Hi

I'm a total newbie when it comes to self publishing games to digital platforms like desura and steam (being nothing than a wanna-be-Indie hobby dev at the moment) ...

Having heard not much good things about an Indies chances to get through the steam green light process without help I wonder, is there anything stopping you from publishing your game to other services like desura (no idea if this would be easier to get on), and only start the green light process when you found a healthy bunch of customers and fans there?

I would imagine getting greenlighted can only get easier the more well known your game is to the public, so releasing it somewhere else before steam sounds like a good idea to me.

Thanks in advance for any information

Gian-Reto

There are many titles which has been published on desura and steam, therefor it should work. Publishing on desura seems to be a lot easier than getting your title greenlit, but when you compare sales figures of steam vs desura, then you will see, that steam is THE plattform to go for.

Yeah steam is not exclusive, so they accept games that have already been published elsewhere, and after you get on steam you can continue to sell your game through other channels as well.

Building a customer base through other means first, so that it's easier to get greenlit sounds like a sensible plan.

Thanks for the replies, guys!

I thought that steam would be a much stronger platform when it comes to the audience you can reach, I just don't think its the best start for a fledling indie like me yet. I rather have a modest success on desura (or any other non-steam platform) than completly fail on steam, especially when the two platforms are not exclusive to each other.

I think, it will be a staged approach for me, first trying to get it out there by any means possible (giving kickstart-backers, if I will give kickstarter a try somewhere down the line, a way to access the game), and as soon as it looks like there is a community around the game, try to get it on steam to grow it further.

Some points on Steam Greenlight. It is discussed that this system will change in the future, as its currently creating a bottle-neck for Valve. But details on how it will change or what approach they will take in the future remains to be seen.

Demographically speaking, Steam gives you as the developer access to more gamers than you could dream of reaching on any other platform. The average "Top 50" Greenlight project has over 38,000 people vote that "Yes, I would buy this". For titles that are actually greenlit, that number is much higher. You do the math on that, even if only half of these potential buyers actually buy- suddenly you've sold 20,000+ copies of your $10 game. Obviously the nature of the beast though is that you need these thousands and thousands of gamers to approve your game on Steam for it to even be Greenlit. Which means your game and pitch are quite good.

At the very least though, Greenlight provides something to developers they've never had: Access to thousands of gamers who will instantly tell you if your game concept or technology prototype is even worth buying. You can use the platform to not only get exposure for your project, but you can also quickly find out if gamers even find your project interesting. You will find their feedback is QUITE honest. But at least you will not have to worry about your mom sugar-coating. You can find out if your concept is solid 2 months into the dev cycle verses working for a year on a game that you come to find out has zero interest to most gamers.