PA has just announced Greenhouse. This is very positive news. I’ve always wondered why steam doesn’t have more indie games. Considering the success of Audiosurf people are certainly willing to buy them.
One problem with steam is it has some really really bad games available there, browsing is a hassle and thus browsing comes up with lots of crappy games. Greenhouse looks like it’ll have high standards.
As far as I’m concerned the more competition for digital distribution the better. It’ll force innovation.
Aside from the lack of indie games, you forgot to mention that unless you’re located in the US, many of the games that are released on Steam aren’t available outside Northern America anyway.
I keep checking in with Rockstar and there’s still no definite answer on whether their games will be available digitally - unless you like thepiratebay of course.
And yes, Steam has some terrible games. I’ve tried most of them, considering I don’t have to pay. One of the most disturbing trends on Steam is the sheer number of Tycoon games that are available. They scare me. And they’re not fun. *shudder*
I didn’t really forget about it, I just get so sick of trying to rant about it coherently that I’ve abandoned it. This should really get more publicity because otherwise they’ll keep doing it.
It’s gettings some at least. Ubisoft recently committed the same crime. Hopefully RPS will put some media pressure on them for some answers.
I was so annoyed about the GTA thing I actually emailed multiple rockstar and 2k email addresses asking about it, I got no response from any of them. The worst behaviour is the COD4 style overpricing in regions like ours. All this just urges people to get torrents instead.
Back on topic.. there are many reasons why steam isn’t really ideal for indie developers. Getting lost in their horrible navigation is one of them.
I’m quite curious to see what the PA guys will deem as worthy (assuming the indie developer is willing). At the very least I’ll be buying PA:Adventures from greenhouse.
The big shiney awesome card for me is cross platform. The more games I can play from within Ubuntu the better.