When can we Pre-Purchase on steam？

[Varrick]

I totally agree with Keyrock! As long as the % cut taken from sales after the 90 days free is comparable to steam/gog/ect, then origin sounds fine by me. The more sales of GD, the better, regardless of where they come from!

[LostSoul]

One of the Devs over at Arcen games has mentioned that while the larger distribution platforms come with a lower developer profit margin, they come with an expanded user base and greater exposure to potential customers. Steam, for example, has its "new releases" system, and built-in genre recommendations for users to peruse, all of which are designed to build awareness of your product in your target audiences.

So that 30% isn't quite a "30% cut of your sales" because it comes with a level of in-network advertising of sorts to help increase the number of units sold. I'm not judging the worth of the service compared to its cost the platform takes, but it is providing more than just a digital warehouse to store your goods.

At least, for the good platforms mind you. Not all are created equal.

-edit-

As far as EA and Origin goes, I object to them having any game on the principle of them thumbing their noses at anyone who wants to distribute their games without Origin taped on top of it. I object to them because of their anti-competitive business practices. I object to them because of their abusive relationship with customers. Mostly I object to them because the people in charge are money-grubbing, greedy, two-faced, slimy, good-for-nothing, sumbishes...and I'd like nothing better than for them to leave the gaming business permanently.

[Raven]

In the broad view all distribution platforms are equal. They "cut" their % from the sales they deliver to the developer. No sales - no cut. So the cut is almost does not matter as it still increases the net profit in absolute means.
% distributors take will tend to decrease over time but only is there will be more distributors and they'll start to compete for titles in their store. Otherwise, until we have 2-3 of major systems and few more smaller ones while having hundreds or even thousands of developers there will be monopoly that is more beneficial to distributors than to developers. We need to get tens of such systems in the end. Yet all of them either deliver sales and get mutual profits or don't deliver the sales and distributor owes nothing to them then. I guess there are no systems demanding to pay them net fee just for listing your title?

[wajld]

Think it will take alot of time until GD is ready for steam.