Opinion: I Support The Free Market But I Also Think Developers Should Release Games On Steam Or Go To Jail

So, it looks like once again another developer has been lured in by the Epic Games Store and its silky promises of a lower cut from each sale, which of course means more money to the developer.

As an absolute supporter of the free market, it makes perfect sense that developers would do this. Naturally, developers should go where they can get the greatest return for their efforts.

On the surface it seems well and good, but there’s one thing a lot of game developers don’t seem to understand: I think it should be illegal to even slightly inconvenience me in any way.

Again, I have to stress that the absolute freedom of the market is one of the most sacred, inviolable aspects of our modern society.

If we’ve learned one thing from the fall of the Soviet Union, it’s that a planned economy simply doesn’t work. Money wants to be free – free to flow into the pockets of other people who already had more than me, free to flow offshore into tax havens, and of course, free to go to hard working developers.

But all of that comes crashing down when you consider one simple fact: I already have a lot of games on Steam and it would be really nice for me.

It’s simply common sense that a developer or a publisher might want to keep another 10% of the profits from each game they sell, rather than giving that 10% to Valve. That’s what makes the free market great, and again, I totally support it, but also I think that anybody who doesn’t release their game on Steam should do hard time for a minimum of, let’s say, 15 years.

In closing, let me just say this: It would be really good for me personally if game developers would just give Valve more money. I can’t put it more plainly than that. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what makes the free market great? As far as I understand it, probably.