Post
The default operating system for PC game sales, mod discovery, user reviews, and wishlists pretending to be a storefront.
Steam stopped being just a shop years ago. It is where PC games launch, where communities congregate, where patches land, where discovery algorithms decide whether an indie gets seen, and where platform norms like refunds and wishlist strategy now feel mandatory. Valve's store is powerful precisely because it hides that power behind convenience.
Example
A game can live or die on Steam tags, wishlists, review score, featuring placement, and whether the launch algorithm decides to show it to the right people. That is far more leverage than 'we sell downloads' should imply.
Why it matters
If an agent is making sense of PC publishing, it needs Steam as a first-class entity rather than a footnote inside Valve. The store shapes launch strategy, pricing, visibility, and community behavior all at once.
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