There are practical barriers still tho. You’ll have to either maintain or outsource maintaining:
hosting infrastructure
CDN
Security (both frontend and backend)
DRM (either serial numbering or yet another hosted verification services)
user accounts and data handling
payment processing
And that’s for a basic game, if you want feature parity with steam, add on top:
version control and access (playtests, betas)
version control for other platforms (Mac, Linux)
hosting for savefile sync, achievements
hosting for UGC (mods, screenshots, configs, recording)
hosting and infrastructure for user livestreaming
CDN for mods
review (automated or manual) for mods or UGC
legal protection and compliance against UGC
multiplayer service infrastructure
automated/manual moderation of game servers/lobbies
anticheat system
hosting for newsfeed (update announcements, news)
and so on, you get the point…
By the time you implement the basic stuff and half of the extras, might as well pay the 30% commission and just focus on what you wanted to do: make games. Instead of having to cosplay as a sysadmin or orchestrate 15 different providers
The things on that list are all technically true but at the same time not really that big a deal? Certainly they’re all solved problems already. Making a good video game in the first place is harder than any of those things.
There are practical barriers still tho. You’ll have to either maintain or outsource maintaining:
And that’s for a basic game, if you want feature parity with steam, add on top:
By the time you implement the basic stuff and half of the extras, might as well pay the 30% commission and just focus on what you wanted to do: make games. Instead of having to cosplay as a sysadmin or orchestrate 15 different providers
The things on that list are all technically true but at the same time not really that big a deal? Certainly they’re all solved problems already. Making a good video game in the first place is harder than any of those things.