Overgrowth on Steam?

[d3ath_fly]

I was just wondering because I saw that Overgrowth was going to be on Steam. I already have a preorder, but I was wondering if I could cancel it for a Steam purchase just for convenience?

[Skofo]

Hm, I'm wondering this too.

The ability to register our keys inside Steam would be nice.

[Jeff]

I'll contact Steam about this, although I highly recommend sticking with us because it supports us directly, but via Steam, we need to share it with Valve Software, who had nothing to do with your preorder.

[Glabbit]

Plus, it generates hassle and paperwork, and no-one's fond of that. =o

[bigbutbald]

I'd also far rather have a Overgrowth on Steam.

[Jeff]

Btw, what can we do to help keep you guys on our own site instead of Valve? Basically what are some features that Steam has that we don't have. Any insight on how we can stay competitive with Valve would be really useful.

[tdg]

I for one can't stand Steam. Maybe it's because I live in Australia, so I have a very limited bandwidth... This causes me no end of hassles using steam. The constant updates, even when I turn off updates, is one of the biggest pains. The whole system is really disgusting from my perspective: it effectively means I have to pay extra money just to play games I've already paid for in full. (Due to the fact that I have to pay per bit of downloaded content...)

Anyway, one thing that would make me even happier to stick with Wolfire (not that I'd go over to Steam), would be something physical. For example, a boxed version or a figurine... The more value you can add without adding inconvenience, the happier people will be in general.

[Skofo]

Btw, what can we do to help keep you guys on our own site instead of Valve? Basically what are some features that Steam has that we don't have. Any insight on how we can stay competitive with Valve would be really useful.

I just like adding to my collection of games on Steam. Almost every game I've recently bought and enjoyed has been from Steam, so I wouldn't mind tacking Overgrowth on there. This is a petty thing, though, at least for me. I won't request a refund just to buy the game again on Steam. I'm trying to make a slow transition away from Windows, anyway.

As for keeping people from requesting refunds to buy the game on Steam, maybe an extra preorder quirk? Like letting alpha/beta testers have a different special name colour in multiplayer or something? This is just a random idea, I don't really recommend it. I think it'd end up alienating some of the non-preorder players. The alpha/beta builds should be enough encouragement to keep (at least almost) everyone here.

[Ozymandias]

You can add games to your steam list, they'll just be considered 'non-steam games'

[Silverfish]

Btw, what can we do to help keep you guys on our own site instead of Valve?

Why I would like to have my copy on Steam (but I won't since I don't like the idea of Valve stealing your money), is mainly because of the auto update feature. If you made a simple updater my problems would be solved.

If you would like to be really competitive you could enable users to bind their key to a password that they would use together with their email to log on to an updater. This updater would download the game and its latest updates from fast servers without any user interaction (game installation, patch insallers).

When you make more games you could have the updater include all your games, when you log in with your mail and pass, all games you have bought would be 1 click away from installation. Like "what if greenhouse made a client?", how much do the greenhouse dudes steal anyway? I'd use that client all day long, it'd be the pwnage!

[namuol]

Steam's nice and all, but who doesn't have a moderately-sized thumb drive these days?
Stick with direct payment, those pre-orders are funding the game's development, guys!

[BunnyWithStick]

What the hell? You would actually switch to steam FOR auto-updating?! I hate that! It should always be off by default in anything I download, IMO.

If I want to update something, I will do so myself, rather than wasting bandwidth that I probably didn't want to waste in the first place at that point in time.

Even if it is only ten megabytes for a tiny little fix.

[tdg]

What the hell? You would actually switch to steam FOR auto-updating?! I hate that! It should always be off by default in anything I download, IMO.

If I want to update something, I will do so myself, rather than wasting bandwidth that I probably didn't want to waste in the first place at that point in time.

Even if it is only ten megabytes for a tiny little fix.

+1

[Silverfish]

What the hell? You would actually switch to steam FOR auto-updating?! I hate that! It should always be off by default in anything I download, IMO.

If I want to update something, I will do so myself, rather than wasting bandwidth that I probably didn't want to waste in the first place at that point in time.

Even if it is only ten megabytes for a tiny little fix.

Well you could always skip the update... The thing is that I don't want to have to check wolfire.com/overgrowth every time I want a patch. I'm sure the programmers at Wolfire would come up with some genious solution, maybe it could be downloaded while you play and quickly applied the next time you start the game with nothing but a quick notification.

[Skofo]

What the hell? You would actually switch to steam FOR auto-updating?! I hate that! It should always be off by default in anything I download, IMO.

If I want to update something, I will do so myself, rather than wasting bandwidth that I probably didn't want to waste in the first place at that point in time.

Even if it is only ten megabytes for a tiny little fix.

Well you could always skip the update... The thing is that I don't want to have to check wolfire.com/overgrowth every time I want a patch. I'm sure the programmers at Wolfire would come up with some genious solution, maybe it could be downloaded while you play and quickly applied the next time you start the game with nothing but a quick notification.

I think you could live without getting the occasional patch as soon as it is released. And I if there are any that you are not aware of yet, I'm pretty sure that there will be version compatibility checks in multiplayer games.

But anyway, I wouldn't mind Overgrowth checking itself for updates, but I'd mind it downloading them by itself (I may be conserving bandwidth for something else atm). Perhaps a background check for new versions at startup and a notice/link on a corner of the title screen when there's a new patch (i.e. "Upgrade to v1.16.23.42 (4/8/15)") would work well.