That assumes that the money from targeted/curated ads is less than the money from paid advertising fees + follow up sales. That may not actually be true. Generic ads are notoriously bad at converting views to clicks to sales. What steam is doing is basically targeted advertising which boosts their sales, where they make a guaranteed 30% return at a rate that’s probably much higher than the conversion rate for paid advertising.
Other sales platforms do the same thing. It’s not really any different from all the recommendation sections on Amazon. The idea that they’re doing it just to be nice is pretty ridiculous. Valve is still out to make money at the end of the day.
That assumes that the money from targeted/curated ads is less than the money from paid advertising fees + follow up sales. That may not actually be true. Generic ads are notoriously bad at converting views to clicks to sales. What steam is doing is basically targeted advertising which boosts their sales, where they make a guaranteed 30% return at a rate that’s probably much higher than the conversion rate for paid advertising.
Other sales platforms do the same thing. It’s not really any different from all the recommendation sections on Amazon. The idea that they’re doing it just to be nice is pretty ridiculous. Valve is still out to make money at the end of the day.