Minecraft: Creator Concerned With Steam Dominance
Despite Valve’s dominance in the digital download market, it seems that not everyone is happy with the role that Valve’s service plays. Minecraft developer Markus Persson has expressed his concern that one platform could dominate over any others.
In an interview with PC Gamer, he talked of how he perceives a future where more developers self publish as a much more desirable one.
“Minecraft has kept growing very fast (and is selling faster than ever), which combined with us not being on Steam leads to some potentially interesting strategic positions. I’m not quite sure what those are, but we’re a bit wary to submit Minecraft to Steam without knowing more about what we want to do… As much as I love Steam, I do somewhat worry about the PC as a gaming platform becoming owned by a single entity that takes 30% of all PC games sold. I’m hoping for a future where more games can self-publish and use social media and friends to market their games. Perhaps there’s something we could do to help out there? I don’t know. If nothing else, we might work as an inspiration for people to self-publish.”
Screenshot from Minecraft (Credit: Facebook/Minecraft)
While Persson makes a very good point, that it would be more beneficial for more developers to self publish, he seems to have missed the point that it is very convenient for gamers to have everything in one place. The reason that the Steam model is so successful is the integration between user experience and advertising for other games that the user might like, plus the buying power of a big corporation, that allows for massive discounts such as those seen during the recent Steam Summer Sale.
Do you think that it would be better for developers to self publish, or is a better for gamers to have one centralised system? Leave your ideas in the comment section below.
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