Fact: Valve takes a 30℅ cut, leaving the remaining 70℅ for the developers. This is actually quite widely known, and is why a lot of developers, especially indie devs, sell through Steam rather than go through publishers (who usually take 50–60% iirc).
Fact + Guess: VAT is referring to the value-added tax, which differs per country. I’m sure Steam handles some of that for developers, but it’s likely that developers still have to manage some of their own tax obligations too regardless.
Guess: If we assume that all VAT for every country is inclusive rather than additive, then we’d be closer to developers taking the full 70% again. Of course, excluding their own tax obligations, but still. If the VAT was additive, I’d assume Steam wouldn’t just “raise the price” of the game, and instead just take a portion of the remaining 70% and put that towards the VAT.
Fact: Steam has a larger customer base than other similar services. More people use Steam, so it makes sense to market your products. Easy advertising, and increased sales. If there’s double DRM, then you likely have your in-game premium store/currency connected to, say, Uplay or Origin rather than Steam anyways.
Fact + Guess: Publisher-exclusive deals and contracts most definitely exist, they just aren’t shown publicly due to favoritism and privacy agreements and all of that. While 30% is definitely the standard, it’s probable that Ubisoft and such may have special agreements.
Because all of those things are expensive expenses and unchanging. Implying that someone can decide to have zero income because they suddenly hit a million dollars doesn’t make sense. Living an average life for 18 years will render you broke if you just had a million dollars. If you’re supporting a business with the same money you’re living off of you’re going to lose money faster.
But those aren’t huge issues regardless, because as previously stated by various people in this topic: there are still sources of income besides the Server Pass.
Quick addendum to the previous reply I left though, because people seem to be forgetting this too when they talk about sources of revenue:
Second addendum: Taxes FAQ (Steamworks Documentation)
According to this, it looks like VAT is inclusive for every country it’d apply to. However, it’s taken out of the developer’s 70% share.
I could be wrong on that, but yeah. There’s also like regional pricing differences Steam does, so it’s just…
…really hard to get a good idea for something like that. Fortunately, again, it shouldn’t matter because Nelson does have income. I’m not going to bother continuing to probe at it, but if anyone wanted to you could probably use Steamworks and sites like SteamSpy to get a good idea about that.