Honestly I like steam. Steam makes things simple for everyone. Creating another account is not a huge deal.
I vote for option 2, converting all keys to steam, so more hours and resources can be focuses on developing a better final product. A lot of users have Steam already, as they discovered it through Greenlight, including me.
Although it means that the company become very dependent on Steam (75% discount on summer sale and such things) for at least 2-3 years, you can’t avoid huge discounts periods and other nasty stuff by picking any other online game distributor as Origin or GOG.com in the long run, unless this company becomes successful and become indepent at some point. Even though Automation must be released on Steam as part of the Greenlight deal, it’s a decent/good game distributor.
[quote=“TheTom”]I would go so far as to say that most people on this forum have a steam account anyway. Some may have had the Steam account before they even heard of Automation. And i think it is overall the better solution to go Steam only because like you said, you don’t have to work on two game versions at the same time.
Let’s talk about how Automation reaches more new users. Currently, because we’re not on Steam yet, the only way is one person who already owns Automation telling another person how awesome the game is and that they should consider checking it out, whether on Facebook, or by talking to a friend personally, or through some other form of communication. But when the game is on Steam, people can still do that, in addition to Steam advertising the game. Steam has millions of users and a big part of those who like car-related games will enjoy Automation. On a side note, it would be awesome to have AutomationHub completed before the Steam release so that when the game comes out on Steam, people will have Steam to keep them updated about future patches/news etc., they will have the forums for additional communication and support if they have any questions, and they’ll have AutomationHub for sharing and discussing their car designs, sharing videos and so on.
I think Steam only is the best solution because, let’s be honest, it’s not a big effort to create a Steam account because it takes less than 5 minutes and it’s free.
Greets,
Tom[/quote]
I agree, steam is a free client that is easy to use and FREE
I would go to steam all the way. Im not a developer but it seems kinda better and less stressful idea, but thats my opinion 
Based on the experience of Euro Truck Simulator 2, steam ends up being the best option, because it would be enough to launch the official update by steam and everyone would be updated. Already independent launcher spend more developer time that could be used otherwise.
Going Steam-only is a solid choice - it gives the dev team lots of well proven infrastructure for patching, copy protection, and even multiplayer matchmaking so that they don’t need to reinvent the wheel (only a slight pun intended). It’s quite likely that the majority of sales will come from Steam and key resellers, so it doesn’t make much sense to me to deliberately eschew all of those available features to appease a minority of customers. Of course it’s never ideal to upset even a single customer, but the benefits of becoming Steam exclusive and able to rely on and integrate Steamworks outweigh that concern.
I would prefer using it on Steam if it means a better quality of the game, and quicker development. I use Steam alot, so… Go Steam!!
I would say go with option 2. I’m also currently closely following another indie game, which made the transition to steam recently, and it really is for the best to offer everybody the same launcher (steam in this case) in my opinion. Keeps everybody looking in the same direction
The more secure one, i mean no piracy of the game.
TL:DR: the steam option
Although some might find the stand alone luncher very nice, steam will be practically the same. Also, who owns a computer is most likely to have steam, at least your fans(including me!). A release on origin or uplay would have been completely something else.
Finally, don’t panic with time, you have the best fans in the world and we’ll wait for it to be perfect!
You cut out one step, namely client. It’s pointless discussion though, difference isn’t really big and the whole issue is well, non issue.[/quote]
It’s worth noting that installing Automation currently requires two steps. Downloading and installing a launcher. Then logging into it and installing patches 
Let’s go steam!!
I’d be interested to know in more detail what the problems you’ve observed are? As far as I can tell, from the point of view of the customer playing the game the experience will be somewhat improved from the way it is now (better multiplayer matchmaking, simpler activation process, easier patching etc) and am struggling to think of any specific disadvantages. Any more detail you can give about specific problems would be great, as it’ll help us decide the best way to deal with them.
Uh. You do realize that participation in sales is entirely optional on the part of the developer. Valve asks you if you’d like to be part of a sale or not. Also every developer I’ve talked to has said that the sales have been nothing but good for them financially and for the popularity of their games. So I don’t understand why this is a bad thing?
Uplay is pretty much the worst thing ever invented by a human though, have you ever had such problems with Steam?
The Linux point is an interesting one (I’m assuming you got it working using WINE?). Once we move to Unity we might be able to do a specific linux build, and do it through Steam for Linux though.
I’d love details of specific dislikes you have about Steam, as it’s nice to know what problems we need to think about with Steam in general from the players point of view.
Steam is the way to go, no doubt.
I would personally prefer to keep the game launcher, but I won’t complain if things convert to Steam. The big issue I’ve had with Steam is that their launcher struggles to start when the internet connection is on the fritz- unless I know it’s coming and can set the launcher to offline mode, I generally wind up going to Gog and indie games instead.
The other issue I’ve had with Steam is that it tends to burn a lot of bandwidth performing updates, causing other internet-using programs to grind to a halt if they don’t communicate with Steam to tell it to pause. Mostly just minor issues I’ve had, and I would admit it would’ve been nice if my copy of Spacechem would’ve had the option to be moved over to Steam or Gog when the developer discontinued his own store.
With the amount of updates this game gets, Steam would be a much preferable option as i wouldn’t have to wait every once in a while when i want to check up on the game
but i think it would still be a good idea if at all possible to continue the launcher for people who don’t like to use the valve service
Well, actually in CrossOver (almost the same thing), and it was no easy task. hahaha (I had to make a couple of modified scripts to get it to run) I suppose I don’t HAVE to run it on Linux, but since 5 of my 7 computers run this OS, it makes sense to have it as an option.
I have never used Steam in particular, but have tried other similar portals in the past with unsatisfactory results. I didn’t mind D2D much, but the GameFly takeover really pissed in my post toasties when I lost the only 2 games (Anno1701 and Anno1502) I actually played on it. Uplay is horrid, laggy, ad-intensive (same with GameFly though), and generally pissing in my post toasties on a weekly basis as I really love the Anno series. I like stand-alone games better. It’s nobody’s business what games I play or how often I play them. I’m not much of a game chatter, nor do I play online much (except for WoW), so the multi-player and chat isn’t of much interest to me. I like modding games, I like cars in general, and I want to be left alone when I play them, so I don’t want a bunch of ads flashing at me. I quit playing SimCity when it went online, as it takes far more away than it added, for me. If I do HAVE to use Steam (one more stupid account to keep up with) I will, but it isn’t my personal choice.
/whining
I would prefer steam anyway, got most of my games on there 
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It is worth noting that Steam is a massive improvement over those other portals, and basically (unless you want to use it for other things) only acts as a storefront, game library and autopatcher, a task that it does quite well. It does have 1 advert pop up on launch, but besides that it leaves you alone, and the social features can be turned off.
I totally agree about Simcity’s online integration, that was a total mess and should never have happened.
I’m not trying to do the hard sell on you here, but just pointing out that a lot of the glaring flaws in things like Origin and D2D are not present in Steam.