Do I need to stress how important Steam is to PC gaming? Games that have tried to ignore the platform have flatout died because it wasn't on Steam so I just hope devs know and are prepared to jump through the hoops to get on the steam store and the added tax it will cost to convert gabe dollars to use in EC's store.
Steam>Games for Windows Live infact, isn't GoWL dead now? I think I read some news feed saying the market was taken down...
I personally do not like Steam, since it's very unreliable in my experiences. I honestly think that EC would be better off not relying on Steam and being dependent on Steam based servers, which are going on and off randomly. Steam is a nice convenience, but it is an unreliable platform for some users and I think that EC would benefit from being its own separate entity.
As much as I hate to say it, yes Steam is definitely a good way to get the game out there. Planetside 2 saw a pretty significant jump in its playerbase when they put it on Steam and Tribes: Ascend had its death put off momentarily because of Steam. I'll be getting the game directly from the Eternal Crusade website. Slightly off-topic tangent, I wish people would realize that there are other services out there for purchasing games because as far as the actual buying of games goes, Steam is only good when it has a sale going on. You can always get games cheaper on other sites like Amazon and GOG.com. Also, Steam is a form of DRM.
Putting the game on Steam would be great for marketing, a lot more people would see it rather than if it was just on the EC website. I'm not sure about the price of putting it up there is though. Would Behavior have to pay a fee to have it listed, or does Steam get a percentage of the profit when players download the game through the platform. Regardless, I'm sure there are many points to really think about when putting a game on some one else's platform.
While I'm sure many people would like for Eternal Crusade to be on Steam, I also think we should have the choice to avoid steam if we want to. I personally find we're already too addicted to Steam, ei. all your games is on there, so you're stuck on their service if you want to keep playing them. I just want the choice to have Eternal Crusade operate outside of steam, while those who want it on Steam can still get it.
Indeed, also I do agree with the many views on this thread. However I pretty much in between although steam is a good way to advertise games such as Planetside 2 with it's boast in playerbase, it doesn't necessarily need steam to make itself noticed by other players. For example, games like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, Star Wars the old republic (the MMO not the 2009 game) are all successful MMO games which are not on steam.
I would like EC to be on Steam as well. It would give EC a lot of publicity as well as support with patches and whatnot. Valve is an overall great partner. What would be a good choice is that EC would have its own launcher and also have it up on steam. I just wouldn't say that having it on steam is a bad idea.
