Valve

In two thousand and three, Valve launched Steam to distribute Half-Life two and stopped competing with retail. Game publishers paid thirty percent of every sale for infrastructure. The technology was invisible. Automatic updates, cloud saves, community features, DRM that felt invisible. Gamers didn't realize they used a platform. Things worked perfectly always. Steam collected thirty percent from every publisher but owned none of the games. A developer published and paid the fee as cost of business. Valve reinvested revenue into better infrastructure. Better infrastructure attracted developers. More games attracted more players. More players made the fee cheaper relative to value. The platform fed on growth it didn't fund.