I'm sure there are some significant downsides to Steam being a dominant platform, as is always the case. That being said, I think Steam has been pretty decent for Indie devs in other ways. The Greenlight program seems pretty successful, and the barrier for entry into the Steam catalog isn't too steep. However, you are right in that you are pretty much forcing indie devs to come in under the Steam umbrella to get exposure, and that's of course questionable.
As for pure practicality as a gamer, Steam was unbeatable in the 10's. There were a lot of other offerings like you mentioned, but none were really competing on a large scale. The push of every publisher to restrict their games to their own Steam clones is a thing that seems to really have ramped up during the last ten years or so. Some were early though, Blizzard being a prime example.
As for pure practicality as a gamer, Steam was unbeatable in the 10's. There were a lot of other offerings like you mentioned, but none were really competing on a large scale. The push of every publisher to restrict their games to their own Steam clones is a thing that seems to really have ramped up during the last ten years or so. Some were early though, Blizzard being a prime example.