What do you think of Steam Direct?

[ambershee]

@Selentic;668815

We’re in this situation in no small part because publishers were so immensely garbage that they drove a lot of people all the way into the hands of independent studios, and we’re better off for it. Over the last decade and some we’ve gotten countless games that never would have gotten made under the traditional studio/publisher model.

Remember Amnesia? The game that sparked the resurgence of mainstream horror games after they had been completely absent for ages?

Remember The Ship, Torchlight, Factorio, Stardew Valley, Defense Grid. All games that filled a void that publishers failed to fill for years?

Fact checking time.

Amnesia wasn’t Frictional’s first game - they were an established studio with three titles behind them at the time of releasing Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Their previous three titles (the Penumbra series - stylistically similar and in the same genre) were published by Paradox. To say that the game couldn’t have been made under a studio/publisher model is quite erroneous given that it’s three predecessors were. Frictional however had the ability to self publish for their fourth title; so they did exactly that.

Torchlight was an investor backed team of veterans, and ultimately was published by Perfect World. Stardew Valley was published by Chucklefish.

The Ship is exceptional in that it is a mod that later saw a standalone release as a game. Factorio was crowdfunded through indiegogo and through it’s revenue from essentially being ‘early access’ for a few years.

Numerous publishers exist for these kinds of games. More importantly, all of these examples had the capacity to spend $5000+ on the proposed Steam entry fee.