IndieGameStand Launches Online Store And Steam Competitor With Democratized Access For All Indie Devs

Buying indie games online can be a hit-or-miss experience, often involving some hunting, but IndieGameStand has just launched a new centralized online store where you should be able to access just about anything you want to, given some time. Initially, IndieGameStand started off as a sort of flash secret sale club for indie gaming software, offering a specific title at any given time on a “pay what you want” model.

Now, it’s offering a full-fledged store, similar to Steam, but with a very different underlying mechanic and guiding philosophy. Steam has its Greenlight program, which makes indie titles vie with one another and essentially prove marketability before they get offered on its storefront, but IndieGameStand tells Escapist it will offer up its platform to any and all indie devs who want to participate. The entire process, from setting up an account to submitting games to getting them listed, can all happen with in single day.

IndieGameStand co-founder Mike Gnade told Escapist that their platform supports games at either the extreme alpha stage, or in ready-to-ship condition, and there’s another difference, too: Setting sale prices and durations are completely at the discretion of developers, which means that while the company itself isn’t planning to do broad, sweeping Steam-style sales, groups of developers could theoretically coordinate and offer discounts at the same time to achieve the same effect.

The IndieGameStand will still offer “pay what you want” deals, which pay 70 percent to developers, as well as 10 percent to a charity of the developer’s choosing and 20 percent to IGS itself, but the new store has a slightly different split, with 75 percent paid to devs and 25 percent paid to IGS. Steam and GOG both offer 70 percent to devs, while the Humble Store, which doesn’t actually have a consolidated storefront, offers a best-in-class 95 percent to devs, according to Fez’s Phil Fish.

That said, there is a launch sale that’s 14 titles strong going on right now, to celebrate the store’s debut. All told, there are 94 different games on IndieGameStand at launch, including celebrated recent indie hits like Proteus. If you’re looking for an indie gaming fix, you could always try Steam or GOG, but IndieGameStand is a great new option that will probably draw a lot of top-notch content.