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Author Topic: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?  (Read 20422 times)

Virosa

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Re: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?
« Reply #45 on: April 17, 2013, 02:27:52 PM »

Steam's cut varies from developer to developer and is usually protected with an NDA, from what I understand, but dead reckoning I would estimate it only in the 2-15% range or else it just wouldn't be competitive (also see '80% off' sales). GamersGate, my personal favourite digital downloads retailer, charges only 2.5% -- but of course it doesn't offer the attractive features that gouging AAA companies like, like always-on DRM or in-app-purchases (although Crusader Kings II has GamersGate IAP, since GamersGate was originally a Paradox subsidiary anyway (and maybe still is for all I know!)).

Buzz on the net trends towards 30% or so, but I think that's mostly pollution from people assuming Valve is anything like Apple.

Well that is interesting. But i don't think Steam need to be that competitive for indie games for several reasons. Before greenlight, alot of Devs said getting on steam was very hard and they felt they lost alot of control and the contracts were strict or constrictive.

At any rate, the consensus was that never heard of indie companies needed Steam more than Steam needed them. Steam is in a way, a huge publicity for a hidden gem. Steam is almost like a publisher(imo) as it distribute and give a platform for Dev and New Consumers to interface. Also a part that was very blurry when asked about, perhaps because of NDA, is that it seemed to me that Steam wanted a say in how to go about getting more sales, managing the sales.

When Steam just redistribute an AAA game or any popular game, that has its own distributor, publisher and fame. Steam just has to distribute the software. So a lower % make sense.

But i have seen unheard of company getting their game on steam and getting massive bump (example: Dungeon of Dredmor), so much that at first they had trouble dealing with the influx and that they were amazed at how even bigger of a bump it was versus what they had anticipated... well in that case, a sizable % chunk isnt that unreasonable.

In brief; If i was Steam, i wouldn't want to distribute a niche game or unheard of indie game for 2-5%, but even just 5% on a game like games like Modern Warfare or whatever mainstream-all-publicity-no-soul-game that they make now would be more a better business prospect to me.

At any rate, whatever the price may be, a publisher or distributor get a cut, whatever that might be, they are a business. That can translate into more sales in the end, thus more profit for the indie dev, but on a transaction to transaction basis, the dev get more money per sale if he doesn't go through a distributor or whatnot and that is what i meant. At this stage, he can keep all the money of the fewer sales he got to fund devlopment. The few that wants to pay now probably wants to support the devs, not Steam.

Games such as this need more luvin!
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Amdae

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Re: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?
« Reply #46 on: January 19, 2014, 06:23:26 PM »

Heard about this game from the Crate and Crowbar podcast. I think I'd heard about it somewhere once before but never followed up on it.
Anyway, if you go on to steam you've got a sale from me. No steam, no sale. :(
I would suggest that if you're not ready to SELL it on steam you can get it listed at least so that people hear about you and can add it to wish lists etc. so that when you eventually do release they get a notification.
Age of Decadence was listed on steam for 6 months before they went on sale on steam. At that time you could only get a demo from their site. The AoD discovery process for me was to hear about it in a podcast somewhere (I think), then look it up on steam, then go to their site and try the demo, then go back to steam and add it to wish list so that I wouldn't forget about it completely.
I play a lot of different games and so even though I might like your core concepts I can lose/forget about games that I was interested in between discovering them and the release.
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Debido

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Re: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?
« Reply #47 on: January 19, 2014, 07:23:02 PM »

Heard about this game from the Crate and Crowbar podcast. I think I'd heard about it somewhere once before but never followed up on it.
Anyway, if you go on to steam you've got a sale from me. No steam, no sale. :(
....

Dude, chill, buy the game. It's worth it. I have about 250 games on Steam as I'm a fan of the platform, but I do not need it or miss it from Steam.

If/When it does go on Steam it's probably going to cost full retail of $20 rather than the current development special of $10. For $10 you can't even get a movie admission ticket, but with SS you can buy it for $10 and get many more hours of enjoyment...unlike the time I spent $20 to see After Earth in the cinema.
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Amdae

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Re: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?
« Reply #48 on: January 19, 2014, 10:04:21 PM »

I don't like early access that much any more. Happy to pay during the early access period, but I tend to just pop in for a peak to see how it's going. I get sad when i've put a lot of time/effort in to a particular play session only to have it wiped out in a reset/new release build. I have a similar number of games on steam. Not angry or threatening. Just wanted to let the Dev know that it wouldn't hurt to list on steam if it's an option even if you don't go on sale there yet.
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Alex

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Re: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?
« Reply #49 on: January 19, 2014, 10:13:02 PM »

Hey there - thanks, I appreciate the feedback. I see where you're coming from, both as far as preferring Steam, and the potential problems with playing early access versions.

From my perspective, I think it makes sense to hold off on approaching Steam until the game is in a more complete state. It might do ok even now, but, well, I'd rather make as good a first impression as possible when it comes to reaching out to a bigger audience.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?
« Reply #50 on: January 20, 2014, 12:52:40 AM »

Hey there - thanks, I appreciate the feedback. I see where you're coming from, both as far as preferring Steam, and the potential problems with playing early access versions.

From my perspective, I think it makes sense to hold off on approaching Steam until the game is in a more complete state. It might do ok even now, but, well, I'd rather make as good a first impression as possible when it comes to reaching out to a bigger audience.
Especially since first impressions are hard to change and also bad press travels MUCH faster than good press
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Amdae

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Re: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?
« Reply #51 on: January 20, 2014, 06:32:53 PM »

I may have cracked and "accidentally" bought the game...
Would still LOVE to see it on steam though. Best transitions to steam that I've seen usually involve Humble Bundle to distribute the keys.
Fingers crossed for the future right?
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Alex

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Re: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?
« Reply #52 on: January 20, 2014, 06:34:36 PM »

Thanks for your support - hope you enjoy it!

Would still LOVE to see it on steam though. Best transitions to steam that I've seen usually involve Humble Bundle to distribute the keys.
Fingers crossed for the future right?

Same here. As much as you may want to see it on Steam, I want to see it on Steam a lot more :) When the time is right, that is.
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Virosa

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Re: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?
« Reply #53 on: April 15, 2014, 12:16:10 AM »

It has been almost a year, so i thought i would redo my querry, i didn't notice this got necro'd after like 7 months.

From re reading the thread, it doesn't look like my stance changed much. Since 2013 i must say i *seriously* started hating on the early access crap. It seem to deter devs to take their games from "nearly" finished to properly finished (which is an astromonical difference, i believe most devs would agree).

I see that development is pretty slow, which is okay.

Anyways.

I've had a few games offer "Get steam key for free when it get on steam!" and i even received 2 of such games on steam in the last year.

Since they make that offer, i suppose it means they have some kind of agreement with Steam? Since those offer were put up before the games came out on steam.

Has there been any progression related to this for Steam since early 2013?

-V
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Alex

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Re: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?
« Reply #54 on: April 15, 2014, 12:43:23 AM »

... from "nearly" finished to properly finished (which is an astromonical difference, i believe most devs would agree).

Yep, no question :)

That aside, nothing has changed on the Steam front - I still want to make sure the game is ready for a wider audience before going for that.


Since they make that offer, i suppose it means they have some kind of agreement with Steam?

Yeah, I would imagine so. It seems like a fairly common thing, but I don't know exactly what it entails.
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Flare

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Re: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?
« Reply #55 on: April 21, 2014, 08:20:50 PM »

But I have seen unheard-of company getting their game on steam and getting massive bump (example: Dungeon of Dredmor), so much that at first they had trouble dealing with the influx and that they were amazed at how even bigger of a bump it was versus what they had anticipated... well in that case, a sizable % chunk isnt that unreasonable.

Those don't happen all that often though. For every game like that, there's a host of indie games that barely make a ripple, and some I suspect whether they're getting any sales at all. Not to discount the publicity of Steam helping a game, but games like those make it big because they are good. The publicity that steam provides is not all that unique, once the name is out there and the quality of the product recognized by a sufficient number of people, the same advertisement effect will take place.
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Metroidude

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Re: Pre-order now, get it on steam later free?
« Reply #56 on: April 22, 2014, 06:46:37 AM »

Whenever I play Starsector, I launch it through steam as a non-steam game.
This gives it some extra publicity. I've had a few people ask me what it is.

You guys should try that :) It may get this great game some more hits.
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