Steam Greenlighting, how does this help SV?

I discovered the existence of SV through my interest in Starbound. Since watching the first few trailers, I was hoping to support and eventually buy this game as well. My vote was one of many that helped get SV greenlit on Steam. If, eventually, SV is open for Pre-order and a beta, I'll be excited for the opportunity to participate.

My question is, other than a guaranteed platform to launch the title when completed, what support or advantages does having your game greenlit on Steam give a developer? In other words, why else is this a good thing for SV?

Thanks!

 

It allows it to be played via Steam.

 

To elbatorate a bit, being on Steam gives Stardew Valley 4 major benefits any indie developer would very much enjoy having:

1) Exposure - Being on Steam increases the number of eyes that see your game by many orders over if a game was on, say, Desura and even moreso if the game was sold on the developers website alone. The number of potential buyers who will see SV on Steam within the first week alone will be dizzying.
2) Updates - Steamworks is widely seen as excellent software for getting patches out into the market; it's easy for the players as well as Steam just updates for you when an update is available.
3) It's a Green Light Title - Valve tends to push Green-Lit small or indie titles moreso than normal small or indie titles
4) Increased Sales - Very much a part of 1 and 3, but none the less needs stating, being on Steam will almost certainly result in SV being purchased by more customers than if it was being sold another way. More $$$ is always better.

Getting Green-Lit is about an '8' on the 1 to 10 scale of great things that can happen for a small or indie game and it's developer. Only being invited to one of the major conventions (I'd call that a 9) or having a massive publisher fall head over heels for your title and give you a very favorable contract (the 10; I'm not sure this has even happened) could be better.

It's almost like winning the Lottery.

 

To expound upon #4, now CA doesn't have to focus as much on advertising. Sure, you've got to advertise enough to get enough votes to be greenlit, but after that, you can just let steam do its thing.

 

also just the process of being greenlite advertises your game. I found Stardew Valley because I was going through the greenlite section of steam and voting on games.

 

Right, that works for some games, but a lot of the devs need to advertise enough to "win" not just to "get some votes"

 

it alouds it to be on steam
and sence its on steam most people wont pirate it lol
well i mean some would but not nearly as much as if it wasnt on steam

 

Battlemage pretty much explained everything that needs to be explained.

 

But he didn't. Once you get on greenlight you still have to advertise to get enough votes to even be published on steam. Not that what he said wasn't spot on, he just missed that bit.

 

How's that prevent pirating? Or you just mean that because you can transport the game from computer to computer by de-licensing and re-licensing, people would have less of an incentive to pirate due to lack of Digital Restriction Management?

 

more people are likly to buy a game on steam, then off some random site with paypal

 

That still doesn't prevent pirating, or really slow it all that much. The only thing I could think of would be that it's a bit more complicated to pirate steam games because of steam being a part of them... I think.

 

Not all Steam Games Require Steam to run though. A lot of such games just require a new .exe file to run. Some are even so simple that you can download the demo version and get a new .exe and unlock the entire game for free. Though that was the dev's fault for designing a demo that included the entire game and only required an steam purchase activation to unlock the entire game.

Pirating Material off steam is impossible unless the devs made it so, it still requires someone to purchase the material in the first place. In that regard, it is no different then a DVD/CD's material being purchased, then placed on the internet on some free-ware website, all it would require for most steam games as stated, is a new .exe file which avoids steam entirely when launching the game... you can do the same thing for Windows Live games, and often I do it to games I have like GTA IV, because I dislike Windows Live. But of course I purchased GTA IV, so I see nothing wrong with cracking it to avoid using a DVD to run the game and avoid Windows Live entirely. However that very ability allows people to download the game files, and use those very same cracks to avoid purchasing a game in the first place, sadly.

I remember asking someone about pirating before. Asked them "Why do you pirate?" reply was "Because the game is not worth buying." My reply was to that "if it was not worth buying, then why did you pirate it, as it must obviously not be worth playing?"

 

Well that's why I said it's just a bit more complicated because they have to create a crack that separates the game from steam. Not only that, but they have to upload a new crack everything there's an update for the game from steam, since they're not connected to it. Either way, I've seen a lot of pirated indie steam games where it involves just a simple .exe file standalone from steam.

 

You're not going to stop the pirating regardless, DVD/CD is the easiest to pirate hence why it is dying. If anyone knows how to use a DVD/CD right they can install onto other people's PCs and completely avoid the verification code, and after that all they'd have to do was use a CD crack. Walla, they just gave their friend a free copy of the game. lol

 

Well yeah. I know pirating isn't going to be completely stopped, it never truly is.

 

If you send the army after them, bomb their houses with bunker busters so they at least get into the basement. Far more convincing than a threat of having to pay fines and getting sued. =D

 

Hmhm I think that would work for almost any crime... xD But they probably don't even pay attention to the sue threat.

 

Wouldn't the point of joining Chucklefish be that they don't have to greenlight their game and just go straight on steam?