Sorry if this has already been asked, but is WOG going to be released on Steam? I'm sure Valve would be happy to have it...

Ed

It looks like steam is a strong possibility. I hope we can do as well as audiosurf is doing right now :)

Great! I hope you do as well too - Steam is great publicity if nothing else :)

I agree with using steam.  It would probably be the bug-free-est way of doing it, as well as giving it the most publicity.

I really hope it's coming to Steam myself. It's probably the only reason i'm holding off on a pre-order right now. Steam is a great and reliable platform to keep all my games available to me, even after switching computers or what not I can simply redownload the software in minutes.

The number of games I've ordered or preorderedonly for them to be released on Steam will go up by one...

This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Yup, after seeing Audiosurf's success, I say Steam it :D

Great idea.  Steam is one of the best delivery platforms out there.  Many of the others seem to relegate games to 'casual' status and I'd hate to see that happen here.

If you were to go steam would it be an additional channel or your only one?  If you are going to have multiple channels will we be able to apply our preorder to any one of them or just the stand alone version?  I myself would love to have the steam copy as it is one less code/password/serial I have to remember.  I understand you're likely just in initial talks so if you don't have the answers to the above then assume they're points to consider :)

If you preorder direct, 2D Boy get more money than if you do so through Steam. Steam take something like a 10% cut, so if you order through 2D Boy, you won't be able to get it from Steam, unless 2D Bo pay Valve the 10% they expect.

Okay, I consent.  Let me have it on steam and I'll send Valve $2.

Honestly, I'd pay a few dollars more to have it there.  I think my upper limit would be in the $2-4 range for the increased steam convenience factor. 

If you do release it from steam, how will you let people who pre-ordered get the game without having to repay?

We can't take pre-orders for wii or any other service since payment through those channels don't go through us.

But! If you are buying an indie game from a poor developer like us, you should feel good about always buying directly from the developer's site, since the poor developer gets almost 100% of the sale price. If you buy from any other site, the best the developer will see is around 70%, but can be as low as 20-30%.

Wow, the % that they take is really that much?

Well, to be honest, I think I have purchased products from Introvesion at least twice because of their inclusion on steam so I'm plenty happy to own the stand alone of WoG.   Just know that I will, if I have any willpower, wait until your 'anthology' pack to play the rest of your games.

as long as it's not steam only, I don't care.  I much prefer a) buying directly from the dev (ie introversion) or from website that doesn't require you to be forever linked with them (ie garagegames). 

I also would have probably not pre-ordered if I knew it was going to be released on Steam, that is how much I love purchasing games there.

If you do release it on steam concurrently with the main release then I will probably try to sell my pre-order to a friend and then repurchase it on steam, even if it was at the $25 or $30 point.

i would of done the same thing if it was steam only, but just not got it at all!

For the love of Goo, please don't use steam, at least not exclusively. I, personally, don't want to have someone watching my computer at all times, ready to deny me my games because it's detected "memory modifying software" Please, please, please, please don't go with steam. If only because there's no practical reason to do so; you already have an efficient download distribution system, there is no need to do anything more, especially when it's steam. If you want a reason why I have a vendetta against steam, consider Garry's Mod. The previous version worked well for everyone, but then steam auto-upgraded everyone to the next level, which made the game unplayable on scores of computers, and effectively blocked paying customers from playing. In a normal situation, they would be able to de-patch the game and be able to continue using the old version, but thanks to steam... no way.

Please, don't join their dark army, no matter how much cake they offer! Goo is too goo-d for that!

We will always have the game available off of our own site. If we go with Steam and/or other online portals, it would be to augment, not replace. :)

Its interesting to compare this Steam topic against the one that was on the Audiosurf forums. People here seem to love steam whereas on Audiosurf there was outcry when people said they liked steam.

Steam: The marmite of the games distibution industry.

[quote author=matto1990 link=topic=23.msg297#msg297 date=1205054165]
Its interesting to compare this Steam topic against the one that was on the Audiosurf forums. People here seem to love steam whereas on Audiosurf there was outcry when people said they liked steam.


any anti-steam threads ended with "deal with it".  Me, for example, gave up on that game & am envious of this one.  :)

I also pay more for non-steam games, and I'm happy.  I've payed more for Defcon & the RIP Trilogy just to have non-steam versions.

We're still not sure if we're going with Steam yet, or not, but just to clarify - Steam is a good deal for little indie guys like us. They are an honest and fair distribution channel. Like any portal, they help get our game into the hands of people that wouldn't otherwise know about our little studio. And for that, sharing a chunk of the sale price is entirely acceptable.

For people more "in the know", like you guys, who actually know / research / communicate with a game's developer, you don't need a portal telling you which games to play, and you have a lot more options on where/how to get the game and can optimize for things like convenience, and maximizing how much of the sale price goes to the developer, and whatever else you prefer. No need to bash the portals, it's all up to you :)

i wouldn't mind seeing this @ garage games.  They have a nice variety.

Only bad part about the sales sites is that (from what I've seen) they each require a customized version of the game for sale through them.  IE Steam seems to need steam installed for the game to run (from what people on the introversion forum & people who bought old id games have said), garage games requires you include their splash screen.

but as far as getting your game out there, steam is great.  Basically, everybody uses steam because everybody (for one reason or another) owns half life 2.

Steam is a great platform for Indie devs - it opens the game up to a massive audience (15 mill+) that they wouldn't normally be able to attract. Thus getting on Steam would be a good move in my view for World of Goo.

However Steam should never stop other methods of distribution - keep the method currently on the site for sure and look at other sites. All about maximizing potential sales ;)

Steam is great for indie devs, it's just not great for people who do know about indie games and know where to find them.  The way I look at it is, Steam is for Amateur gamers.  I know many of those gamers wouldn't agree with me, but since I can get an equal amount of games up and running on my computer without the use of Steam (and still purchase all my favorite indie games straight from the developer) I think that makes me a little more enlightened.  I do like the fact that steam attracts all kinds of "outsiders" but I don't like the fact that steam uses more resources than necessary, and allows valve to ever see which games I have AND log when exactly I'm playing them (the engine behind the steam works far too similarly like SpyWare). I could always play with my network connection disabled and use some sort of workaround so that the game thinks on connected, but that defeats the purpose of getting a score in a game like Audio Surf, so that's reason enough for me to pass on buying it. The worst part about steam is that Audio Surf appears to be Steam exclusive.  I would've bought the game straight from the site (I prefer to buy straight from the developer), but even for $9.95 I'm not willing to go through steam just so I can play Audio Surf and be able to compete online with other players... not worth it for me but I'm happy for the devs and the fact that their game has become number one on steam, it just means that I'll never buy it (unless they make it available through the developers website).  In cases such as this I probably won't by anything from the developers of Audio Surf, not unless they learn how to distribute it and future games through their website as well.

Thank Goo 2DBoy is a little smarter (just like the guys at Bit-Blot, Hamumu, OxEye Studios, Chronic Logic, Positech, Hamumu, Spiderweb Software, PuppyGames, New Star Games, and Outside the Box Software just to name a few devs sell their games through their site).

Can't wait for Goo to be released!  Loved Chapter 1, now bring on the rest of the challenges!  ;)