37 replies to this topic

[Desert Dog]

[...]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!

Ha! That submission about patches sounded veeery reminiscent... That's a cool little article!

[vmlweb]

I think maybe a 3d game might get on too because look at this.
http://store.steampo....com/app/32400/

[Tahnok]

I think maybe a 3d game might get on too because look at this.
http://store.steampo....com/app/32400/

That game was released almost 15 years ago, when those kinds of primitive graphics were more acceptable. I'm not saying that there's no chance they'll take a GM 3D game (though it seems pretty unlikely), but it's not valid to compare a classic that Steam re-released and a new game you're trying to submit.

[Glen]

I would find it quite an accomplishment to find a GM game accepted by Steam. *Adds to my to-do list*

Edited by Glen, 01 October 2009 - 09:21 PM.

[sevcik.daniel]

Sorry for opening old topic but i've tried to make the in-game Steam API works in my GM game. Only thing you need to do is resizing display resolution to any that fits your game. You can try it if it's working by adding new non-steam game into your list and it will add API automatically.

[Crollo]

What was the main obstacles for doing that?

For starters nobody knows how the hell to get them on there in the first place. (Including me, nor do i have any interest anyways.)

[FmMan3]

What was the main obstacles for doing that?

For starters nobody knows how the hell to get them on there in the first place. (Including me, nor do i have any interest anyways.)

I was at first going to leave a very sarcastic post telling you how absurd your post was but instead I opted to post the following links instead.

http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/

http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/gettingstarted.php

https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/api

...

Okay, thank you and goodbye.

P.S. I've been looking into this for a while and firstly if you wish to get your game on Steam, you're going to need to have it on other sites for sale and have some pretty darn good reviews before they'll even consider your game. It's not bias against Game Maker, I believe it would be bias against the games quality.

I also ran through some market calculations recently and being open to a potential 25 million customers is a VERY big deal. Here's a little snippet of what I mean.

Let's say that you decide to sell your VERY good quality game at $5. There are a potential 25M customers but thinking somewhat realisticly let's imagine that 25% of that 25M people decided to try the demo out on steam, that would leave 6,250,000 (six-million, two-hundred and fifty thousand) potential customers. Let us now pull another figure out of the air and say 10% of that 6.25m people felt that an investment would be worth while. That leaves us with 625,000 customers (six-hundred and twenty-five thousand). At $5 each that gives you a total income of $3,125,000. Yes, you'll make a killing BUT, Valve does take a slice of that and let's imagine that in your negotiation with them you and Valve came to an agreement that you would split profit with them at 25%. Your overall earnings would be $781,250. Remember however, you may still need to split money with other people/companies if you are using 3rd part DLL's such as FMOD etc.

Anywho, my point is, with that sort of potential Valve are NOT going to take you seriously if you don't have something worth while so honestly, don't even think about making a game just because you hope that it will get to Steam. Make a game and if over time you get a huge amount of great reviews and a ton of sales, then contact Valve otherwise it'll be wasted time.

tl;dr - yeah.

P.P.S Just for a laugh I thought I'd leave this here. Did you know, that if you had a conversion factor (the amount of people who buy the game after playing the demo) of 100% out of that 25 Million customers you would end up making $125,000,000 if you sold your game at a mere $5... I'm off to bed now, we can all dream right?

Edited by FmMan3, 16 June 2010 - 07:47 AM.

[thenoller]

I know this is an old topic, but.. Maybe they just changed in the past year, or maybe we're not talking about the same Steam, but I can not recognize this image of Valves' huge game-service.

There are things in there that look like they were done with GM's native 3D-functions, and games that are hardly games (and some that definitely were made under the influence of strong mind-expanding drugs - like "The Graveyard").

Also a game that might as well have been made using GM (and only it's internal editors) is "VVVVVVV". A game like "Eets" just looks too much like something done in flash (not in the good way), and I'm not saying these are bad games at all. I'm just saying that I've seen what GM-users can do, and at times it is just as extensive and professional looking!

[Desert Dog]

I'm pretty sure VVVVVVVV was done in flash.

[hpapillon]

It looks like we finally have an answer to the long-pondered question of whether you can sell a GM game on steam:

http://store.steampo...200_200_254_103

[Desert Dog]

Ahh, nice. Thanks for sharing that hpapillon, let's hope the game does well for them.

[masterofhisowndomain]

I contacted Endless Fluff, the creators of 'Legend of Fae' about their game being on Steam. Carolina replied very quickly and kindly to my questions, and gave a few insights I thought may be of interest (paraphrased and reordered her words for clarity):

[...] To get the game running on Steam they hired another programmer and used very few of the Steam features, in order to keep the release stable (GM and Steam can be problematic together). Nonetheless there are still some bugs popping up with Steam. As for getting their foot in the door, they hired a marketing manager recommended by another developer. [...]

[Zesterer]

Steam?

[Dangerous_Dave]

Steam?

I'm assuming this means you don't know what Steam is?

Steam is a marketplace and DRM system that accounts for an estimated 70% of all digital game sales. You download their program, buy games, then download and play them.

[Zesterer]

Ok, thanks.

[Dylan93]

Steam?

You lived under a cave the past few years ?

store.steampowered.com

Edited by Dylan93, 26 August 2011 - 04:03 PM.

[Joe H]

LoL @ : "lived under a cave."


Don't forget, there are many other ways to sell your game. Steam isn't the first place a new GM developer should look.

[Eldin64]

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

I know this is way too late to answer that question, but I know of at least 2 games that are on Steam as we speak. Serious Sam the Random encounter and Dust Force, both are great indie games in my opinion.

Noitu Love is also on Steam, which is made with Multimedia Fusion 2, and then you've got Lone Survivor that's made with Flixel if I'm not mistaken, but that's actually a hardcore language for 2D games from what I've heard.

Hope that helps mate!