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Steam has a lot of games. Like, all the games. Well, minus a couple from EA and – now that we think about it – indie ultra-sensation Minecraft. Pretty weird, right? We wish we could just chalk the whole thing up to coincidence and get back to constructing a scale replica of the second Death Star, but – as is typically the case with Death Stars – it's not quite so easy.
“Being on Steam limits a lot of what we’re allowed to do with the game, and how we’re allowed to talk to our users. We (probably?) wouldn’t be able to, say, sell capes or have a map market place on minecraft.net that works with steam customers in a way that keeps Valve happy. It would effectively split the Minecraft community into two parts, where only some of the players can access all of the weird content we want to add to the game,” Notch wrote on his blog.
“We are talking to Valve about this, but I definitely understand their reasons for wanting to control their platform. There’s a certain inherent incompatibility between what we want to do and what they want to do.”
Don't mistake Notch for some sort of rebel who's actively plotting the Steam empire's downfall, though. He also went on at length about all the things he loves about Valve's ubiquitous platform. “Steam is awesome,” he concluded. “Much more awesome than certain other digital distribution platforms that we would NOT want to release Minecraft on.”
That means you, Sega Genesis' little-known XBAND online service.
Comments are closed on this article
IhateModders
September 06, 2011 at 8:29am
Xbox has an indie game just like mine craft for 160 ms points which is about 3 dollars. And overall i like the game its like minecraft, but not, if you ever play it it ressembles it, but i think its better.
methuselah
September 02, 2011 at 2:57pm
Steam's not perfect but it's the best out there and they do a pretty good job. They also don't have a shady "corporate greed, screw you little guys and death to consumer suggestions" attitude that EA has.
dgrmouse
September 02, 2011 at 10:20am
I'm no fan of Steam, but I'm still surprised at all the Mojang fanboys. Minecraft isn't a very good game, especially for $25. Adding micro-transactions would make it a worse game, and that Mojang is reluctant to use a DLC model and share profits w/ Steam for Steam DLC sales is a GOOD thing for users. Mojang's excuse of wanting to provide a consistent user experience is pretty weak, considering the existing prevalence of third-party plugins and even clients/servers.
praack
September 02, 2011 at 7:48am
Steam is a distributer, EA and Notch are publishers. What it really boils down to is economics. there are other distributers (impulse etc)but steam is the biggie. if someone like a Publisher or studio can cut the distributer out completely then they garner all profits.
all profits means less competition
rememebr -how much does it cost for the box vs the retail copy of the EA game? if steam is serious removed as a distributer and it becomes the major publishers storefront you have to go to - what are the possiblities of that game going on "sale"
example- Command and Conquer was free until EA put thier new system on line - now you must purchase as part of thier comand and conquer the first decade - for 12 bucks
TerribleToaster
September 01, 2011 at 5:12am
Interestingly enough Terraria, while a 2-D platform/adventure/builder sandbox of a game (I hate Man Eaters), shares some similarities with Minecraft, including the way in which the developers expand and reshape the game despite being a Steam game. My guess is that because Minecraft wasn't originally released on Steam it would be very difficult to try and migrate their services over to steam. But hey, doesn't really matter, if Notch and Steam can't collude, sometimes things just don't work out. At least we still have two great services,
somethingelse
September 01, 2011 at 5:10am
Dude, thanks for the XBAND link. I never knew it existed, was a fun read :)
Annoyance
September 01, 2011 at 12:44pm
Loved it too I couldn't be leave as I was reading the link it was like I was reading about the PS3 or Xbox 360.
kamikaji
September 01, 2011 at 3:58am
These are most definitely NOT the same as the complaints that EA had. EA purposefully deviated from the Valve ToS so that they could feign innocence when they exempt all of their freakin' games from Steam. In the process, they make Valve look like the bad guy. Not a bad deal for a company who's trying to launch its own online store front right? EA literally has no reason to have its own online servers and multiplayer settings. JUST FUCKING USE STEAM'S ALREADY PERFECT SYSTEM! All of the other major shooters do, so why not yours? Well, EA, we already have a perfectly good service, and its called Steam. So fuck off, no one wants your fucking Origin. Notch actually has VALID reasons for not releasing on Steam. His game is constantly morphing and changing, constantly expanding, and constantly switching what players can and want to do. I can totally see how he wouldn't want to deal with Steam for Minecraft in the this light. It just wouldn't be logical. The one thing I AM confused about though, is why Notch is putting Minecraft on XBLA. If you are complaining that STEAM is restrictive, why the fuck are you running off to XBLA??????!!!!! It's 100 times as restrictive as Steam!
Anyways, that's my rant.
stradric
September 01, 2011 at 6:02am
I love Steam, but let's not pretend that it's perfect. Steamworks can't, for example, separate voice communication from game audio. Either all the audio (voice chat and game audio) goes through the headset or it all goes through the computer speakers. This is something that even GFWL can do.
Now even if that's changed (Portal 2 might do it if I recall correctly), it doesn't work for older games like L4D.
