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Wrapping Up Major Milestones

  • Red_Nova
  • 05/02/2018 06:40 PM
  • 3369 views
Thankfully, an April Fool's blog saved us the trouble of wasting everyone's times with a boring, "yeah, I'm still working on this," blog. That being said... yeah, I'm still working on this.

I said I'd finish the dialogue last blog, and I did. Now I can switch between editing the dialogue and continue working on other aspects of the game. Since I'm nearly done with mapping, that's going to be my focus next. After finishing the outline, I went back into level design and finished all the maps for Aeyr and Mia 4. In terms of mapping, all I need to do now is the final dungeon, and that'll be one major chunk of work completed.

Now that I'm near the end of development, I need to get on something I should have started a while ago: distribution method. Ever since the decision was made to go commercial, Steam was going to be my go-to location. While it's still pretty high on the list thanks to its massive potential audience, I'm wondering if I might find better chances in places like itch.io or somewhere. Right now, I don't even know if releasing on multiple platforms is an option. If it is, great. If ANYONE has experience with this sort of thing, I'd greatly value your input on this.

At my current pace, I think I'll still be able to finish and release this near the end of summer, which gives me about 3-4 months starting as of this writing. As soon as I have a finalized date, I'll make sure to let you know. Thanks for reading, and wish me luck as I get closer and closer to that finish line!

Posts

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Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I may not know a thing about porting to multiple platforms, but, I'll cheer for this game's success!
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
I'm pretty sure you can put a commercial game on both itch.io and Steam, but it would be nice to hear from someone who knows better on the topic ^_^
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=Marrend
I may not know a thing about porting to multiple platforms, but, I'll cheer for this game's success!


Thank you so much!

author=unity
I'm pretty sure you can put a commercial game on both itch.io and Steam, but it would be nice to hear from someone who knows better on the topic ^_^


Yeah, I'd be really interested in hearing other people's accounts. I'm hoping it's perfectly fine to put it on as many platforms as I want, but... *nervous sweating*
I only ever ended up putting my commercial game on Steam and that was right before Steam Greenlight ended and Steam Direct opened the floodgates.

I'd say Steam is still gong to be the bulk of your sales even if you do cross-upload, since it still does have SOME barrier to entry even though its vetting process is mostly gone.

That said, itch.io is a great second choice, and I have all my projects uploaded on there as well and they're still downloaded fairly often. Things tend to get buried pretty quickly on there, but it will also give buyers the option to have a DRM-free version of the game if they don't want to get it on Steam.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Having a DRM-free option is a major contender for uploading to other places. I've personally talked to people who actively refused a Steam key for Remnants of Isolation precisely because it was on Steam.

Sounds like, if I were to upload to multiple places, itch.io would be the way to go. Thanks for sharing your experience!
NeverSilent
Got any Dexreth amulets?
6280
I'm definitely in favour of having a DRM-free download available for purchase as well. Although I don't know a whole lot about its workings yet, itch.io seems like a solid platform for this.

Another hosting site you could take a look at is the Humble Store, which sees a lot of traffic as far as I'm aware. There are a few RPG Maker games available on there already, and it seems like they accept new games to be sold on there:
https://www.humblebundle.com/developer

I honestly don't know if their conditions for hosting commercial games are any good, though, so it might end up not being an acceptable option for you. But I figured I should at least bring up the idea.
I think people tend to cluster around whichever games service they're most familiar with--and sometimes they do this with such passion that they won't pick up games on any other service.

My go-to is Steam. Even though I try not to have a bias, I would probably hesitate over a free itch.io key.

I don't know enough about the time/effort/money cost to put a game up on different distribution services, but if it's low enough that it doesn't seriously interfere with development and support, it's probably worth trying a few places and then comparing the sales data to guide future decisions.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Thanks for the feedback, guys! I'll take it all into account during the search.
You can definitely do multiple platform releases. Hell, I've actually bought the same game on two different platforms when I had technical problems with one, to support a creator I'm a patron of.

Steam has by far the largest audience, but their submission standards can be erratic and inconsistently applied. I don't think there's any reason they'd be likely not to accept your game though.
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