37 replies to this topic

[jobro]

I'm curious as to if any person here has been using Steam to distrubute games? What was the main obstacles for doing that?

[wa1do_13]

I don't think any game maker games have been distributed with Steam, considering they're (as far as I know) almost entirely 3D. I looked around once, I couldn't find any- I guess Steam is really for the top dogs.

[jakman4242]

Not exactly. Look in the Indie section of the Steam store~

There are plenty of 2D games in there. Although I'm sure Valve has a quality bar for games they let on Steam.(not speaking graphics quality, per se)

[Desert Dog]

I don't think any game maker games have been distributed with Steam, considering they're (as far as I know) almost entirely 3D. I looked around once, I couldn't find any- I guess Steam is really for the top dogs.

I have no idea if there are any GM games on there, but I can say that they certainly are not entirely 3d.

I 'think' I read somewhere that they turned down Immortal Defense, but not sure about this.

Edit: You might be interested in this:
http://studioeres.co...php?topic=279.0

Edited by Desert Dog, 22 August 2009 - 10:55 PM.

[Stubbjax]

In the near future I plan to contact Valve and try to get many of my games put on there. I'll let you guys know how it goes. I'll most likely be rejected, just like many other GM games I've heard about. It's worth a try though.

Oh and I heard somewhere that if Valve know the game's made in GM, they won't accept it.

[voltain]

Oh and I heard somewhere that if Valve know the game's made in GM, they won't accept it.

I won't be suprised if that was true since GM games are so easy to hack into. I guess that is good reason for both valve and the game developer since I wouldn't want a game that I worked on for a year to be commercial thrown around the internet in different free version forms.

[hpapillon]

I really doubt they'd have an intentional no-GM policy, unless GM exes are incompatible with their DRM, in which case they wouldn't have to 'find out' that it was made with GM, it would be obvious that it didn't work.

However, Steam is not an open platform. You can't just choose to put your games on it.

I have not even tried to submit a game through Steam because I don't currently have a title that I think is a good fit for their market; I may re-evaluate that when my next title is complete.

[True Valhalla]

A nice idea...there are plenty of 2D games on Steam, so why not?

-Tv

Edited by True Valhalla, 09 June 2010 - 11:45 PM.

[ev149]

I don't think that any GM games have accepted to the Steam marketplace, but if you could make a great game, I would think they'd put it up in the indie section. Unless, of course, it conflicts with their DRM, as hpapillon said.

[rinkuhero]

there have been a few gm games which have begun the process of getting on steam (not mine; they don't reply to my emails) but none as of yet are on steam. chickenatemydonuts / sharp sapphire told me he was in negotiations with them at one point, but that he never finished his game.

i haven't heard of an anti-gm policy, unless it's an informal one where the people making the decisions there have a bias against gm games or something, which wouldn't surprise me because plenty of l33t programmers see gm as a kiddie toy, even in the indie games community there are people who think less of a game just because it's made in gm. it's not pervasive, but it's common

[killzerslaul]

Lol, funny that someone posted about this, as I was trying to find out about distributing games via Steam just recently. I understand why people think less of GM, as it is easy to hack, easier to code, less versatile, slower, and less optimised than the languages normally used.

[K3fka]

Less versatile? With DLLs, it can gain the functionality of basically anything else another language can do.

[rinkuhero]

Less versatile? With DLLs, it can gain the functionality of basically anything else another language can do.

except multi-platform: no GM on mac (yet) or linux for example

[jakman4242]

Less versatile? With DLLs, it can gain the functionality of basically anything else another language can do.

except multi-platform: no GM on mac (yet) or linux for example

I wouldn't consider it a real loss, anyway. Most first-party games(especially FPS's on Steam) seem to run on DirectX as well.

Windows heavily caters towards gamers, and most gamers use Windows.


Although the Mac port had a beta, didn't it? So technically GM is cross-platform now.
I would like to see Linux in the future, nonetheless.

[wiiowner]

We'll there is a recent GM game coming to PSN and XBLA. Spelunky by Derek Yu, it was his first GM game and it's being ported to consoles with some new features aswell as HD graphics. That same version may come to steam.

[rinkuhero]

he's remaking it for C# though, it's not the actual game maker file that's going on the xbla

[wiiowner]

That's kind of too bad but good at the same time and at least a GM game has gone that far, that's got to be a step in the right direction.

[hpapillon]

I understand why people think less of GM, as it is easy to hack, easier to code, less versatile, slower, and less optimised than the languages normally used.

You'd be surprised - MANY games (especially made by small companies) are easy to hack, slower than you might think, not very optimised, etc. Certainly not everything, and the restrictions of a particular coding environment make a big difference, but don't think that all programming outside of GM is somehow magically perfect. There are PLENTY of lazy coders in the world, and even people who've worked for big companies can tell you entertaining stories of stupid hacks they've done to get something almost-working at the last minute...

at least a GM game has gone that far, that's got to be a step in the right direction.

That's not even the first console game prototyped in GM that *I've* heard of, and I'm sure there are more that I haven't heard of, because most professionals don't hang out on the GMC and tell you that they're using the same software you are.

[Desert Dog]

That's not even the first console game prototyped in GM that *I've* heard of, and I'm sure there are more that I haven't heard of, because most professionals don't hang out on the GMC and tell you that they're using the same software you are.

It seems that Mr. Chubigans, got someone to program his game ShellBlast for Xbox360, but yeah, I read a dev-blog, where a professional team proto-typed their game in GM, before making it for the DS

For all interested, here's the link, if you wish to read:
http://www.gamasutra...actors_the_.php

[Tahnok]

[...]and even people who've worked for big companies can tell you entertaining stories of stupid hacks they've done to get something almost-working at the last minute...
[...]

Indeed they can:
http://www.gamasutra...ding_tricks.php
It's a pretty funny article on that very subject!