The Steam Deck is reportedly getting a paid app store in the latter parts of the year. this simply means that you will now be able to purchase and even sell plug-ins, Julian Fest reveals to The Verge.
Steam Deck Paid App Store
Got a really great idea for a Stream Deck plug-in but you don’t want to give it away for free? Wish you could purchase some premium software for the handy array of LCD screen-equipped keys of the Stream Deck?
Either way, it is now officially happening: the general manager of Elgato Julian Fest says a paid Stream Deck app store is coming in the latter parts of this year.
“We will go live later this year with a platform where people can distribute paid products, whether it’s plug-ins, profiles, icon packs — anything Stream Deck related,” Fest reveals to The Verge.
Elgato Already Has a Software Store
Yes, it is true that the Corsair-owned Elgato already has a software “store,” but you just cannot buy or even sell anything there and today, it is simply a repository of plug-ins as well as icon packs that you can download for free. Those persons who have wanted to start businesses around Stream Deck software have had to maintain their very own websites and then collect their own payments.
“We want to give makers a platform to also monetize their products if they want to,” Fest states. “This is probably the next big direction for Stream Deck as a platform — to give people an opportunity to make a small business out of what they’re building.”
Potential Revenue Shares
We did not get to discuss any potential revenue share or things like that, but Fest however states that the company has been working on paid for “the better part of two years.”
It is not the only new way that Elgato might support B2B, by the way: Fest also is thinking about selling Stream Deck modules directly to other businesses on the platform.
And while Elgato does do the occasional public partnership such as these Discord-branded hardware items, many companies that are rolling out Stream Decks simply purchase them at retail, and some of them on the other hand would prefer if Corsair could offer them direct.
“We also see people buy retail Stream Decks, take them apart, and put them into a new product,” Fest stated, pointing to just how some sim racer companies integrate a Stream Deck directly into sim racer boxes just so buyers can drive more realistic virtual vehicles.
“It’s safe to say we do want to make those people’s lives easier to where they can just get a module and not the full retail box because it’s just unnecessary waste — if you buy the product knowing you’re going to throw away the stand and enclosure, I don’t want to sell it to you,” Fest states.
Is Elgato Planning To Sell a Stream Deck for Business
He however wouldn’t outright confirm that Elgato is planning to sell a “Stream Deck for Business” or anything of the essence, though. It might not even get to pursue that at all: “We are 100 percent a consumer-facing company, so some of the requirements that come from B2B are completely not aligned with our consumer roadmap.”
“How deep do we want to go into this? We’ll see.”
He however states that personally, the B2B direction that catches his attention the most is professional broadcasting, whereby a studio may have $100,000 of networked A/V gear that is controlled by a single Stream Deck simply because “it happened to become the most popular frontend to control all this stuff.”
“Press a button and the 5,000 faders all go crazy.”
Corsair Has Been Expanding Over the Past Decade
And just like its rivals Logitech and Razer, Corsair, the owner of Elgato has been expanding over the past decade simply by buying up smaller companies. It however became a billion-dollar company as of its 2020 IPO and thus sits at $1.8B as of now. Razer recently has also been angling to compete directly with Elgato simply by launching its very own Stream Deck competitors (which are among other streamer products) in partnership with Loupedeck.
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