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Comment by jroes | Hacker News Reader

Is there some crevice here that can be made into a startup? A digital distribution platform for indie game devs who want more freedom with what they are selling?

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It's not really a platform, but I think that's close to what the company formed around the Humble Indie Bundle is doing. I think all of their releases have been DRM free and without any other strings attached, but I actually have no idea what the terms are like for the individual game dev companies. So I think the answer is probably "yes".

The humble bundle is anomalously well performing, but they sell a couple of dozen games per year, each in batches of 5-6 that only sell for 2 weeks.

Steam sell a couple of hundreds indie games (out of many thousands currently on the market) throughout the year.

I think the HIB is by design not a service that the average indie (or even the exceptionally good indie) can get on.

There are already many of these out there. Let's say they are all pretty sub-optimal both from a player's and a developer's perspective.

Precisely. Desura and the rest are a bit disappointing. There's a huge opportunity to make something not entirely unlike the Mac App Store, but for PC games. Keep it simple and open, with few rules and reasonably low fees. And no DRM.

As a developer and a player, that's what I want. A package manager with a payment system and a store front, basically. You can add achievements and friend lists and the rest later.

While I have no interest in getting into this space, I've been thinking for a bit about how bothered I am with having to wait for games on Steam to download before I start playing them. With the connections we have now, downloading behind the scenes and streaming things as they come seems viable, but I haven't seen anyone try this. Would make for a great addition to a game store.

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