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My full-time job is indie game development, and I'm very pleased to see this. I sell my games on Steam, the Apple Mac Store, Humble Bundle and Green Man Gaming

My full-time job is indie game development, and I'm very pleased to see this. I sell my games on Steam, the Apple Mac Store, Humble Bundle and Green Man Gaming (and a few other places, but those are the big ones) but 90% of my income comes from Steam. This is... understandably not the most stable feeling thing, to have one distributor paying my bills. I'm looking forward to Steam not having quite the hold on PC Games that it currently does! It's not that I have any complaints about Steam specifically, but Discord selling games, the rise of GOG and Itch, and Twitch getting in on it are all quite interesting to me. I hope Discord opens up to more developers soon. Oh, and another thought, I run a Discord for people interested in the game I'm currently developing. You can imagine the effectiveness of putting a Buy button so close to an engaged community.

Endy 8y ago
Do you produce games on actual printed disks? Have you reached out to smaller gaming stores - both in your area and around the country? If you move away from digital distribution, you might just find yourself feeling more stable. And certainly, you'll be pulling away from Valve/Steam.
- calgoo 8y ago
  Honest question: does anyone still buy games on physical media ? I have not bought a game/movie or software with a physical copy in the last 10 years.
  - erikbye 8y ago
    Most of my games are on Steam, but for Xbox One X I prefer a physical copy due to size and price. 100GB download for one game is a bit much on my current connection. Red Dead Redemption 2 on Xbox Store, $85 (cheapest edition). Physical copy, $66 (prices converted from NOK to USD). EDIT: Apparently RDR2 Xbox One X download size will "only" be 88.57GB. Still, a bit heavy. Forza 7 was 95GB.
  - Reedx 8y ago
    I own most of the platforms and buy lots of games... but haven't bought any physical copies in probably 5+ years either. They're still in stores though and lots of people buy 'em yet. Especially on consoles. https://www.techspot.com/news/75220-most-console-players-prefer-buying-physical-games-over.html https://www.techspot.com/news/75220-most-console-players-pre... Digital is only recently starting to beat out physical, but changing fast now: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/for-console-games-downloads-are-approaching-a-tipping-point/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/for-console-games-dow...
  - Endy 8y ago
    When I buy games or movies, it's only on physical media. Then again, maybe I'm just old fashioned when it comes to this, because I don't believe in paying real money for non-physical goods and services. I don't trust a company to maintain a server perpetually - after all, evidence has consistently shown that they will not. With non-physical media, someone else holds all the cards and can restrict access to something which you paid for. With physical media, that data is with you, offline, for the life of the disk. They can't take it away without breaking into your home, office, or storage facility and stealing the item from you. Paying for something on Valve's platform means that at any time, Valve or some other group can revoke your access. The same goes for Netflix. Things get added and removed from their catalog so often that I could never bother keeping it straight, even when I had a free account for a few months. All I knew was one day, I wanted to watch something that they'd had and it was gone. That was the day I made absolutely certain that they had no payment information and would end the free trial gracefully and without trying to take my money.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  Nobody buys physical media for PC games anymore. Hell most new computers don't have DVD drives. And I'd be pretty amazed if any physical apps still sell PC games on disc. Do publishers even make boxes and CDs now? It's not 2005. GameStop et al just sell console games.
GiuseppaAcciaio 8y ago
I've had this argument all day yesterday (on Discord, of course) about whether Steam can ever be dethroned, and your last sentence nails it on the head: while Steam has tried for a while to integrate social features into their store (and made a real mess of it), Discord is THE place where engaged gamers go to find a community. I buy on Steam because I like the centralised hub for installing and uninstalling, but the discovery process is just horrible: most of the games that go on my wishlist come from suggestions from other players in the Discord servers I'm active in. I only spend on Steam the bare minimum time I need to manage my library. I imagine that for a developer it must be a pretty good prospect, having the product for sale just a click away from where the discussion is; for me as a consumer the critical part will be how well the store works on mobile: I do 90% of my Discord activity on an iPhone, and if it's as frictionless as buying on Steam but with a better mobile experience, I will definitely give it a go.

Endy 8y ago

Do you produce games on actual printed disks? Have you reached out to smaller gaming stores - both in your area and around the country? If you move away from digital distribution, you might just find yourself feeling more stable. And certainly, you'll be pulling away from Valve/Steam.

calgoo 8y ago
Honest question: does anyone still buy games on physical media ? I have not bought a game/movie or software with a physical copy in the last 10 years.
- erikbye 8y ago
  Most of my games are on Steam, but for Xbox One X I prefer a physical copy due to size and price. 100GB download for one game is a bit much on my current connection. Red Dead Redemption 2 on Xbox Store, $85 (cheapest edition). Physical copy, $66 (prices converted from NOK to USD). EDIT: Apparently RDR2 Xbox One X download size will "only" be 88.57GB. Still, a bit heavy. Forza 7 was 95GB.
- Reedx 8y ago
  I own most of the platforms and buy lots of games... but haven't bought any physical copies in probably 5+ years either. They're still in stores though and lots of people buy 'em yet. Especially on consoles. https://www.techspot.com/news/75220-most-console-players-prefer-buying-physical-games-over.html https://www.techspot.com/news/75220-most-console-players-pre... Digital is only recently starting to beat out physical, but changing fast now: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/for-console-games-downloads-are-approaching-a-tipping-point/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/11/for-console-games-dow...
- Endy 8y ago
  When I buy games or movies, it's only on physical media. Then again, maybe I'm just old fashioned when it comes to this, because I don't believe in paying real money for non-physical goods and services. I don't trust a company to maintain a server perpetually - after all, evidence has consistently shown that they will not. With non-physical media, someone else holds all the cards and can restrict access to something which you paid for. With physical media, that data is with you, offline, for the life of the disk. They can't take it away without breaking into your home, office, or storage facility and stealing the item from you. Paying for something on Valve's platform means that at any time, Valve or some other group can revoke your access. The same goes for Netflix. Things get added and removed from their catalog so often that I could never bother keeping it straight, even when I had a free account for a few months. All I knew was one day, I wanted to watch something that they'd had and it was gone. That was the day I made absolutely certain that they had no payment information and would end the free trial gracefully and without trying to take my money.
IshKebab 8y ago
Nobody buys physical media for PC games anymore. Hell most new computers don't have DVD drives. And I'd be pretty amazed if any physical apps still sell PC games on disc. Do publishers even make boxes and CDs now? It's not 2005. GameStop et al just sell console games.

GiuseppaAcciaio 8y ago

I've had this argument all day yesterday (on Discord, of course) about whether Steam can ever be dethroned, and your last sentence nails it on the head: while Steam has tried for a while to integrate social features into their store (and made a real mess of it), Discord is THE place where engaged gamers go to find a community. I buy on Steam because I like the centralised hub for installing and uninstalling, but the discovery process is just horrible: most of the games that go on my wishlist come from suggestions from other players in the Discord servers I'm active in. I only spend on Steam the bare minimum time I need to manage my library. I imagine that for a developer it must be a pretty good prospect, having the product for sale just a click away from where the discussion is; for me as a consumer the critical part will be how well the store works on mobile: I do 90% of my Discord activity on an iPhone, and if it's as frictionless as buying on Steam but with a better mobile experience, I will definitely give it a go.