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[J3R]

I see no downsides to releasing Starsector on GOG, a platform many gamers are more comfortable to use for purchasing. Modding could go berserk if released on Steam which is good for the game. Starsector is a staple game of it's type.

[ANGRYABOUTELVES]

The thing about Steam is that you only get one release date; you only get one chance to hit the best new sellers list. Waiting until the game is as polished as possible before putting it on Steam is the best move, so as to have a better chance at getting that major success. If Alex is making enough money to support Starsector's development as is, putting off the Steam release until the game is finished is the best financial decision.

[Midnight Kitsune]

...Modding could go berserk if released on Steam which is good for the game. Starsector is a staple game of it's type.

If you are thinking about Steam Workshop, then forget it. Workshop would not work well with SS dues to how most mod updates break saves. Not to mention many modders have expressed concern over the "rights to use" stuff with Steam. .

[Harmful Mechanic]

The 'growth' framing isn't very convincing to me because growth is something to worry about for a finished game; a game that's still in development just needs to worry about staying funded to completion. Then launch strategy is more important, and then maybe once the game is actually out for a while, growth is something to think about. Starsector is a tiny indie passion project, not a multimillion-dollar revenue machine, so it's fair to assume the goal was never to maximize growth.

I think all the arguments against Steam are still valid; Steam is still very much the PR hub where you put your game to get noticed, even if in real terms there's been a decline for most devs in the number of actual sales/total profit they get from Steam (I'm working on a few things myself, so I've done recent market research on some of this). So not being on Steam is less likely to hurt sales, but being on Steam could affect launch PR in a negative way; I'd love to have it on Steam too, but I can't look at it objectively and say I think it's the right move for the game at this point.

However, Alex, I do also think the arguments against having Starsector on a different platform like GOG or possibly itch.io just got a whole lot weaker after this weekend. Unlike 0.8.1a, I'd say the game as of 0.9.1a is a very robust experience, clearly very near to being complete, and while Steam would be far too much, having a different secondary vendor platform involved really might be a net benefit at this point.

[[HN]]

If you are thinking about Steam Workshop, then forget it. Workshop would not work well with SS dues to how most mod updates break saves. Not to mention many modders have expressed concern over the "rights to use" stuff with Steam. .

Not breaking saves was never a condition to be on the steam workshop, and the "right to use" thing only comes from devs and publisher trying to push strange lua on modders, steam don't check nor care about what you put there.

[MesoTroniK]

Steam workshop auto updates mods, due to the fact that most mod updates breaks saves. This means the workshop is 100% incompatible with SS and would actively trash the game and cause never-ending rage.

[Tartiflette]

Yeah, this is assuming "growth" is desirable, and that may not be the case. More people means more overhead work taken away from dev time (and the update pace is already slow enough to me)

[SpacePoliticianAndaZealot]

Steam workshop auto updates mods, due to the fact that most mod updates breaks saves. This means the workshop is 100% incompatible with SS and would actively trash the game and cause never-ending rage.

Exactly this. Yet another of the many reasons why Starsector should stay the way it is until development is complete. As is Alex's plan already, anyway IIRC

[Cyan Leader]

Mod updates breaking saves is another issue entirely, and a major one if you'd ask me regardless if the game is going to use the Workshop or not. I do plan on doing some research and opening a thread on that issue at some point.

[Tartiflette]

Mods are now hosted on Nexus, making the workshop unneeded.

[Cyan Leader]

It's still far isolated if you'd ask me, most players wouldn't find out unless they actively searched for it. Factorio is really the gold standard here with its ingame mod browser and their own website for organizing/listing them.

[Tartiflette]

If you have a few thousand euros/hours to spend on that be my guest.

[[HN]]

Steam workshop auto updates mods, due to the fact that most mod updates breaks saves. This means the workshop is 100% incompatible with SS and would actively trash the game and cause never-ending rage.

Wot?!
Many, MANY games also works like that, breaking saves is nothing new to the steam workshop, pretty common even.

Mods are now hosted on Nexus, making the workshop unneeded.

Yeah... just like putting the game on steam is "unneeded" since it's already hosted here, right?

I wonder if any of you have ever used the steam workshop before?

[Tartiflette]

Yes, it's really cool for "hat mods" and other simple not intricate mods. For anything bigger it is increasingly cumbersome on the modder side of things.

[[HN]]

You'd be surprised to the kind of stuff the workshop contain, it's has way bigger stuff than "hat mods". SS mods aren't any special when it comes to size and scope.