No brainer here. Steam for life. It can be subject to specials, discounts, etc. Plus all that free marketing just be *being* there.
A lot of people do not like Steam. That is ok, it is a personal preference and we can't argue with that. A lot of people like Steam and in some cases only buy a game if it is on Steam. That is ok, it is a personal preference and we can't argue with that. Here is the very best thing that Eternal Crusade could do regarding Steam: Allow the user to download the EC installer from the EC website, no 3rd party needed to run. Requires only EC account to login. Allow the user to download and install EC from Steam. Requires only EC account to login. Pros: Steam-only gamers can play the game. Advertisement to millions of gamers. Game will always show up in "Warhammer" searches and in the list of Free2Play games. The community will be a lot larger, overall increasing the revenue. Cons: When a Steam-user pays for "credits" in EC, a % of that goes to Valve. You as the user: Can play the game from the EC website without needing any other account except for the EC account. Can have the game permanently listed in your Steam library and play the game through Steam, using only the EC account (and your Steam account should you choose to do so). The only reason somebody would want their game to not show up on Steam is if they did it out of hate for Steam/Valve. You won't be using any Valve servers, Steam friends list of the Steam login to access the game. Please, give me a valid reason why this game should not (also) be displayed on Steam? Best regards, WNxAkalonian
I like steam for the potential numbers it brings, I very much dislike steam for the majority of the community (DOTA 2 is a vipers nest, no pun) and the instability. So I guess my vote would go to: put it there, but give us the option to avoid steam.
Steam has certain policies regarding it's sales that are completely out of control for the devs of games. Things like 50% off several months in(assuming it didn't run too smoothly on start). Many indie and less popular games rely on steam to get the message out to a huge community. Some have no servers whatsoever and rely on steam for that. But given what was promised so far by Behaviour we have the servers covered . The question is how the sales go on launch. I personally dislike the hivemind approach steam has. If we have decent sales of the game and decent servers why rely on them ? They aren't the godsend angels of free game distribution , some of the policies like the sales ones aren't really good for the developers. But still this isn't our decision to make.
Never rush headlong into an agreement with steam before first considering if it's actually necessary for your game, I know from first hand experience they make a LOT of demands of you especially whenever it comes to MMOs as any MMO sold/downloadable has to conform to a standard they set (Most of it revolves around Cash Shop). The last interaction that I witnessed was demanding that a % of their cash shop sales must go through steam (While in the Alpha/Community dev team for another MMO). This is on top of their cut of the key purchase.
There is much more to steam policies than than sales. I am simply unaware of all the technical details. One thing is for sure. It isn't just make a deal , get more money and people playing.
There is a lot hidden under the surface, you often have to jump through a LOT of hoops and it can be against your best interests sometimes.
Patrick said it all As a player, I've been using Steam for many years now It used to be quite unreliable and we faced quite a few issues with it But all's changed in the last few years All of my games are on Steam, it's achievement system is great (I'm not an achievement hunter, but I do admire what they did here), community is actually very helpful (but yes, just like IRL, it's varied), Steam Workshop is simply amazing, the backup feature is quite useful, Steam Cloud saved my ass couple of times, season sales offer a good opportunity to buy something Besides being concerned with Valve growing greedy and becoming a control-freak (well, the same concern goes to any big company, really) I see no other objective reason why anyone would hate Steam
