cool indie game i can't wait to get it once it's on steam. i think gaben deserves 30% of the money from it and i think the developer should have to put up with the dumbest metacritic brained motherfuckers on the planet as well. in general i really want to make sure the people making work i enjoy have as much of their time eaten up as possible dealing with guys who'll phone in a bomb threat if the game's framerate ever drops below 45, just to make the whole experience as degrading as possible. you're welcome π
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in reply to @thecatamites's post:
don't forget getting lost in the confusing labyrinth that is steam's backend ui if you want to make any kind of change in the steam page/game
it's really funny to me how much the whole 'patron saint of gaming' thing persists given that he's just been gathering passive income and buying yachts for 15 years
i mean spending decades as a deadeyed libertarian phynance dunce subsisting on rentierism and microtransactions does make him indicative of the medium for sure
if Gabe Newell is the patron saint of gaming, then Steam is the Catholic Church and I am Martin fucking Luther
Literally was just being told by someone that Gabe Newell is a god of gaming when I was complaining game devs who don't get a directors role are underappreciated by gamers.
Dude probably didn't even make Half Life 2 so great, all the devs that worked on it are credited as an amorphous blob of "valve" in a long list. I certainly don't know who did what, but I do know who made the most money off of their work. π€
really glad the "jester" award exists for forum chuds to spend their reddit gold on posts with the developer's home address
The steam '''community''' was already disgustingly toxic, and basically a manifestation of every negative gamer stereotype, but then they released those fucking reddit golds. Now no one can say a single thing on there without 12 dudes trying to pwn them with their sick jester award. π
listen, Gabe Newell's son can't pursue his dream of becoming a mediocre racecar driver, unless we're all doing our part.
Should his car win LeMans next year, I'm going to tell everyone that I sponsored that team.
There's a reason why I only buy games on steam if they're not on itch
and if you think im paying more than $5 for it then you are sorely mistaken; i'm only paying $2-3 at most, with a sale!!
and if you dare show a modicum of support or even have any minority in your game you'll get a horde of Gamers harassing you and spamming clown awards. because The Woke.
and make sure your game, no matter how cheap it is, goes on sale!! your game is 1 dollar? put it on sale!!! you wont get those Gamer Money Stats if you dont!!!
So why do so many programmers release their games on Steam only? Sorry, I realize that this has to be a really stupid question. But I honestly do not get it. How does it benefit the developer?
Like for example, Artless Games has a game called Understand that is only available on Steam. They have a presence on itch.io, with over a dozen games on it. But not that one. And this is an extremely common pattern I see, with games all across the spectrum.
I imagine the numbers on itchio alone don't really work out if you're banking on a game being your sole funding between projects (especially if there are more than just 1-2 people working on it). afaik itchio is more useful for hobbyists and those with regular income flow via patreon
as much as steam's cultish fanbase like to claim differently, valve unfortunately do have a vice-grip monopoly on the general PC market by virtue of momentum
Sure, the Steam user base is huge. One can't generally afford to ignore it. But why not release on itch.io as well? (Or GOG, or Humble.) To continue my example, developer Artless Games does have some titles on both Steam and itch.io. So the fact that Understand is Steam-only feels like a deliberate choice. (And a choice that seems quite common among game developers, too common to be chalked up to idiosyncracy, or laziness, or oversight.)
I think it just boils down to maintaining less things. Like sure it doesn't take that long to put it on itch. But there's all the little things like uploading to itch as well and uploading it again everytime there is an update and then also maybe checking the itch comments for bug reports and then maybe dealing with having 2 sources on income to report on taxes instead of just one. And anyone who buys it on itch doesn't contribute to the positive metrics steam uses to decide when to boost you.
I worked on a live service indie game for a lil bit and release management is a pain in the ass. At some point the ~20% you save on purchases from itch instead of steam aren't worth the extra hassle.
I'd definitely prefer more people put their stuff on itch too, but I can understand why it's not worth it for some. A lot of people even in my indie dev gaming group will buy the steam version instead of the itch version just cause it's more convenient for them, which is kind of annoying...
And anyone who buys it on itch doesn't contribute to the positive metrics steam uses to decide when to boost you.
Okay, that point actually makes sense to me. (At least, I can see why that argument would be enough to discourage someone from the effort involved.)