Or you can self-publish on your own website and infrastructure (Minecraft did this and it worked out pretty well for them).
Most developers (not all!) clearly have decided that the value Steam provides (features+audience) is worth it. But, crucially, with Steam, it's a choice. With iOS, it's not. You are forced to go through the App Store whether you like it or not (for now, at least). And if tomorrow Apple decides that 30% is not enough and they'd like a bit more, there's not much you can do about it.
(Apologies if this is not terribly relevant to the rest of the thread, but it bugs me when I see this kind of "apples to apples" comparisons between Steam and the App Store)
Even on my Steamdeck I have itch.io and other launchers installed. Granted as a consumer, cross platform cloud saves of Steam and my 19 year old catalog has a pretty strong network effect.
There are plenty of other options (Epic Games, Microsoft Store, etc.), each with a different revenue share arrangement. Or you can self-publish on your own website and infrastructure (Minecraft did this and it worked out pretty well for them).
Most developers (not all!) clearly have decided that the value Steam provides (features+audience) is worth it. But, crucially, with Steam, it's a choice. With iOS, it's not. You are forced to go through the App Store whether you like it or not (for now, at least). And if tomorrow Apple decides that 30% is not enough and they'd like a bit more, there's not much you can do about it.
(Apologies if this is not terribly relevant to the rest of the thread, but it bugs me when I see this kind of "apples to apples" comparisons between Steam and the App Store)