We're On Steam Greenlight

Bam! UnReal World is on Steam Greenlight.

Getting on Greenlight has been suggested many times and now we're giving it a go.
This all was started in "silence".
UrW entered Steam Greenlight some 60 hours ago and posting news about it has been delayed because I was curious to see the response and thumbs from the general audience - not only from the fanbase/community.

And the response is that we've already got 20% of votes to make it to top 100 Greenlight titles. So now it's time to make this more official and see where it goes. Here's our Steam Greenlight page:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/file...s/?id=249428292
...vote and comment at will.

(I'll be adding banners and such on the website later on when there's a bit of spare time from release rumble)

***

I don't think about (remotely possible) Steam release right now as there are more important things to do with general development and upcoming release, but here's mini FAQ:

Q: If UrW becomes available on Steam what might happen to free versions?
A: Should that happen it doesn't affect to free versions. For as long as there's sufficient amount of donations there will be donation-based development and free-to-play versions.

Q: And if UrW becomes available on Steam it doesn't affect to my lifetime membership and I don't have to pay again for future releases or additional content?
A: That's correct. Whatever licensing systems there might be in the future your lifetime membership is valid always and forever and any future releases or additional content will be available to you free of charge.

***

Congratulations Sami. I know this is a big deal for you. Hope Steam treats you well. We're all really happy for you.

Great idea. Releasing on steam greenlight should draw in more potential players that might otherwise completely miss on this game. Even die-hard players had to be introduced to the game one time, and steam has a big audience of very varied player stiles and tastes.

i have 2 questions about steam greenlight:

1. must i install additional software (steam) to download new urw releases in the future? or would be urw always parallel available over the urw website?

2. if i downloaded a urw release from steam greenlight: can i run the game discrete without start steam before or must i start steam before and be online? this is the case by many steam games.

steam=drm, forced online activation and so on. maybe this is not the case by steam greenlight?

tenim

Greenlight is not a distribution service but it just a platform to see interest of a game to see if it should be sold on Steam.

It may or may not be able to be run without steam, there are some game launchers where you can run the game without needing to launch steam first but normally if you just try the executable in the folder directly it will try and launch steam first, it might be there is some code where you can run the game without needing to launch steam first.

Regardless though it sounds like as long as there are still donations then it will still be available without steam and if your a lifetime member then your set for life

Kerbal Space Program is a good example of drm management. You can play it trough steam with all it's details or download it directly from official site.

Correct. Only "steamworks" games are meant to be natively played via steam, most other games may have any number of ways to distribute content in addition to steam.

Should there be Steam release it will still always be possible to download UrW directly from the website, and to install and play it just like now with zero extra hassle or launchers or whatever.

The good old ways won't disappear even if there would be new ways to obtain UrW.

And when you download it through steam you can choose to launch it through steam itself or bypass it and just launch the executable.

Does that mean the Steam version won't be free? What would the price be? And if not free, would we be able to upgrade our non-Steam download / lifetime membership to a Steam download for free?

I actually don't know if Steam hosts free games at all.
And I haven't thought about Steam release that much yet.
When a title is greenlit negotiations with Valve and publisher will start to find out what would be suitable way to release the title in question on Steam.

I'm under impression that free or donation-based games that have made it to Steam offer something extra in their Steam versions. That being the incentive to buy it from Steam in the first place.

I would be happy keeping Steam releases cheap and that extra being for example Thanks-video. So that Steam purchases would be just an alternate way to get the current verion & thanks-video. For $3USD or something. But I don't know if that's possible. In any case I oppose the option that Steam version would have more features and be sort of Deluxe edition.

Other possibility that I could live with could be that Steam purchases would be lifetime purchases, and you would then have early-access to beta versions on Steam too.

And I don't know if it's possible for developers to grant access for certain users to their Steam products.

Anyway, I'd like Steam release to be just an alternate way to get the very same game that you get from the homepage. What's the use for going on Steam then? Well, for some the game doesn't exists if it's not on Steam. Homepages are so 90's

I was thinking bout this the other day. As I see it, there are two options.
You might get the free stable version on Steam or you might have to pay $35 and have every patch.
Why? Because no one is going to pay $3 for a new version every time, that sounds too much like DLC, and people hate pay DLC. They might also call this an early access game, because it's not "full" yet, and maybe they won't pay 35 for an early access game. Games like Banished are $19.99 right now. Also, there are Steam Sales, that might get you the game cheaper, but that would be unfair for Life time members, although that's entirely up to the developer, it would be a missed opportunity.
A way out would be to scrap the free version, have the game on Steam at 9.99 and you only get stable versions for a lifetime, and for the betas you still have to pay 35.

Thanks for your thoughts!
Now as I think about it, getting every single stable version from Steam separately sounds indeed cumbersome. So some sort of get it once and have early-access / lifetime membership is probably better. And should there be lifetime purchase option available on Steam it naturally can't be cheapo compared to lifetime donation possibility available now. UrW lifetimers are top in my books, always and forever.

But nothing is settled, and it's long way ahead in any case.
So...I appreciate any ideas and examples regarding games with free version & Steam-version - and feedback about how you (Steam veterans) would see UrW model fitting in there.

But like stated earlier; should there be Steam version, donation-based development with full free versions will still continue for as long as there's sufficient amount of donations. Steam version shouldn't cripple the free version and I've gotten very fond donation-based model given less licensing and more development aspect.

Just a few little bits that may help you -

If you want to allow people who have already purchased lifetime memberships to play via Steam, and if you have a record of who those people are and their emails, then steam will allow you to send them "Steam Keys" which, when they enter the code into their Steam client, will put the game in their library.

As for free games, they are very common on steam, known simply as "Free-to-play", however as far as included extra content just for being on steam, I'm not sure that is the case, at least I've never noticed it.

As for what someone was saying before about paying for new versions etc being like DLC, I think I agree with the general premise that was being discussed. By all means, stick to the current donation based system on the website, but maybe a release on Steam would be better suited to something like the old system - maybe placing the demo 14 day version up for free, and then purchasing a lifetime membership through steam for whatever the going rate is.

Still, nice work getting on Greenlight in the first place Sami, I hope it works out well!

Thanks, Wolfric. Many thanks.

This is good! Very, very good.
brian.shapiro asked about it already and now...should we make lifetime membership option available on Steam, granting access to everything forever, it's possible to upgrade people's non-Steam lifetime memberships to their Steam accounts. And for lifetimers who want it, it will be done, and for free of course. I'm most happy with this sort of flexibility!