Why doesn't some one do this?

I have not looked this up yet so I don't know if this is the right place or if it has or hasn't been answered. But, I think it would be an amazing idea if someone published a Free To Play chess game on steam. Does it not sound like a good idea? More people would play. Its a good way to spread publicity. I know people would play it too. The reason I am asking this is because I had A Lot of people ask me this. So, anyone else agree or disagree? If so, why?

Mad21Skilz wrote:

I have not looked this up yet so I don't know if this is the right place or if it has or hasn't been answered. But, I think it would be an amazing idea if someone published a Free To Play chess game on steam. Does it not sound like a good idea? More people would play. Its a good way to spread publicity. I know people would play it too. The reason I am asking this is because I had A Lot of people ask me this. So, anyone else agree or disagree? If so, why?

What would be the advantage of having something on Steam?

There's already a gazillion F2P chess sites on the internet. What would a F2P chess game on Steam add that these sites don't already have covered?

Why haven't you done this yet?

SilentKnighte5 said:

"Why haven't you done this yet?"

Because I am not good enough at coding. I have attempted making a game in a few languages I have studyed(Hours and days of studying). But I never seem to be able to do it correctly. So, I figured someone with more expertise would be able to.

I imagine most people using Steam have a browser capable of utilizing pretty much any website that has chess on it, such as this one.

I figured you would've had mad skilz when it came to coding.

And how would the developer monitize this game? No one creates a F2P game out of the kindness of their hearts. It takes money to develop and program games, and no one's going to put up the money without a way to make money from it.

For F2P games the monitization typically comes in the form of microtransactions. Pay $$$ for more health/stronger armour/bigger guns/etc. For chess sites the monitization comes by way of offering the game play free, but offering incentives (training videos, exclusize articles, etc) for paid membership.

If no one's made a F2P chess game on Steam yet you can bet it's because no one's figured out how to monitize such a thing.

If steam released a 2nd (or 3rd rate) chess app, it would either be totally ignored and a waste of resources, or even worse, pointed to as an example of half-baked product development that reflects badly on Steam's standards. 

Furthermore, I don't think the serious chessplaying populace overlaps a lot with the Steam-game-purchasing community despite the similarities in competition. 

If chess were a huge global phenomenon, it would make sense, to piggyback of the popularity to gain exposure to Steam. However, what's going to happen is the reverse - there are far fewer active online regular chessplayers than STeam gamers (especially in the <18 crowd) and it won't bring any new gamers to Steam that weren't there already.