I can definitely understand why not selling a game on the most popular marketplace would detrimentally affect a studios ability to make money.

But a lot of the reason games aren’t successful has as much to do with the quality of the game and the amount of money spent developing it as it does with marketing. And plenty of developers/small indie studios assume that they can ouvert over-stretch themselves monetarily and with other resources like time, and still come out on top because Indies are becoming more popular.

But what it often comes down to is if what you’re selling is worth it to the consumer and they know about it. On steam an indie game is just as likely to get caught up in the influx of games and lost in the noise as it is to get noticed.