Comments on: All steamed up

By: Hapy

Hapy — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 23:53:16 +0000

I like the fact that while your post is pro-steam/valve you still put a “true-to-life” picture of Gabe at the top.

By: Tex Pine

Tex Pine — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:42:34 +0000

I see. That said, I believe the online services of Steamworks can work wonders for indie developers. The cost of self-developing an online service is too high – for Lex Venture, we originally planned a multi-player version, but got to drop it in favor on focus on the single player experience. It would delay the project for 6 months minimum.

The thing to watch is if Steam can “pick up” for more casual gamers. PopCap has been selling their titles there, but it’s the single casual publisher on Steam, so I don’t know how much it is successful. Casual titles have a lower cost and time to develop, and it’s important as an option for indies, who commonly doesn’t have much of either.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:08:32 +0000

Steam has very good anti piracy protection.
So if a game is only available on Steam it is far less likely to be pirated, so at the end of the day you may well sell more, despite not being in retail.

By: Tex Pine

Tex Pine — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:58:32 +0000

Well, about the piracy thing, I don’t see how going for online distribution will be safer than retail. In fact, game piracy is so easy to find on the web, yourself has published articles about that. Even small, low-value indie titles are pirated!

I think only games with multiplayer features (or multiplayer-only) can reduce piracy using an online platform.

Or maybe single-player titles could do that as well, as long as they still to just Steam for distribution. But since downloadable-games market is so fragmented and chaotic right now, and developers need so much every single channel they can find, I don’t think this is feasible.