this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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If accessible multiplayer is the metric, then the closed system of Steam makes it a poor recommendation. The cross-platform Epic Online Services available to any developer and store is better.
Then conversely, Steam offers the Big Picture mode making it easier to navigate for those used to consoles, though the beauty of PC is that you can use both and for free.
Rocket League is cross-platform because it uses Epic Online Services. The multiplayer component offered by Valve on Steam and powering many of the games doesn't work anywhere but on Steam, making it a closed system limited to other Steam users.
The bottom line is that yes, the game devs are free to use their own multiplayer systems but then what's the role of recommending Steam in the context of this post? Why not PC as a whole?
That sounds like an entirely different issue. For a service that provides free online play, Steam is superior to the alternatives on PC. It has built in community forums, a group and chat service that rivals Discord, a large user base, and an easy to use storefront. Whether or not it’s a closed system is tangential to the argument that it is a free platform.