Steam Greenlight

[Miakoda]

And some of it may be due to whether Steam removes Greenlight or not as well. If they do, then it makes little sense to go through that process for them as well.

[jack1974]

Haha is kind of hilarious. SOTW was instantly Greenlit probably before I didn't get a reply only because my rep was out of office or busy with other stuff!
Also, more good news: they confirmed that they can put an "age gate" to games without an official rating!! so it means I can make porn- ahem, I can put uncensored games on Steam as well. I'll change Loren too, but I also wanted to upgrade to the latest Ren'py as well so will take some time.
Even SOTW will be out in January, since releasing now during Christmas period... too crowded!

[iWeasle]

Ah the age gate, teaching young people how to subtract 18 from the year .

[Miakoda]

Although, something to bear in mind that some of the answers may also depend on who you get from Steam to reply. Other devs were told they would have to get an ESRB rating, for example.

But yeah, I'm glad they are finally able to bend...and that should please some people.

[jack1974]

Yes I think is because is your Steam rep that needs to do that manually, so maybe some don't want to do it they should just add an automatic button for developers!

[abnaxus]

What I was wondering, is Steam actually beneficial for an indie developer in the long run?

Obviously Steam means more publicity (your games might actually make it on frontpage too during sales, on the other hand there are so many indie games on Steam nowadays that it's starting to become difficult to see the forest because of the trees) but does it also lead to more sales?

I wager 90% of Steam audience isn't interested in indie games at all. There's also the fact that Gaben takes the 30% cut.

[jack1974]

Considering many players won't buy games directly anymore, isn't like there's much choice right now

[abnaxus]

I try to avoid Steam as much as I can.

[Miakoda]

Unfortunately, Steam's market dominance has made it the go to platform for many people.

[jack1974]

Yeah, I just discovered randomly that already 3-4 people are waiting to buy PSCD when it's on Steam. I offer the keys for direct purchases as well, but unfortunately I cannot offer regional pricing like Steam does, so many players from poorer countries (or simply with lower cost of living) prefer to get the game there for that reason.