this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2026
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It only costs $100 to list your own game on Steam, and that money is refunded if you make $1000. That's all there is. The rest is up to the dev or the publisher. That barrier to entry is absurdly low. If a game isn't making sales, it's not Steams fault, it's advertising. ANYONE can list games, which means there is a lot of chaff on the market. What do you want them to do? Increase the listing price so that trash games don't get listed as often? Then you cut out the good indie dev, too. Game dev is only half the battle. You still have to reach your market once you post your game.
Steam allows you to buy from whomever. Want to support an indie dev on their first title? Go for it. Steam won't stop you. You can be the change you want to see in the world.
As always, discoverability could be better. But mostly that's discoverability of recommendations and a smarter system for suggesting new games that would make a difference IMHO. Valve certainly isn't the worst at finding things you like, although their search is a bit clunky
Yep. You either allow the garbage or block the upcoming indie dev. One personβs trash is another personβs Power Washer Simulator 2024.
Couldn't stop playing it for days when I first got it.
First off, that comes off as racist. Selling camels invokes the orientalist caricature of the people of the middle east. At best you sound like an edgy Twitch streamer. At worst you sound like a bigot. Neither of those is a good look.
Secondly, sure, I'll admit that it's not a great deal for people in poorer countries. Steam isn't a public utility, though. You can post to itch.io for free, and there is a MASSIVE userbase there. Get that $100 there and then bring it to Steam. That isn't a big ask. Is it another barrier to entry for someone from a poorer country? Yes, and that's unfortunate. However, it's not a high bar to clear. If you get popular on itch.io, Steam is a natural progression. And, again, that $100 is more like a deposit than a cost. It comes back after you make $1000 on the game. After that, it's free to host that game. And with it, you get discussion channels, social channels, the Steam Workshop integration, multiplayer hosting, and a ton of other benefits. Steam isn't the enemy you seem to want to make it out to be.
However, all of this is predicated on something that we haven't talked about. Right now, the US has sanctions against Iran. So, no matter what, Steam is barred legally barred from servicing Iranian accounts. However, this itch.io to Steam pipeline still does work in other countries without sanctions. Places like Brazil, India, and the Philippines are able to do things like this without an issue. I'll reiterate, it's not great that there's an extra step. Still, the extra step isn't a huge one, and if anything, it can help by growing a base on itch.io for free and then bringing that passion over to Steam. There are plenty of games that have famously made that jump and come out better for it.
Glad you admitted your mistake.
Yep. Conceding the weak part of your own argument so it can't be used against you is a basic rhetorical move. You reaching for one liners instead of a rebuttal tells me it worked. I learned that from 8 Mile.
I asked a critical question. If you react this poorly to criticism, I am not the one reaching for βlinesβ on a billion dollar empire.
Now, why don't you help those indies up, instead of salting your ego on threadiverse?
You didn't ask a critical question, you gave me a snide remark. When you asked a critical question before, I gave you a very serious and honest answer.
And as far as helping the indies up... do you want to see my Steam Library? I'm just shy of 1900 games at this point, and a large portion of which is made up of indie games. I'm actually working on starting a YouTube channel where I play those indie games and show them on a platform where they don't have a lot of representation, and they won't have to pay me to play them, nor will I accept free games. I buy, and then I play, so I have skin in the game, just like the average gamer. That's how I'm helping them up.
What are you doing to help, instead of stroking your ego on the threadiverse?
Try Peertube channel instead. That way even libre projects get represented as well.
Doing the actual liberation.
Peertube has a much smaller base, but I can upload to both, so that's fine. And as far as compiling a list of open source games, it's not a bad thing. I think it's a great idea, actually. However, it's doing nothing to bring revenue to indie devs...
Continuing to sound like an edgelord
On the other hand, how many USD sales does it take to buy those camels back? The $100 isn't localized, but neither is revenue... If affording the $100 is really an issue, and you have a game that will sell, you could start a Kickstarter for $150 to cover the submission cost and likely have no trouble getting the funds, no?
They seem to have a rabid hate boner for Steam, Epic shill maybe?
Reads like an absurdly high barrier to entry.
Itch io is free. If you can't make $100 on itch then don't bother submitting to steam.
Steam could invest more time curating and promoting indie content instead of the same games over and over and over. I can't remember the last time I opened the Store and saw a new game I hadn't heard of before.
I see new games literally all the time. The front page and discovery queue are very good at that.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong then.
It trailers to your catalog. What are you buying?
Huh?
They meant tailors. The recommendations are based on your previous play or purchase history.
They meant tailors
My Chucks!?
It only shows me hentai games.
Then stop buying them or buy something different so steam thinks you like other content ;P
You can filter the store to hide certain genres or mature games all together
I like it like that.
Literally a steam next fest promoting indies like every month or two? Idk what else you want?
They never said they pay attention or look around the page a little, they just said they open the store. So they likely see the first ad at the top and then close the store. Then they complain they cant find any games.
Then you haven't been looking at the MANY indie sales, or the Next Fest they put on every quarter where you can play hundreds of demos for indie games and try before you buy.
Weirdly, other stores get bashed for this for allowing βshovelwareβ type games like this. Why does valve get the pass?
Probably because the algorithm steam uses to promote games doesn't throw the crap stuff on the front page most of the time. So no one feels like they're paging through tons of spam to find the game they're looking for.
The flip side is that means if you're new, and write a good game, you better advertise it yourself, or it will die in obscurity.
These things regularly come up, and people complain about the obvious garbage, that constantly fill their store pages (which doesn't really happen to me).
They dont get a pass and they should absolutely be moderating it better.