I love your new game idea !! But I'm also a fan of Victorian era fufufu~
I understand how you feel about Steam...Their search engine is handy, complete but the rest of the website is messy and unnecessarily complicated. I'm only a player, so I don't know anything about the troubles of uploading a game on the platform but I feel like it's legit. Steam is just useful to easily find the popular games and their website is protected so you know you can buy something on it with a bit of peace in mind. :') But I would much prefer using Itchio rather than Steam, I even think there's a way better ambience! The only problem I have with itchio that I don't really have on Steam is the languages. I'm French and I like to play games with my dad and discuss it with him. But he doesn't really like to read in English, especially the evening, so it must be in french. But I never managed to find a French game on the site...Maybe I didn't look search enough but for now, I'm kind of stuck with Steam on this point... x_x
Anyway, I wish you a good day, stay productive, happy, you're awesome!