Should we feel guilty about buying indie games through Steam, knowing that devs lose a small cut of the profits? I mean, getting one's game onto it is notoriously difficult, but there've been times I've callously passed on a game simply because it wasn't available on the platform. I don't like to think of how indie developers might get flattened through all those grinding cogs -- it's kind of like how the awkward kid in middle school was forced through numerous "makeovers" at the hands of her peers before anyone would take her seriously. Wait, that kid might've been me. Oh, how I empathise, dear indies. Anyway, GameSpy spoke to the developer behind A Valley Without Wind , and the verdict is:. There are other benefits to the platform, even if the revenue received is slightly less.As a heavy user of Steam, I've always wondered how much I potentially contribute to its monopolization of indie distribution. Arcen Games ' founder and lead programmer assures us that we shouldn't harbor any guilt."Players should always buy games in whatever way is most convenient for them," Park told me via email. "If we weren't happy with a way of selling our game, we wouldn't be selling it that way. 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!""The Steam audience is massive, and quite frankly we wouldn't have been able to stay in business these last three years without them."I suppose it goes without saying that money isn't the only form of payment, and for A Valley Without Wind, the slight profit trade-off has paid off (okay, this is why I'm not a poet). So feel free to keep buying your games through Steam, and don't worry about the profit that's skimmed off the top -- in the end it's only bolstering indie developers and getting their games out there more.