Notch: Why Minecraft isn't on Steam
"We don't want to limit what we can do."
Minecraft isn't sold on Steam because the digital distribution service "limits" in-game transactions, Markus "Notch" Persson has explained.
It's an argument we've heard before, following the Steam-removal of Dragon Age 2 and Crysis 2.
"Being on Steam limits a lot of what we're allowed to do with the game, and how we're allowed to talk to our users," wrote Minecraft creator Persson on his blog. "We (probably?) wouldn't be able to, say, sell capes or have a map marketplace on minecraft.net that works with Steam customers in a way that keeps Valve happy.
"It would effectively split the Minecraft community into two parts, where only some of the players can access all of the weird content we want to add to the game.
"We are talking to Valve about this, but I definitely understand their reasons for wanting to control their platform. There's a certain inherent incompatibility between what we want to do and what they want to do.
"So there's no big argument, we just don't want to limit what we can do with Minecraft."
Persson went on to describe Steam as "awesome" and the "best digital distribution platform I've ever seen".
"I've spent incredible amounts of money on it," he added, remembering his incredible amounts of money.
Eurogamer investigated the Steam monopoly this morning and the challenge mounted by EA's proprietary digital store Origin. Is competition good for gamers?