How Does Steem make money

I'm no expert and not privy to Valve's financials but Steam operates some what like a casino.They take a 'cut '

of everything sold throught their platform .That means that while those sale prices result in a net lesser income

its true it's far better for them to get a cut of 100 $5 dollar sales than 15 $10 sales .Also they have their own IPs on steem like Team Fortress 2,Half life ,Left for dead ,etc.

Sin they don't have brick and mortar location to keep up or physical inventory to deal with that's a cost savings places like Gamestop don't enjoy either

Keep in mind they also have their trading cards for most newer games and while they don't make any money directly on those they also take a cut of each sale of those from Steam member as well as things like hats in team fortress etc .If a transaction takes place Steam gets paid .why developers agree to this ? well put simply Value dominates the market with steam .Other companies have tried to get in and some have succeeded but when you look at even something like Origin from EA its simply laughable compared to Steam even with Big IPs like call of Duty .

Low overhead ,Strong IPs ,and that percentage of every transaction quite quickly makes them not only profitable but extremely lucrative .