GDS Games on Steam?

[Bombstriker]

I have looked around the forums here and I heard that a few people said they don't like Steam but I was just introduced to it and wow, I am a huge fan. I was looking for good sim games on there but the best ones are soccer sims and I hate soccer lol.

I have purchased most of the TEW's and all of the WMMA's so I got to wondering why don't GDS move to be bigger audience and try to test the waters with Steam. At least for their biggest series TEW, there are hardly ANY wrestling games on steam now and it would probably fair rather well.

Obviously it probably isn't a very easy thing to do but could possibly pull in some big revenue and of course give us some additional ways to play the games that we all love.

[wwe9112]

Originally Posted by Bombstriker

I have looked around the forums here and I heard that a few people said they don't like Steam but I was just introduced to it and wow, I am a huge fan. I was looking for good sim games on there but the best ones are soccer sims and I hate soccer lol.

I have purchased most of the TEW's and all of the WMMA's so I got to wondering why don't GDS move to be bigger audience and try to test the waters with Steam. At least for their biggest series TEW, there are hardly ANY wrestling games on steam now and it would probably fair rather well.

Obviously it probably isn't a very easy thing to do but could possibly pull in some big revenue and of course give us some additional ways to play the games that we all love.

I'm all for it

[Markw]

No! Having Football Manager on Steam is bad enough.

[Bombstriker]

That football manager is like the top sim game and if it was American football I would have it already lol. Just an idea and if all of my progress was tracked and achievements unlocked I would get back into TEW and WMMA as much as I used to be.

TEW is head and shoulders over some football sim game lol. Just a thought that is all. I would just love to seem them upgrade their audience and revenue. Very well deserved.

[Markw]

Originally Posted by Bombstriker

TEW is head and shoulders over some football sim game lol.

HA!

[Donners]

It would be nice for consumers, but presumably from a profit point of view, it is better to keep control of the pricing and not give up a share of the revenue.

The reality is that it is a very niche product and being on Steam may not offer much benefit.

Some publishers have also said that it can be quite difficult to get on Steam.

[bigfiasco]

I personally love Steam and think it could be a big marketing tool if used right

[fredreed]

I would also say that given that greydogsoftware is a very small software company Adam probably doesn't make that much money off the consumers like EA or SiGames does. Both ea and sigames can afford this because they are very big companies which greydogsoftware isn't. Adam is doing what he feels is the best option for him. We can't expect him to give up profits just because some people would like to see them on steam. Steam only goes with big companies because they probably give steam a bigger profit or income. Steam will only deal with companies that they feel are a good fit for them. Small companies like greydogsoftware wouldn't really benefit from selling their games on steam because they wouldn't make much of a profit. Ebay is like this they take a percentage and commision from whatever you sell through them.

[Target Practice]

Originally Posted by fredreed

Steam will only deal with companies that they feel are a good fit for them. Small companies like greydogsoftware wouldn't really benefit from selling their games on steam because they wouldn't make much of a profit.

Actually, that couldn't be less true. There are hundreds upon hundreds of small independent games out there on Steam. In fact, Steam has been the springboard that has allowed small independent games like Terraria to reach mainstream audiences and become huge breakout hits, so any suggestion that Steam wouldn't be willing to do business with GDS because of their size is a little tough to believe.

I don't have any idea about how Steam make their money with regards to developers, but I would assume that like you say, it'd be through taking a percentage of each unit sold. The downside to that is obviously you're making less profit on each sale - the upside is that your potential audience is freaking huge - Steam usually has between 1-3 million users online at any one time, and even if as few as 0.1% of those were likely to be interested in GDS titles (so that's assuming that less than 0.1% of Steam users are interested in either Wrestling, MMA, Basketball, College Football or Comic Book RPGs - I think you could argue it's probably going to be just a touch more than that ), that's still 1000-3000 potential sales out there at any one time.
Of course, it's Adam's decision at the end of the day, and I'm sure that he's considered the potential pros and cons of the situation far, far more in depth than any of us have. However, it would certainly be an interesting experiment to throw an older title like TEW2008 or WMMA2 out onto Steam, if only to test the waters and see what the audience is like.

[Brian Nichols]

I'd say part of the issue is which programming languages are compatible with Steam. VB is not one of those languages. Steam takes a cut just like Elicense takes a cut. They might take a larger cut but the benefit of being on Steam would likely make it worth it.

[Bombstriker]

I was just asking . Didn't expect a big reaction like this. Bottomline Adam will prob not go that route even if it means a bigger audience. Not a single thing is wrong with mom an pop businesses. They are what feeds us hardcore gamers anyways . As long as Adam keeps making amazing games that's all that matters at the end of the day.

[Makhai]

From what I understand, Valve takes a large portion of sales, and have say in pricing models; must use proprietary DRM/infustructure.

I think the latter is the deal breaker here as I believe E-License handles all transactions for Adam and takes a smaller cut of the pie than Valve would. But I'm extrapolating off things I've heard from drunk indy developers on podcasts...

As to WMMA and TEW's selling potential with a massive distribution platform? I don't think it's that great. Adam's games have HUGE usablity and interface issues. The UI, even now(which is WAY better than it was) is from the dark ages. What game today besides TEW 2010 corrupts if you hit x on the window instead of in-game? Do you think mainstream wrestling are going to pay 34.95 for that? Most mainstream wrestling fans haven't even traded in their sippy cups yet.

Then there's the 800lb elephant in the room. The price tag, it's a huge barrier of entry. With the LONG learning curve, the prehistoric interface, a price tag that's against this http://store.steampowered.com/sub/8848/... That's a tough proposition to make.

[ewanite]

E-License is an awful system so I'd be all for this change. I can no longer play TEW because of it and I certainly won't be buying any future GDS games unless they leave it. A move to Steam would be a welcome one.

[Arlie Rahn]

The main issue with Steam is that you can't use them if your game is in VB or .NET. So, unless we rewrite everything in a different language, we don't have many options with them.

[Target Practice]

Ah. Yes. I can see that being something of an issue then.

Something to consider moving forwards, though?