Goblin Squad Member
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Like Kickstarter has become a good way to get funding for a project and Twitter is a good social media tool for updates and minute to minute coverage, Steam has become a useful platform for upcoming games to pre-sell or introduce their games to a wider audience then would normally be possible.
I think PFO would get a lot more folks to give it a run if it was available on Steam. It shouldn't be Steam exclusive but it would be good to have it available.
Offering OE on Steam would not only allow PFO to reach a much wider audience but provide some more funding which is often a good thing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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EDIT: I see you mention OE, so you are probably not talking about a Greenlight status. Maybe it could work, I see that Eve is offered on Steam too.
Disregard my original post:
You mean it could be one of those Greenlight games? I like that Steam feature for certain games, but it would most likely collide with GW's intention of controlled growth for PFO. It would also collide with how Early Enrollment and the whole subscriptionmodel (including pledge rewards and subscription-addons)works.
Also the easy accesabillity from a Greenlight game can work both ways: a bad rep is easily established.
For me, online Steam-games have a bit of a volatile, experimental aura about them. They also use a different server model?
I do not think they will go this way. GW could use a smoking website at some point though. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wasn't thinking a Greenlight, though that might be a step to look at. I did however think about establishing a rep but you get that in any kind of open beta situation or directly after launch anyway.
There are F2P MMO's there such as The Secret World and Star Trek Online.
Eve Online has an established presence there.
They also have an entire area devoted to Early Access games. Check out their current Game Showcase.
I specifically said Open Enrollment though and not Early Enrollment because EE would be too undeveloped for the kind of attention we want IMHO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can understand the advertising benefits, but I really hate the way everything attaches to these platforms like steam. Not to mention, that going with Steam typically requires a number of concessions from the developers.
I'd rather see PFO as a stand-alone, completely independent of Steam.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Mm, never realized there may not be enough Early Enrollers to grow the game in its first year and a half. Makes sense.
Maybe at some point the 35 dollar Adventurer tier in the Goblinworks Store can be upgraded to include EE too. The Pioneers will have had their real Early start then anyway. Maybe 100 dollars would be too high of a treshold for people to buy into a beta(EE) that already has been going on for a while.
It is good to see GW are keeping all avenues open.
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Goblin Squad Member
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<<Has spent $thousands on Steam.
I highly encourage Steam Early Access as a way to get into Late Early Enrollmet before Open Enrollment, then followed by a Steam Demo that lets people create characters that play for free for less than 1 month. Then create Steam bundle packages that link to items in the Goblin Store for PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can understand the advertising benefits, but I really hate the way everything attaches to these platforms like steam. Not to mention, that going with Steam typically requires a number of concessions from the developers.
I really like having everything in one place. I hate having to install Origin, Impuls and other such platform launchers in addition to Steam.
IIRC the only notable concessions is the cost.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like steam, if nothing else it makes making sure my games are patched easy and I dont have to worry about random mirror sights since it comes from steam.
I also dont run most of my games from steam, i create a shortcut directly to the application so that I dont have to have steam running at the same time.
I have no idea about the cost to get a game on steam, but i would imagine that the game would be exposed to more people than if it wasnt on it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@RMHG Animator
Dunno. I would much prefer a good looking website including all the things you mention, with some nice graphs, the current state of the Map, Alliances, hotspots (areas of continuous conflict) and such.
But I realize this would be quit expensive to do and keep up, so I do not expect it in the beginning.
Steam is such a cold and functional environment. Probably very wise from a business perspective, yes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think we are going to explore a Steam Greenlight campaign and we'll evaluate the option of using it for Early Enrollment vs. Open Enrollment once we get a sense for how effectively we're able to seed Early Enrollment from our own Crowdfunding tool.
Is there no other way to get onto Steam than through Greenlight? It seems weird to me, as both of your Kickstarters were tremendously successful, proving that there's enough demand, therefore eliminating the need for it to become greenlighted.
What I'm also interested in is in how you're going to treat press enquiries such as key distribution for Alpha/Beta/Early Enrollment. Are there possibilities for the press to get a glimpse of the game or is it a backers only occasion? I'm especially talking about Alpha in this case.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is there no other way to get onto Steam than through Greenlight?
If you ask to be on Steam Valve usually gives one of two responses. "Yes OK" or " Go through Greenlight". Talking to some Indie devs the only sure way to find out what answer you are going to get is to go to ask to be on steam. The most prevelant descrition you hear if you ask people from the outside looking in about Steam is that the desicion is "arbitrary".