Anyone who games on PC has to make daily choices about where to purchase their games, even for downloadable titles. Many indie games can be purchased straight from the developer, giving the studio a larger chunk of your money than if you buy their games through a distributor like Steam.
But at least one indie dev, A Valley Without Wind studio Arcen Games, believes that buying from Steam is just as beneficial as purchasing directly from the developers.
"Players should always buy games in whatever way is most convenient for them," Arcen founder Chris Park told GameSpy. "If we weren't happy with a way of selling our game, we wouldn't be selling it that way. Some players like to buy direct from developers because logically the developers get a larger cut of the revenue, and that's great -- but when you buy through a distributor you increase our sales rank and visibility through that distributor, which is also valuable. No matter where you buy it from, everybody wins!"
"The Steam audience is massive, and quite frankly we wouldn't have been able to stay in business these last three years without them," Park continued.
So there you have it. Now you won't have to feel bad every time you pass up a game like, say, To The Moon in favor of waiting for it to release on Steam (and now you know you're not the only one who does this). Let us know what you think in the comments or on Twitter.
