Nameless Voice on 5/12/2018 at 20:36
Epic are the same, at least so far as their Unreal Engine Marketplace goes.
If they owe you more than $100 at the end of the month, they will pay you 45 days later.
If they owe you less than $100, it will roll over until the next month.
Aja on 6/12/2018 at 01:11
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
MS own the IP, not Epic.
Dang. And based on what Sulphur said, sounds like I'll just have to dust off my old Xbox if I want to play it.
icemann on 6/12/2018 at 10:15
Quote Posted by WingedKagouti
It's more like, if you sell 20 copies for $5 each, you would have gotten $70, but Valve doesn't want to pay out such a small sum. 100 copies sold on Steam is actually a lot for most titles from hobby developers.
This. Answers brethren's question. Its Valve/Steam saying its too little to send back, so they keep it all. And if you sell more later you again have that threshold from scratch.
Bipolar's had (so far) 150 something sales directly from Steam. I've not received a dollar of that.
In comparison both bundles combined netted me roughly 1k (something like 5,000+ sales there). Big difference. Still over the moon to even have a game on there regardless. Unlike now where you just pay to get on there, was a real pain to make it on.
PigLick on 6/12/2018 at 12:58
Is that even legal, keeping the money like that? I guess it would be in the terms and conditions.
Nameless Voice on 6/12/2018 at 13:48
Wait, they won't pay you even if the total sum they owe you is no longer a small sum?
How on earth can they get away with that?
I could understand them not wanting to pay you if they only owe you a very small amount of money, but they should give you that the next month, not... apparently keep it forever?
Thirith on 6/12/2018 at 14:23
They have operating costs; I'd imagine that this is how they justify not paying nor accumulating the small sums over time. Whether their operating costs really amount to however well your game sold and what your cut would be, I can't say, but in principle it's a sound argument.
Renault on 6/12/2018 at 20:29
With electronic payments these days, I don't see how it's a big deal forwarding small amounts to people. On Paypal, you can cash out at any time, no matter the amount. Make the request online, and they transfer the money immediately.
@icemann - And I still don't get how you can sell 150 copies of your game at $5 - totaling $750 - and not get a dime of it. That's robbery. Even with Steam's cut, they should be sending you a check for $525, rigtht?
Nameless Voice on 6/12/2018 at 20:46
But no, what Icemann is saying is that they stole his money rather than paying it.
The Steam FAQ says that they just hold the money until they have more than $100 to pay out, the same as Epic do. It doesn't say anything about them stealing that money if you don't earn enough in a month.
Renault on 6/12/2018 at 21:25
Here's what I saw in the FAQ, same as you NV:
Quote:
Q. Is there a minimum revenue I must earn before I can receive a payment?
A. Yes. There are costs associated with issuing each individual payment as well as potential bank fees charged to you upon receiving money that make it prohibitive to pay out for small amounts of money. Therefore, we may hold your payment until a minimum of $100 payout is earned.
To me that says, once your balance (minus Steam's fees, of course) gets above $100, they will transfer the money. There's nothing remotely close to saying "your balance resets to zero in a month if you don't earn $100." They use the term "hold your payment" which seems to indicate they're saving it, not erasing it. But maybe Icemann can clear this up.
icemann on 7/12/2018 at 03:10
I've not been watching my bank account so it is possible that they paid me and never informed me. The only emails I've received so far were all about the sales not hitting the threshold.
But of those 150+ sales, I think it was 80 or 90 were straight away when it went up for sale but then as I had it discounted on release week, the total for it was lower.