The Tech Report writes Valve's Gabe Newell thinks the current form of Steam is becoming a bottleneck between consumers and content creators. Newell says Valve needs to get out of that connection as much as possible, and thinks Steam would be better a a network API.
Newell characterizes Steam's current form as a "curated store," but he thinks it would be better as a network API. "Essentially anybody should be able to publish anything through Steam," he says. Individuals and companies should be able to create their own stores that plug into the Steam backend, and the market will decide which of those venues succeeds. Video of Newell's full talk is embedded below. The relevant discussion starts around the 44-minute mark.
