I Think That steam would help with development but for us who cant be bothered to get steam you should allow the use of the automation launches as this will be a quicker option for most
At first day of this thread I voted for STEAM+STANDALONE.
I thinked much and read many opinions, and partially changed my mind… My current vote (suggestion) is to make STEAM version and focus on other things.
( I still don’t love the idea to being dependent on 3rd party system, but indie teams needs compromise. )
My opinions pro and contra
PRO
- Very good marketing boost !!
- Saving much time in developement
- Little plus income by Market transactions (game cards)
- ‘Secure’ and universal paying options (you don’t need to develop/handle/take responsibility of security)
- You saving server capacity (and money) if players downloads from Steam servers not from your own
- Steam social features alredy developed and ready to use
- Worldwide and multiplatform (as I know Steam available and working on PC, MAC, LINUX, and STEAM OS)
- I’m not sure about this, but as I know you’re paying percentage of your Steam sells. So IF that unlucky case happens and game sells don’t met the expected numbers, you didn’t wasted much money on marketing, server maintenance, etc…
- Easy updates, and workshop features
CONTRA
- I read somewhere, steam has more than 30% fee on games sold
- Steam games always first priority target for cracker teams, and as I know it’s easier to crack than some custom DRMs.
- Steam places great emphasis on “Security”, but sometimes too much. Limiting, suspending and terminating too much accounts. Most of them just naiv victims bought games at bad place (G2A, Ebay, etc…), or accepted bad gift (by Giveaway), or just logged in to steam site from other computers…
- Personally I’m using, but hate the whole Steam system. I don’t trust an “unknown” profit-oriented 3rd party company to keep my all bought games in their hands… I distrusful in Steam, just like in Paypal for example. Even if the justice on your side you can’t do anything against them.
- Steam has very stupid currency policy… For example handling EUR and USD as equal?! Only buying on steam when at least 50% discount (by coupon or winter sale or anything). If possible I prefer buying boxed media (DVD) where available - in local stores.Cheaper than the normal Steam price. If I pay with paypal, I milked 2 times on “conversion”.
- I don’t know the Steam server structure, but here at Hungary the availability is not the best. Many times unable to login to client, slow and fluctuating download speeds, and very slow when navigation on site (market, activity, profiles, inventory, etc)
- Hate too much ads
- Ok, It’s not much, but 100MB additional RAM consuption by client
- It is really low percentage of your customers but probably some of them don’t want to register on Steam (or already banned)
SUMMARIZED
As a startup company Steam is perfect place for you. Later, when you done many things and got enought money, you can start to develop (continue) your own client / server structure.
a simple way to put it is a standalone is ok, minecraft did it but if i had to pick an alternative it would be steam because your options are…
1: Steam (Valve) cant count to 3 but they know games and is the largest digital distributor of games and programs.
2: Origin (EA) who cant even make a complete game let alone be trusted with my games and $
3: Uplay (ubisoft) oh wait that’s a disaster even if its only for ubisoft games
4: PSN/Xbox live those are both limited and would require a major overhaul of the game just to run on consoles.
5: potato
everything gets worse from this point.
steam is the largest and overall most trusted plus there is the ease of use because those people scared to use a credit card online can pick up a steam card at gamestop or loads of other places.
Actually Conversion of currency was what made me buy this game as I had only dollars on paypal and didn’t had to convert to € as usual.
But, you are wrong. Steam does convert the prices according to currency. I bought RisingStorm DLC for €3.75 when it would be $5.00. So I can tell you the 5€=$5 is no longer true. It didn’t made sense otherwise since you could just ask a friend in USA to buy it and then gift you while you transferred money to him.
All the Steam hate coming from people that didn’t even tried it, not talking about you cause i don’t know, but the hate is nonsense. Install Steam, try it. Take advantage of the sales and giveaways. I have games on my list that i don’t even play…
Developers should see even more advantages. Even though Steam gets a huge chunk out of the profit, and developers are encouraged to sell games on sale. I can tell you. Automation appearing on the featured list at 50% discount would get more profit on sales than all the profits until now. And a huge increase in player base which is good for us players.
EDIT: All those taking Minecraft as an example. Mine craft was a 10$ game. Automation is 25$. Minecraft had free servers and single player was super easy to pirate. Automation has a demo(which is good actually) but isn’t available to pirate.
You can go all puritan on me but a game that gets pirated gets players fast, word spreads and some buy it, some pirate it. If you think that how easy it was to pirate minecraft for single-player play didn’t help with the sales for people wanting to play multi you are naive.
Also Minecraft as soon as survival mode came out became a complete game. Automation is incomplete, adding more grilles and bodies won’t change the fact that it has no tycoon.
IMO. This game desperately needs Steam. I like you guys but this community is the size of a village internet-wise. Getting into a multiplayer game alone is like waiting for a miracle.
Also, not the topic to say this but I’ve said this in another forums. The developers of Automation work SUPER SLOWLY. I played the first 4cyl demo and that was like 3 years ago. If it takes another 3 years to make the tycoon they will lose all credibility, it will turn into duke nukem or half life 3.
Get the game on Steam, use the sales money to hire more people instead of hookers and booze and finish the game.
STEAM has regional pricing, and the publisher is the one who decides the price at different regions. So it is easily possible to have one game cheaper in US, other in UK and another in EU East. Of course, it will probably always be cheapest in CIS, but CIS is usually region locked (so you can’t activate/play it outside CIS without using VPN, and using VPN is against TOS) just for this reason 
Publishers often use 1$=1€ (and it is pretty accurate when you count VAT which STEAM probably has to pay - they say all prices include VAT where applicable in invoice), but not always. Too bad not many publishers use EU East regional pricing, standard of living is closer to CIS here but usually we get the same prices as EU West (usually the highest price on STEAM), which means people usually buy games elsewhere (and activate them on STEAM) IF they buy them at all.
As far as I heard STEAM takes industry standard share of profit, of course smaller digital shops take less and reduce the final price for customer to stay competitive, so in the end the publiser/developer gets the same money but customers get it cheaper. That is not a reason not to use STEAM, that is a reason to sell STEAM keys everywhere where possible, there is a reason STEAM can keep highest prices and still maintain its overwhelming marketshare
As for the multiplayer - getting on STEAM does not mean multiplayer will get magically more players, I have a fair share of games in which I have trouble playing multiplayer because there are just too few people playing it and it is too hard to get into a multiplayer game, even if the game sold quite a lot of copies. If people click on multiplayer and they can’t find any games two or three times, they just give up and never try again. Multiplayer should be intelligently designed around small playerbase to prevent this, like showing all currently active games and multiplayer statistics (so people see multiplayer is indeed active even if there are currently no available games to join), common chat with all currently active players (maybe even those who play singleplayer), allowing to join games in progress if feasible or at least a lobby so you are automatically part of the next game when current one finishes and show progress of the current game (so you can easily see if it will take a minute, hour or day for players to finish current game), allowing to queue in multiplayer while playing singleplayer/scenario/sandbox or even out of game (notification)… if I know it will take a while to find a game I usually minimize the game and surf the web/do other things, so notifications are a must, if I can get notifications from the STEAM client or web browser without even starting the game, even better.
[quote=“xwing”]
As for the multiplayer - getting on STEAM does not mean multiplayer will get magically more players, I have a fair share of games in which I have trouble playing multiplayer because there are just too few people playing it and it is too hard to get into a multiplayer game, even if the game sold quite a lot of copies. If people click on multiplayer and they can’t find any games two or three times, they just give up and never try again. Multiplayer should be intelligently designed around small playerbase to prevent this, like showing all currently active games and multiplayer statistics (so people see multiplayer is indeed active even if there are currently no available games to join), common chat with all currently active players (maybe even those who play singleplayer), allowing to join games in progress if feasible or at least a lobby so you are automatically part of the next game when current one finishes and show progress of the current game (so you can easily see if it will take a minute, hour or day for players to finish current game), allowing to queue in multiplayer while playing singleplayer/scenario/sandbox or even out of game (notification)… if I know it will take a while to find a game I usually minimize the game and surf the web/do other things, so notifications are a must, if I can get notifications from the STEAM client or web browser without even starting the game, even better.[/quote]
Thanks for the clarification on Steam pricing, I thought they converted. But when you talk about standard of living don’t forget EU west has Portugal and we don’t have an high standard of living.
Allowing to joing a game in progress should be in already. You joined as a spectator, talk on chat. That alone only allow people to ask other players if they were going to play one more after that and also let players playin know that there is more people wanting to play.
Also the alt+tab issues should be fixed ASAP. Even in windowed mode, if you minimize the window, it happens when you maximize again.
Also, about Steam notifications, I’m bought frozen synapse the other day, the steam notifications totally make that game work. It’s a turn game and if you didn’t have that you would have to either open the game or open your mail. With steam notifications you get to know when the other player submitted the turn even if you are playing other different game.
I see many are already voting Steam, and I definitely agree. Props to people who don’t currently use Steam and are willing to convert by the way!
Option 2: Steam all the Way
The young gamers of today have been suckered into believing that games would not exist without some third party getting a slice of the pie and controlling what you like. Not true. Yes, we can have digital delivery and you don’t need a disc and a box anymore (although many still prefer it) but there is no reason why game companies can’t simply sell the download to their customers directly (like the wonderful automation game I have been playing for such a long time).
You can indeed do it that way, but in terms of marketing, delivering patches, running multiplayer systems, doing sales etc. It’s waaay easier for the developers to use a platform. Totally worth the money from our point of view.
[quote=“Daffyflyer”]
You can indeed do it that way, but in terms of marketing, delivering patches, running multiplayer systems, doing sales etc. It’s waaay easier for the developers to use a platform. Totally worth the money from our point of view.[/quote]
Basically that ^^^
Daffy said what I wanted when I read your message.
Also, game producers already do this (look at Ubisoft and EA with Uplay and Origin?) Though, the good side of Steam is that they allow Indie and also have games at cheaper prices with discounts and everything, which makes it more affordable to keep gaming as your hobby.
i have a question, if you convert all keys to steam is offline play still possible, i play the game alot at school and they have steam blocked (i kno my way to get software on, but the firewall is impenetrable) butanyways, could i still offline?
You can play the Steam version offline (in Steam’s offline mode) but you can’t play it without Steam having logged on at some point to go into offline mode. So unless you can find a way around that, then it won’t work at school.
I cannot convert my key to steam version, why is that? any ideas?
Most likely because there is still 10 hours to go before it unlocks
The countdown is at zero and I’m still unable to convert my key to Steam.
EDIT: It’s working now, thanks. 