Adding the game to steam

[wiki_me]

Why I think it will be beneficial:

• it is very popular and it’s website has a lot of visitors (Alexa ranks it as the 314 most popular website on the internet).
• Seeing a lot of good reviews can really tip the scales and make me (and probably others) take a chance on trying a game (it’s basically social proof), it could lead to more exposure which will mean more developers and more feedback (former developer of naev said it brought new developers).
• Steam is one of the only game review systems that i know of which is able to rank games only based on "recent reviews" (besides gog.com), so if a game starts badly and keeps getting developed and becomes good the old review don't prevent it from getting a good rating, this is especially good for open source games that can have a very long history of development (being developed for more then a 15 years is common).
• Another nice feature of steam is that you can find reviews for players that played more then a certain number of hours , some games can be half done and a review after three hours of play time might not reflect problems, a review after say 30h indicates you can pour some time into it without the game failing (and you will have to wait for a newer version and maybe play it until the point you reached before because save files are not always compatible with future versions).
• Some FOSS projects on steam have a price (for example the game Mindustry ). Maybe you could use that for funding and paying freelancers to create graphics and sound (iirc this is what shattered pixel dungeon does).
• early feedback can be useful, there is a saying that if you are not embarrassed when releasing the software then you released it too late, steam can mark a game as early access (like supertux does) so there is no danger of disappointing players because the game isn’t fully polished.

[impaktor]

We've spoken briefely about steam. Basically, we need more stability/fewer bugs, an in-game tutorial, and perhaps replaced face gen, and probably more stable development cycle, to deal with onslaught of bug reports, and other issues that comes with the broader exposure.

[bszlrd]

Face-gen might be a part that could draw in some talent hopefully, who would tackle it? (even though the thing is cursed)
I agree with that if we assume that steam would draw in lots of bug reports and such, we migh want to be prepared to handle that.
Save game backwards compatibility likely would be a major pain point for example.
But on the other hand if it would draw in contributors as well, that would be quite nice.

[wiki_me]

We've spoken briefely about steam. Basically, we need more stability/fewer bugs, an in-game tutorial, and perhaps replaced face gen, and probably more stable development cycle, to deal with onslaught of bug reports, and other issues that comes with the broader exposure.

Regarding doubts about the game maturity, I think the best attitude is release early release often, getting as much feedback as soon as possible, naev is on steam and iirc it has a pop up saying the game is not done and it still got pretty good reviews (A reviewer gave him a "thumbs up" review despite mentioning incomplete quests) . supertux also has a low release number.

If you are worried about the game getting too many bug reports, steam has a feature where the game is playtested and you can limit the number of players trying the game (space station 14 uses this) , but it's such a niche market i doubt that would be nessecary .

[FluffyFreak]

It's a non-trivial amount of work to put the game on Steam, though I did look into it a few years ago.
You need to setup a fair few assets https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/assets

The bigger question for me is if it is a good fit for Steam, meaning, does it give the team what they want?
It can be nice to have a game on there for a number of reasons, even career ones, but not if it puts more work on volunteers shoulders and gamers are notoriously demanding and unforgiving.

[wiki_me]

The bigger question for me is if it is a good fit for Steam, meaning, does it give the team what they want?
It can be nice to have a game on there for a number of reasons, even career ones

I can't speak for other people, but what i find motivating and enjoyable is feedback that improves my knowledge and skills, and steam should get the project more feedback , either by getting plenty of reviews on steam or the extra issues posted on github.

gamers are notoriously demanding and unforgiving.

I don't think that is a problem, i linked to other open source games that are getting very good reviews, there are more like these (e.g. endless sky and battle for wesnoth), and you could always have a pop up in the game saying it's a volunteer led game.