Enormous choice? Lol, sure. Think of all the individual studios 20 years ago making games. You could buy them at multiple stores, on CD or DVD, maybe even download a patch or two from the developer online.
Today most of those individual studios have disappeared, many bought up and dismantled by the industry, and every single one of those industry titans is trying to corral you into their system via downloader or subscription, and the majority make sure you don’t actually own the game you bought. Steam is just the least evil among them, and there’s plenty of apologists that say Steam makes it possible for indy developers to get exposure. But at what price?
What’s stopping indie developers from hosting their downloads on their own site? Sure, offering all the other features Steam does would be hugely expensive, but that’s why consumers prefer it. Those features aren’t necessary though and people would forgo them for a good game. Advertising would be more difficult but they could get popular streamers to play it or do Reddit or twitter posts to get exposure.
Doing all those things themselves are riskier than using Steam but there’s nothing actually stopping them from trying. Steam takes a big cut but a big cut is still preferable to a smaller total amount they would likely get by not using Steam. It’s not Steam’s fault no other platform has gotten their shit together in decades.
Enormous choice? Lol, sure. Think of all the individual studios 20 years ago making games. You could buy them at multiple stores, on CD or DVD, maybe even download a patch or two from the developer online.
Today most of those individual studios have disappeared, many bought up and dismantled by the industry, and every single one of those industry titans is trying to corral you into their system via downloader or subscription, and the majority make sure you don’t actually own the game you bought. Steam is just the least evil among them, and there’s plenty of apologists that say Steam makes it possible for indy developers to get exposure. But at what price?
What’s stopping indie developers from hosting their downloads on their own site? Sure, offering all the other features Steam does would be hugely expensive, but that’s why consumers prefer it. Those features aren’t necessary though and people would forgo them for a good game. Advertising would be more difficult but they could get popular streamers to play it or do Reddit or twitter posts to get exposure.
Doing all those things themselves are riskier than using Steam but there’s nothing actually stopping them from trying. Steam takes a big cut but a big cut is still preferable to a smaller total amount they would likely get by not using Steam. It’s not Steam’s fault no other platform has gotten their shit together in decades.