Am I in the wrong here?

[u/lrGhost1]

A few months ago me and another developer listed a game on steam, under his Steam Partner Account. We paid the 100USD fee to list the game, and then have worked on the game since.

Now, almost 12 months later, the other developer no longer has time to work on the game and wants to transfer the App Listing to me.

I need to create a Steam Partner Account in order to accept the transfer, but part of the onboarding is to create your first listing and thus pay the 100USD fee. This is stated in the Steam Documentation under "appfee" as

Whether you are completing the Steam Direct signup process or are already an established Steamworks developer, you can now simply pay a $100 USD (or equivalent) fee for each new app you wish to distribute on Steam. Read below for details on how it works.

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/appfee

It states that the fee must be paid for each NEW app that you wish to distribute. This is totally understandable.

However, in this case I have no intention to create a new app listing, I am only making the account to transfer the management of an app that we already paid for. I don't understand why I should have to pay again for a second listing, if I don't intend on having a second listing.

I tried to contact support about this, hoping they would understand the situation, and allow us to simply move the ownership of the listing to a different account, so I can have access. However they came back with the following:

The initial fee is meant to cover the costs we incur in setting up and maintaining the partner account. You'll need to pay this fee to continue onboarding.

Then when I questioned why this made sense, and linked the Docs not mentioning anything about an account setup fee, I got this response, from a different support user:

We can't help with this. Setting up a new partner account requires paying an onboarding fee. 

Am I in the wrong here for asking that the app simply gets transferred to a different account? Or have have severely misunderstood the situation, and need to accept the fee. As an indie developer, I don't just have another 100USD lying around to pay for a steam listing that I already paid for.

[u/salad_tongs_1]

You need to accept the fee. There is some legal/tax stuff on the back end that this also covers (I assume).
And also, they are a corporation, they have a right to charge what they want for things.

While what you ask isn't that crazy, it's still Valve's call.

[u/lrGhost1 → u/salad_tongs_1]

Yeah I guess that is true. And you're right, at the end of the day is it still their decision and they can really charge for whatever they like. No matter if we personally find it unfair.

I guess I'll just have to suck it up and pay the fee. I have future plans for other games to publish, so I guess I can save the credits for then. Just didn't intend to list anything extra this soon haha. Thanks for the feedback

[u/Taolan13]

a new account can't be onboarded with an existing app, to prevent various kinds of shady dealings that used to be a problem for Valve.

[u/Roccondil-s]

Are Partner accounts linked to personal accounts? If not, why can you not just take over the Partner account directly?

[u/lrGhost1 → u/Roccondil-s]

Yeah they are linked to personal. So his steam profile are all attached to it. And also he has other games on the same account, that ofc I can't take over

[u/Top-Mulberry-5519]

Short answer yes.