Steam Question

[gosos]

So is the process to get this up on Steam Greenlight and get the voting started? My understanding is that its a very long haul to get games approved through greenlight due to the massive number of entries. Steam said that successful kickstarters help alot, so that is good. However, we would need to help Thomas spread the word to get the votes up high enough to get it greenlighted. We would also probably want to post in the comments section frequently to keep looking at it.

any other suggestions to help the greenlight process?

[Grey]

A good-looking video is essential.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

ToME has been on Greenlight for over a year and it's still not released on Steam.

I don't really like ToME much, but like it or not, it's a game with a rather big following, and it's visually polished. So I guess it's pretty difficult to get greenlighted, team ADOM will have to do a great job.

[GordonOverkill]

I more or less don't have any clue of Steam. Can anyone maybe give a short explanation about that "greenlighting"-thing?

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I more or less don't have any clue of Steam. Can anyone maybe give a short explanation about that "greenlighting"-thing?
It's a process by which if you want to get your game on Steam, you create a web with a trailer (and I suppose you have to do more things, like submit your game to Valve or something) and people vote on it. But it's a quite opaque process, i.e., it's not that if you get a concrete number of votes you're guaranteed to get in or anything like that. Probably votes help but Valve has the final decision considering other things as well (what exactly, I don't know).

[jt]

Here are some criteria that help "greenlighting" (found on the Steam forums):



These titles were selected on the same criteria we have been using in the past: Votes in Greenlight give us a hugely valuable point of data in gauging community interest along with external factors such as press reviews, crowd-funding successes, performance on other similar platforms, and awards and contests to help form a more complete picture of community interest in each title.


But Steam is only one option... I think there are lots of other possibilites.

[Ravenmore]

Actually if all we have in mind for ADOM was complete here and now, the game would be in a pretty strong position for greenlight. Crowdfunding success plus riding on the recent roguelike wave. Also a nostalgia wave that hit Steam lately with remakes popping up left and right. Games like Shadow Warrior and the 11th Hour come from the golden age when ADOM was born, after all :) So who knows...

Anyways, there's still a bit left to do so that's just speculation.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Oh, "performance on other similar platforms" sounds like it could make sense to try another one first, and then use the resounding success as leverage for Steam :)

[Laukku]

http://www.gog.com/ comes to mind as an option. There are many retro and indie games there, so ADOM will probably find an audience.

[gosos]

ToMe is a very high quality game. its not as hardcore as this game. MY favorite feature in Tome is the in game IRC so you can talk to other people while playing. you can always turn this off. I really like having an IRC built into the client. It adds a sense of community to a single player game and you can discuss strategy. i suggested this in Cataclysm DDA , but no one likes it. not sure if anyone would like it here. if you want to see ewhat i mean go try Tome. Its free. I really like the chat.

[GordonOverkill]

ToME has been on Greenlight for over a year and it's still not released on Steam.

I don't really like ToME much, but like it or not, it's a game with a rather big following, and it's visually polished. So I guess it's pretty difficult to get greenlighted, team ADOM will have to do a great job.

Just read that ToME has now been greenlit, so it is definitely possible to get a roguelike on there. May ADOM follow asap! :-)

[Singbird]

I understand the Steam focus from sales point of view, but I'd actually think it's more likely ADOM would end up on a smaller distributor. GOG.com, for example, seems to bring in *ahem* all kinds of indies nowadays, a company in which ADOM would be far from the worst I'd think.

[heavensblade23]

GOG and Desura would be likely bets if not Steam.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Steam still has many more indie game players than the others. The Humble Bundles, one of the prominent means of distribution of indie games, give Steam keys, and people use them.

GoG would probably be a distant second but for the purpose of reaching more players (and not only for the sales money), Steam is the best.

[jt]

I think the goal is get ADOM on to as many online game stores as possible. ;)

Even if we don't achieve a greenlighting on Steam, we have all other features in place on our own server (e.g. for highscores and achievements; friend lists are planned). We also have this forum. There is not that much that Steam can offer in addition. It only has an advantage because it is the biggest platform, so you probably get more sales there.