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Distribution Should I start selling my game on DRM-free stores? (GOG, Itch.io, ...)

Phoebe Klim

Member
Hey, guys, I've got a game on Steam and I've been wondering if I should try selling it at some other store, not just Steam.

That's what I think about it:

PROS:

- More copies sold?
- The game would be released again and would appear on store "New" categories. Big positive to me.

CONS:

- Harder to update. It's still in beta, so that's a pretty big negative.
- Demo version that was available on GameJolt appeared in like 10 suspicious websites. I assume if I uploaded full version, it would quickly end up there as well.

What do you think?
 
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PhenomenalDev

Guest
- Harder to update. It's still in beta, so that's a pretty big negative.

>Not harder to update at all, different method but not harder.

- Demo version that was available on GameJolt appeared in like 10 suspicious websites. I assume if I uploaded full version, it would quickly end up there as well.

>Piracy is a given in this day and age, you just have to suck it up and agree to lose some copies.
 

Phoebe Klim

Member
>Not harder to update at all, different method but not harder.
I meant that it would take more time to update.
>Piracy is a given in this day and age, you just have to suck it up and agree to lose some copies.
on the other hand there are plenty people that use pirated versions as "tryout' and buy the game if they like it
I'm not afraid of piracy itself. I'm afraid of wasting a lot of time releasing/updating the game and then getting nothing out of it + putting the game on pirate sites.
It needs to be worth my time.

If I can get 20% of what I get on Steam, I'd do it.
 
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frumple

Guest
"Piracy" can help spread a game around. It's hard to say if it's mostly beneficial or damaging. It can be both.

If it makes anyone feel any better, then know that there are people who will never, ever, eeever pay money to play a game, or use some application or whatever. Not ever. It just does not compute for them, and it's not worth losing sleep over it. Accept it, and engage your paying fans, and ignore the rest.

Perhaps a DRM free version is more likely to be pirated, but if someone wants your game, they will get it one way or another. Meanwhile, there is a small but vocal crowd of DRM-free fans and Steam skeptics, so you have to ask yourself what have you got to lose? Time and effort maintaining another version is one thing. Anything else? I don't know. At least when it comes to GOG you are not including a Steam key with the purchase, which is common practise in places such as Indiegamestand for example.
 
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MishMash

Guest
Whilst selling your game on as many platforms as possible is generally beneficial, if your game is not performing as you want it to on Steam, perhaps it is better to try and find reasons why. Spending time working on both improving your game, and improving how you are marketing your game are very valuable things. This being said, having it on other stores shouldn't hurt too much (aside from piracy concerns), though the boost you get in marketing through those stores may not be as good as you hope it might be.

The other thing to consider is that in order for those pirated copies to appear, someone will have to buy your game from one of those stores in the first place :p The other thing to consider is whether piracy is actually a concern or not. As PhenomenalDev said, piracy is just one of those things we experience in modern culture. My personal attitude towards it is that piracy doesn't have as profound of an impact on games as it could do, simply because I believe that there is a huge community of honest gamers out there willing to buy you game. The ones who illegally downloaded it may not have ever been in a position to buy the game in the first place. (Obviously this is not always true, but I feel that piracy is less of an issue for smaller titles than it is for big triple-A behemoths). People have to know your game exists in order to know that they can pirate it.

So to conclude, i'd worry less about piracy, and worry more about actually marketing your game more effectively. Yes, you should put it on other platforms, but perhaps this should just be one stage towards improving the accessibility of your title.
 

sylvain_l

Member
Yes, put it on other distribution platforms. Don't put all your eggs in only one basket :p.

I would say, good luck to reach GOG, they are much harder to get in that greenlight; but worth the try (if I remember well, Prison Architect get rejected at first try - for a game that sold more that 1M copies :D -). Some of recent AAA titles sold as much copy on GOG then on steam.

I don't remember the exact stats of the guy who made regency solitaire, but he had a solid amount of sells outside steam. I think it was also him who advise was even not to start on steam, but on smaller platform like indigamestand, where you can get better feedback to polish your game before putting it on steam. The false believe that to be a serious indie you have to be on steam, is more the result of valve successful marketing of their platform (on players & devs) then what the best for you in reality.


piracy, is a half-false problem. Cite any successful indie/AAA game that didn't get pirated^^. Being afraid of piracy and missing opportunities because of that cost you as much or even more then piracy itself! (and from some story I read, it seams today what worse is the chargebacks on credit card and stole of key resell through stolen card)
first, because a pirated copy = a sell missed is just an hypothesis, not the reality (I truely believe you loose some sell, but thinking that every download is a sell missed, is just silly - and seriously, what do you want max your sell, or players being happy about their buy and build a long term confidence in the audience ?)
don't remember who said something like this: You should hope to get pirated. Bad games don't survive on P2P, who want to take the risk of sharing a pirated version of a bad game ! (personnally I think it's more the ratio of the quality of the games/overprice/hype - that could also mean, that if you don't get pirated, you don't charge the max, so perhaps you don't optimize your revenue - but in some way, piracy is some form of advertisement, that not cost much more then PR)
 

Phoebe Klim

Member
So to conclude, i'd worry less about piracy, and worry more about actually marketing your game more effectively. Yes, you should put it on other platforms, but perhaps this should just be one stage towards improving the accessibility of your title.
I really don't know where to start with the marketing - I tried few things, but they are ineffective - and releasing on more platforms is probably the only real thing that I can do to get more attention.
The false believe that to be a serious indie you have to be on steam, is more the result of valve successful marketing of their platform (on players & devs) then what the best for you in reality.
Now that's a powerful argument =]
 

Genetix

Member
As a plus for releasing on other platforms - It will drive up your search engine optimization (SEO). Google indexes everything and elevates things that it finds located many places.

Even having small youtube channels cover your game can have a great effect, because Google and other search providers will see that it is being linked to and referenced around the web and therefore it will show up more often as people search. To that end, by releasing the game on other platforms it can ultimately help people find it more often everywhere else they go, even if they never directly see it on the other platform.
 

YanBG

Member
You could also try humble bundle, but it's harder to release it there or GoG, compared to Steam.
 

Phoebe Klim

Member
As a plus for releasing on other platforms - It will drive up your search engine optimization (SEO). Google indexes everything and elevates things that it finds located many places.
Hm, I didn't think about that. Interesting.
You could also try humble bundle, but it's harder to release it there or GoG, compared to Steam.
I think IndieProspector had the list of stores, I'll look it up if I'll need it.
 

Jabbers

Member
MishMash hit the nail on the head. Steam is your best bet for selling a game with minimal marketing. It is harder to shift copies on smaller stores, you have to do a lot more of the marketing work yourself. You won't necessarily get any long term benefit by releasing your game through other stores, unless those stores are willing to help market the game for you.

You're right to be concerned about piracy. One of my DRM-free games made it to a Russian site for "small games" that would steal indie products and short casual games and give them away for free. Thousands of people downloaded it there, whereas the legitimate copy performed poorly. Their copy was also "cracked" despite having no DRM, and the executable size was 3mb larger, suspiciously. Would any of those people have paid for the game had the illegal copy not ranked high in the Google search? Who knows.
 

YanBG

Member
My game's early versions that i put on IndieDB were posted on "small games" straight away, even the updates(they have bots that visit the site everyday). But earlier this month i released the latest version on Itch.io without a price tag and they didn't find it lol. That said i doubt that many people use their torrents and even if they do are probably poor/won't buy the games anyway. Big studios make games only for North American, European and Far Eastern markets.

My marketing is very bad/non-existant and i didn't make any sales so far, from Itch.io and Gamejolt there are about 50 free downloads in total for more than a year and that's only because i posted it few times on GM's Reddit(our communty is rather big and i assume new people like to check a bit more advanced projects for tips). These non-steam distributors have like 100 games on the main page before you get to my game even on the day i got over 1000 visits from reddit. So during the rest of the time everything is buried down and there is noone that will visit your game through their site alone.
 

Phoebe Klim

Member
Let's update this then!

PROS:

- More copies sold.
- The game would be released again and would appear on store "New" categories.
- The game will become easier to find on Google.
- The game will be pirated. That could be beneficial.

CONS:

- It may be impossible to sell anything without proper marketing.
- Updating/managing game on many sites would take a lot of time
- Certain game stores are difficult to get in.
- The game will be pirated. That could be harmful.
 

gmx0

Member
There are sites that already pirate Steam-only versions of a game.

If you are clever, you release a different version of your game on Pirate Bay with a pirate-theme, or another fail-safe protection additional to DRM. For example, if you pirate Mirror's Edge, the game works, but you can't jump while running, which makes the gameplay itself unbearable. Game Dev Tycoon shows a message in its pirated version that says "The game has been pirated, and so the studio has lost all of its money" and the game ends before the final stretch. Stuff like that.

Game Jolt also now has a security key feature you can implement in your games should you choose their service.
 
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