> The market demanded a middleman
Says who?
The results?
By random googling I found that they have 200 million active users, who bought 16 billion in gross merchandising value?
18 thousands of games launched there per yer?
Arguably if someone is in PC gaming, they at least know what Steam is?
The market.
If you're an indy game developer, it turns out that just posting .exes on your website gets you a limited reach.