Minecraft creator speaks to benefits of self-publishing
The man behind indie sensation Minecraft has explained why his game is not on Steam, and expressed his concerns that the service is dominating the PC.
This is not the first time Notch has said no to Steam, but a year after his blog post on the subject, some of his reasons are no longer applicable.
"It seems like pretty much all the things we wanted to do are possible on Steam now, which is brilliant!" Notch told PC Gamer.
"Since I made that blog post, Minecraft has kept growing very fast (and it 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."
Aside from the business angle, Notch has other, more philosophical reservations when it comes to the PC's leading digital distribution platform.
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"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," he said.
"I’m hoping for a future where more games can self-publish and use social media and friends to market their games."
Notch has become the face of independent games, and it comes as no surprise that he is interested in helping others take the same route as Mincraft in its ascent to fame.
The importance of maintaining Mojang's freedom is paramount to Notch, and the developer says that this has been the cause of some recent changes, and will be a determining factor as the studio procedes forward.
"We’re trying to figure out what we want to do long term with the position we have now. We only recently decided to stay as independent as possible and cancelled an unannounced project that we were doing in collaboration with someone else. It’s going to be an interesting future."
Steam is easy. Steam connects me with my friends. Steam stores and installs my games. Steam can store my save and config files. Steam can archive my game onto a separate hdd. Steam pushes my patches. Steam has demos, groups and avenues to soon-to-be friends. Steam has chat. Steam has achievements. Steam has vibrant forums. Steam makes it easy to purchase games. Steam has SALES! The indie devs can do what they want but the reality is that Steam is where the players will be. Best innovate hard if you want something else out there. More power to ya! BTW, i WOULD purchase minecraft if it were on steam. That's the only reason i haven't.
btw, i know notche's reasons for being leary of putting minecraft which is totally understandable.
I get very frustrated having multiple game platforms, just steam would be perfect, I never guy EA games because Origin is rubbish and I would then have two game platforms. If Minecraft was on steam I would have bought it. Steam is epic, no wonder so many people use it.
I purchase through retail (not digital download) in the hopes that the game is not Steam exclusive.
I prefer the old fashion route. I don't feel like I own any of my steam games.
Notch is wrong. He is just piping that Steam hate in hopes that EA will buy him out.
Before his company goes belly-up.
STEAM is great for developers. Provides excellent tools, APIs, infrastructure, forums, crash reports, patch support, all well maintained and supported.
They provide great sales, which are excellent for the consumer.
They provide a great place to work. Their staff are amongst the happiest in the Industry.
STEAM are doing everything right. So pipe that hate somewhere else, Notch, no one's buying.
What this basically boils down to is Notch wants to live in the past. He can call it independent game development, but what Notch is promoting is isolation by proprietary software, which is one of the reasons the PC game platform has lost popularity over the past 10 years. Not many people want numerous game launchers cluttering their desktops and start-menus (coupled with conflicting and unreliable DRM). Steam solves that problem by bringing them all together, but Notch seems to think his game is the only one you'll be playing, so having no coordination and no interoperability is the user's problem and not his. I wonder if he was asleep throughout the 90's.
I'm always amazed how Valve have managed to get such fiercely loyal fans for what amounts to a always-on DRM system. Yes, you can play offline if you can somehow see into the future and predict when your internet is going out. To the above comment, what's wrong with just launching your game from the Start menu? Steam games still have conflicting DRM (not all games on there use Steamworks exclusively). Steam can't even get voice chat to work right meaning I have to use the Xfire service on top of Steam for that.
Yes it may be hugely better than most other PC DRM/Download services, doesn't mean its great by any means.
If you don't like steam, you don't have to use it. Seriously, 30% isn't a lot compared to what other publisher would take from you. And you still have the option to market it all by yourself via viral marketing and indie-friendly gaming websites... And there are other game portals like desura or GOG... I don't see a problem.
Steam is the worst service I have ever uses. I purchased Portal 2 and was never able to play. Constantly updating; so slow it never finished. Then I would try on different computers and ran into authentication errors.
Seriously, if I want to make a game I purchased avail on my 3 computers, I do not want to have to reauthenticate a PC each time and have it knock another off.
And to top it all off, I purchased Portal 2 from a B&M game store. Why, why would I then be forced to install steam? That pissed me off more than anything. I went to the store to buy a game, to avoid what steam forced me to do in the end anyway.
So Portal 2 sits on the shelf, useless because I cannot play it on any of my systems.
Some of the replies here are an embarrassment, and also quite scary.
Steam has worked itself into a position where if you don't/can't get your game onto the platform, then you don't make any money. How can that be a good thing?
It shows how easy it is to herd people who have their blinkers on into doing whatever you want, no matter what freedoms it takes away.
Notch is right of course, taking a moment to review the way that the gaming industry works. We should be wary of making one company, such as Steam, too great. Look at Google, they've almost completely taken over the search-engine as well as video-sharing markets.
Don't let the same happen to the game industry. Embarrassment, as Brett neatly put it, shame, and sorrow are the emotions I feel.
Embarassing? Wow, yes I can see how you can try and mark someone else's opinion as that of narrow mindedness and stupidity. When in reality they are clearly expressing their feelings toward a service which provides them with a enjoyable experience. I shall agree with you that providing one company with a monopoly isn't good, but you claim this is a bad thing, when in reality it has rejuvenated the PC market and provides a service better than most. It is inevitable that digital distribution will be the future, that is certain, it is the rights we shall lose which matter, not the monopoly of a single company.
The idea that Steam has put itself into a position where if you aren't on their platform you won't make money is clearly false and certainly in comparison with consoles. On a PC anyone can release a game, whether through Steam or individually (see Minecraft), however on console they don't have that ability and in most cases must stump up a nice sum of cash for the privilege to release on those machines and then pay a percentage of each game sold. And the fragmentation of systems make it worse for both developer and consumer.
I don't believe you provide sufficient arguments to your reasoning. The games industry is changing and you don't like it; well unfortunately that's life and with change brings the good and the bad. I too have my worries about Steam, but in comparison with what everyone else is offering, they are certainly the best option in my opinion.
