Says that indie explosion is linked to digital distribution

May 15, 2012 07:51 GMT  ·  By

Arcen Games, the developer of the recently launched A Valley Without Wind, believes that the Steam digital distribution service from Valve is one of the reasons that the company has managed to stay in business and be successful.

Chris Park, who is the founder of Arcen Games, has told Gamespy that, “The Steam audience is massive, and quite frankly we wouldn’t have been able to stay in business these last three years without them.”

The developer believes that it’s good for players to have choices when it comes to the source of their games.

He added, “Some players like to buy direct from developers because logically the developers get a larger cut of the revenue, and that’s great – but when you buy through a distributor you increase our sales rank and visibility through that distributor, which is also valuable. No matter where you buy it from, everybody wins.”

Steam makes it easy for players to discover and buy video games that they might have never heard about through its various charts and because the process of recommending a title to another players is simple.

Steam also runs regular promotions that often include smaller, indie titles.

Valve is working on adding more titles to its service and on expanding its features base and there are also rumors that the company might be interested in selling actual set-top box hardware that will run Steam.

Recently, indie games have seen a revival on the PC and a number of developers are grouping together to offer bundles that promote the most interesting games that lack support from big publishers.

Arcen Games most recent titles is A Valley Without Wind, a game that mixes a random generated world with platforming, dungeon raiding and crafting.

The game can be purchased from the official website of Arcen Games but also from GameStop and from Gamersgate.