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Two myths about selling PC games directly alongside Steam, addressed at GDC 2026
July 16, 2026•4 min
At Xsolla's GDC 2026 session on hybrid PC publishing, the two questions that came up most often weren't about how to set up a direct channel. They were about whether running one alongside Steam was safe, and whether it would cannibalize a publisher's most important sales surface. Chris Cheever, VP of Global BD at Xsolla, and Alvin Rabry, Head of Digital Sales at Microids, addressed both, and the working evidence pointed in a direction most PC publishers don't expect.
For PC publishers running a meaningful audience, the question isn't whether the hybrid model works. It's where the direct channel adds the most value first: pre-order timing, creative experimentation, funnel visibility, regional optimization. The biggest publishers on PC have answered that question for themselves. D2C is now within reach for smaller studios. Your turn. Want to know more about selling PC games directly alongside Steam?
Read the full Publishing Suite digital guide
Informational only. Not legal, financial, or business advice. Platform policies may change, and enforcement may vary. Performance figures referenced reflect partner-specific experience and are not predictive of outcomes for other titles or studios. Source: GDC 2026 session, "Direct-to-Consumer on PC: The Next Revolution in Gaming is Already Here," presented by Chris Cheever (Xsolla) and Alvin Rabry (Microids), San Francisco, March 2026.
Myth #1: "The platform will push back if I sell direct"
This is the single most common hesitation around D2C on PC. Will running a direct sales channel alongside Steam invite some kind of consequence? Across eighteen months of running an active direct campaign calendar in parallel with Steam, Microids has reported no friction with the platform. That is one publisher's experience rather than a guarantee, but it is the operational reality of a publisher whose direct channel now runs at meaningful scale, across a 30+ title catalog including the Smurfs, Asterix, and Syberia. For any publisher considering D2C on PC, the practical pattern is that running both channels in parallel is common practice at the top of the market. Riot, Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar, Take-Two, Blizzard, and the major MMO publishers (Path of Exile, Final Fantasy XIV, Elder Scrolls Online) have all operated this way for years. Microids' experience over the past eighteen months sits within that broader pattern. The cleaner way to think about it: a direct channel isn't an alternative to Steam. It's an additional surface that runs alongside it, picking up the use cases that don't fit the platform's standard distribution path.
Myth #2: "Direct sales will cannibalize my Steam performance"
The second persistent hesitation is about cannibalization. If a PC publisher opens a direct channel, won't they pull sales away from Steam and hurt their visibility there? The working evidence points the other way. A weak Steam pre-order can affect a title's algorithmic visibility at launch. A direct pre-order doesn't carry that same risk, and when those Steam Keys are redeemed at launch, they still route players into the Steam ecosystem. The user cohorts behave differently as well. Steam wishlists are evolving into watchlists, with high volume and lower conversion. Pre-order intent on a direct channel is a different signal entirely. A player who pre-orders directly is a fundamentally different audience segment than a player who wishlists on Steam. The two patterns coexist rather than compete. Counterintuitively, running a direct pre-order campaign can protect Steam visibility in cases where a weak Steam pre-order would have hurt the algorithm, while still funneling the resulting players back into Steam when the keys are redeemed. The cannibalization concern assumes one channel takes from the other. In practice, Steam vs direct distribution is a false dichotomy on PC. The two channels serve different audience cuts and surface different intent signals.
From myth to method
The pattern across Microids and dozens of Xsolla partners is consistent. Hybrid PC publishing, Steam as the discovery surface, a direct channel sitting alongside it, works in production. The myths that surround it tend not to survive contact with the working evidence.For PC publishers running a meaningful audience, the question isn't whether the hybrid model works. It's where the direct channel adds the most value first: pre-order timing, creative experimentation, funnel visibility, regional optimization. The biggest publishers on PC have answered that question for themselves. D2C is now within reach for smaller studios. Your turn. Want to know more about selling PC games directly alongside Steam?
Read the full Publishing Suite digital guide
Informational only. Not legal, financial, or business advice. Platform policies may change, and enforcement may vary. Performance figures referenced reflect partner-specific experience and are not predictive of outcomes for other titles or studios. Source: GDC 2026 session, "Direct-to-Consumer on PC: The Next Revolution in Gaming is Already Here," presented by Chris Cheever (Xsolla) and Alvin Rabry (Microids), San Francisco, March 2026.
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