alt Hacker NewsThe difference between today and 30 years ago is that if you are an individual developer, you are at the complete mercy of a single company (Valve), who can force you to do essentially anything they want for the privilege of publishing on their platform, with no meaningful alternative, and zero recourse if they say “no”.
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> with no meaningful alternative
Steam (which I'm guessing you're talking about) is nowhere close of being a monopoly. There are loads of alternatives out there, in wide use by people already. World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Minecraft, Roblox and more are all examples of big time successful games that never been available on Steam.
I don't follow gaming news closely. Are there examples of this being a problem that I can read about?
Both Itch.io and GOG are alternative platforms, as is just doing your own thing
Many games I own started their life distributed exclusively through a platform other than steam.
Arguably, you don't even want to approach steam distribution until you've already collected your hype. Steam no longer can surface gems, because it's just far too flooded, so you should seek alternative channels in general.
It's 100% possible to publish a game outside of Steam. There used to be a publicity advantage to being on Steam but is that still there now that Steam is 99% slop?
There are successful indie games that only entered Steam late in their lives.
Even if Valve holds a significant market share of the PC Gaming market, this is a harsh conclusion. There are other significantly more expensive and restrictive options, such as the Windows Store for Windows, or the Play Store for Android, or the App Store for iOS and MacOS. PC has much free-er and more accessible options for indie developers, like itch.io. It's probably the least monopolistic gaming market out there. The struggle of course is advertising and reach, not sure who the gate keepers for that were with TTD, maybe magazines?