Factorio Forums

Friday => Friday Facts: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-15

Looks wonderful. Really nice.

Some little idea: I though "This looks like on earth". To underline, that it is another vegetation (and because of different sun with different spectrum) the trees (and the green plants in general) could be more blue or red (one of both directions). Only a bit, just much enough to think "This looks a bit strange?".

Hi,

great to look at, if the ingame design would look like that, it would be sufficient for a long time. it makes the charme of those games, a bit pixel-look, but its great, i love it.

looking foward to the oil industry. really exited about that.
Regards,
Wredi

I must say that I'm looking forward to new features. Even multiplayer even thou I probably won't be spending too much time in it as I don't have many gamer friends.

But as far as getting Factorio to Steam goes:
Take my advice and don't rush getting Factorio on Steam.
I understand that publishing Factorio on steam would greatly increase the player base and consuqentually make you earn more money which can be invested in further development. But getting Factorio to Steam is still might not be a verry good idea. Why?
Factorio is higly moddable game. And since you can't guarantee that updating to newest version of Factorio won't break some existing mods you can quickly end up with lots of players who won't ba able to continue playing their existing maps due to that athleast not until their used mods get updated. This is especilly big problem with Steam since by default Steam client always keep its games fully updated.
I myself own another highly moddable game named Kerbal Space Program and I can remember what its forums looked like soon after KSP got to Steam:
- My game no longer works, it worked OK just yesterday!
- Newest update screwed my game. I want a refund!
- I had to reinstal the older version of KSP just to be able to play it with my favoorites mods.
- etc.
You see while Steam is nice platform for nonmodable games it is quite terrible for modable games.

So let me offer you two alternatives to steam. It is true that using these won't make Factorio as recognizable as using Steam potentionally could but still they could help you increase your playerbase alot and they don't have so strict rules as Steam.
1. Desura (http://www.desura.com/development)
Desura is nice digital distribution platform which offers you the use of their client and updating mechanizm but doesn't force you to use them as Steam does. You can always download Standalone versions of the games they offer (no need to use their client) and you can use your own updating mechanizm if you wish (one you already have).
Desura supports Windows, MacOS and Linux platforms not sure about iOS but Factorio isn't actually intended for Mobile devices.
The only drawback of Desura is that it can take a few days before they veriffy your newest version (standalone version or using their updatin system). But you won't have to much trouble with this since you already have your own updating system.
If my memory serves me correctly Desura takes only 30 % of your sales revenue but I'm not sure. I suggest you check that out first.
2. IndieDB (http://www.indiedb.com/)
IndieDB is a digital distribution platform which as far as I know don't have their own client or updating system. So it doesn't actually have any limitations on its own. It seems it havs close relations with Desura and several other Digital distribution systems.

A friend of mine distributed his game through mentioned sites and got huge popularity gain for it. For short period of time his game popularity on that site was almost as good as Minecraft popularity. But the truth is that his game is Freeware so many more pepole decided to go and give it a try that othervise would.
You can read some more about this game here (post #49 marks start of distribution of his game on sugested siets):
http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/sh ... quot/page5

So I suggest you go and distrbute your game through suggested sites first and you can get to steam later on when your game would be much better and its development more stable which would atract even more pepole.

@SilverWarrior Those are some valid points. We will think them over, though from what I understood reading some forums / stats Desura (and IndieDB which is closely affiliated) has much lower reach than Steam (or recently GoG). Though that information is hardly verifiable.

Anyway we plan to take things things slowly with the Steam. We do need to raise awareness for Factorio (once the new trailer is done). And doing the Steam Greenlight campaign is already a good promotional campaing. If we succeed (that can take several months) then from there it will take again couple of months (I suppose) to coordinate everything with the steam. So IMO in the optimistic scenario we are looking at 6+ months from the moment we start the Greenlight campaign till when the game can go on steam. Also we don't plan to go to the regular steam section but to the alpha access instead (people are a bit more tolerant there I suppose).

Maybe if the game does well and we attract more players (we really have high hopes for the new trailer:D) we can wait with the Steam once we are much better prepared. Let's see how it unfolds ...

slpwnd wrote:We will think them over, though from what I understood reading some forums / stats Desura (and IndieDB which is closely affiliated) has much lower reach than Steam (or recently GoG). Though that information is hardly verifiable.

You are right Desura and IndieDB realy have much lower reach than Steam. Main reason for this is that Steam is one of the first digital distribution platforms and most big AAA games are distributed through it. And becouse the Steam mostl distributes big AAA games pepole expect a lot from any games there. Not getting that can crate a lot of negative hype.
The main reason why I would chose the Desura and IndieDB instead of Steam at this time is that they don't enforce any limitation to you (embeding of steam API, using their own updating policy, etc.).

Another reason why I think you should expand Factorios fanbase slowly is the fact that if you manage to quickly get lets say 1000 of new fans half of them will have new bright or not so bright ideas. So they will come to forums and share their ideas.
I know that this might seem apealing at first. Who doesn't wanna hear new ideas for game improbment? But the fact is that if there are to many pepole sharing their ideas it can become hard or nearly imposible to track them.
As an example I suggest you check out the Kerbal Space Program forums and you will probably understand what I mean.
KSP forums are so active that it is imposible for developers to track what is going on on them. So they went and actually hired some pepole to read through the forums and pass forward some interesting suggestions, conecntrated bug reposts, etc.
But there is a problem in this. Since these pepole are not developers there is great posibility that they might not pass a good suggestion that developer might like, just becouse they don't like it themselves, or they don't pass the relavent information about fixing some bug.
I once even hat to directly PM the developers about solving a bug in their game becouse forum moderators (pepole who forward what they thing usefull information to developers) didn't belive that I could have figured out why that bug is apearing becuse it actually dind't apear on my computer but I was able to fogure out why it is happening by readin of over 50 crash logs from multiple pepole. And if I wouldn't have PM-ed the developers at that time I wonder when would they have discovred the cause of that bug.

So that is why I'm recomending to go for Desura and IndieDB at start. And if going to Desura and IndieDB doesn't produce desired results (not enough new players atracted) you can still try getting to Steam later.

if you wish, you can even use "plateforms" such as indiegamestand.com, or www.humblebundle.com, or others of that kind. of course,with day to day offers, you would not necessarily gain 10$ per games, but the two above have a store where the price is fixed, and would give you great visibility ! (or at least, I think)