(...) Steam, Valve's ambitious online distribution platform. Newell unveiled the platform at the Game Developers Conference in March 2002. Onstage, Newell positioned himself as a new-age Robin Hood who wanted to take from the greedy publishers what independent game developers deserved: a larger piece of the revenue pie. Newell told the crowd that, under the current system, most developers make only about $7 for each game they sell. But an online distribution platform like Steam--which cuts out the middleman and delivers a game directly to the consumer's desktop--could net developers more than $30 per copy. Newell announced that, while Valve still planned to ship its future games to retail, it would also start releasing games over Steam.