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steam

A collection of 24 posts

We don't actually know when many Steam games were first released

One of the most unreliable fields on a Steam's store page is the release date field.

Steam Diving Bell

Steam Diving Bell

Designing a tool for browsing Steam games "Wikipedia binge" style

So You Want To Compete With Steam: Epic, Discord, Kartridge, and RobotCache

So You Want To Compete With Steam: Epic, Discord, Kartridge, and RobotCache

Four new competitors have emerged to take on Steam: Epic, Discord, Kartridge, and RobotCache. Let's see how they stack up.

Operation Tell Valve All The Things, 3.0

Operation Tell Valve All The Things, 3.0

I surveyed a bunch of Steam developers and they told me how they feel about recent developments.

How to scientifically survey all of Steam's developers

If you ever wanted to survey every Steam developer in existence, here's how you might do that.

So You Want To Compete With Steam

So You Want To Compete With Steam

This article also available in: Russian [http://howtorecover.me/itak-vy-hotite-konkurirovat-so-steam] translation by HTR Mobile [http://howtorecover.me/] Uzbek [http://getdrawings.com/uz-steam-bilan-raqobat] translation by Drawings Team [http://getdrawings.com/]) I get a lot of pitches for "Steam competitors" in my inbox. 99% of them are doomed to failure,

Stores vs. Developers vs. Customers vs. Publishers

Stores vs. Developers vs. Customers vs. Publishers

All of the major game stores (Steam, GOG, Origin, Uplay, itch, etc) serve different groups at the same time, many of which have competing interests. Broadly speaking, they are: 1. Customers 2. Developers 3. Publishers 4. The store platforms themselves You'll often hear complaints about various stores (Steam,

Player-Friendly Atomic Game Modding

defenders-quest Featured

Player-Friendly Atomic Game Modding

Like many game devs, I got my start making mods for other games. And if your experience was anything like mine, you'll recall brilliant creative highs punctuated by long tedious slogs sorting through obscure and poorly documented data formats, unless you were really unlucky and reduced to directly

Steam Discovery 2.0, Stegosaurus Tail 2.0

Steam Discovery 2.0, Stegosaurus Tail 2.0

Our game Defender's Quest [http://www.defendersquest.com/1] will be five years old in just a few days, which is a good opportunity for a retrospective on how Steam has changed in that time. On November 8th of this year, Steam launched its much anticipated Discovery update

December's Quest

December's Quest

Hey everyone! Let's talk about what we've been up to lately. Stuff I'm gonna talk about today 1. DQDX engine Controller support 2. DQII progress tracker 3. New DQII tools 4. Have some free open source board games 1. DQDX engine Controller support So

G2A, Piracy, and the Four Currencies

4currencies Featured

G2A, Piracy, and the Four Currencies

I never thought the day would come where I would passionately argue that fans should pirate my game rather than pay for it, but here we are. That's conditional, of course. If you're going to be buying Defender's Quest [http://www.defendersquest.com] from

Supporting a single-player Indie RPG for Four Years

Supporting a single-player Indie RPG for Four Years

It's hard to believe, but on January 19th 2016, four whole years will have passed since we first released [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/defenders-quest-is-released/] our game Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten [http://www.defendersquest.com/1] . What's even harder to believe is that

Mods, Salutary Neglect, and Storks

Mods, Salutary Neglect, and Storks

Okay so let's talk about this whole Steam Workshop paid mods thing [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/241836/Game_mods_can_now_be_sold_on_the_Steam_Workshop_for_real_money.php] , the internet freakout [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/242074/5_takeaways_from_Gabe_Newells_

I Wish Upon a Steam

defender's quest

I Wish Upon a Steam

I write about Steam [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/tag/steam/] a lot, because they hold my fate in their hands like a tiny bird. (Photo by Chris Yarzab [https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisyarzab/], link [https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisyarzab/8074925450/in/photolist-diy71A-ajB9tp-4qMdBp-b56P1e-9QBnfy-9QBmBC-jzZxLe-74RvCN-bancLz-NYNVB-9QBog3-tCeRa-89Dr6d-26LDkx-84kQDT-6YTsCN-84oTdS-ff4ULS-6VSHX2-38x8Eb-3vg1r-6pE8r8-6pJg2A-amryiH-6pE8q4-2pHNuS-88RCYx-cxTsZm-ac2Hr1-b5at9Z-2JXgSt-49VyuH-8yRdA

Steam Traffic Patterns Deep Dive

defender's quest

Steam Traffic Patterns Deep Dive

So in a previous article [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/brave-newsteam-world/] I talked about the Steam Discoverability update [http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/09/22/steam-introduces-improved-discoverability-so-you-can-find-more-games-to-buy.aspx] (which I'm calling "NewSteam"). One of the big new features was a detailed traffic analysis, which Steam

Why are we releasing DQ1HD as a free upgrade?

We recently announced an HD re-release of Defender's Quest 1 [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/dq2-update-and-announcing-dq1hd/], and that it will be a free upgrade. Some people want to know why. Specifically, two things prompted me to write this article: 1. This thread [http://steamcommunity.com/app/218410/discussions/0/

Fixing Steam's User Rating Charts

Recently I wrote a big article [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/brave-newsteam-world/] about the new changes in Steam, and rendered my judgment: cautiously optimistic. After further reflection, my position is unchanged -- most of it's very good, but some things need work. NOTE: Although my tone throughout is quite

defender's quest

Brave NewSteam World

Over two years ago I wrote an article called The Holy Grail of Digital Distribution [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/the-holy-grail-of-digital-distribution/] where I described what an ideal digital game store might look like. In the last two weeks, Steam launched their long-anticipated storefront overhaul (which I'll call "NewSteam&

An Algorithm for Discovering "Hidden Gems"

So you've probably seen that Ars Technica article [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/introducing-steam-gauge-ars-reveals-steams-most-popular-games/] that has magically reverse-engineered every steam game's gross (sales+free-key-redemption) numbers. Everyone's talking about this graph: [http://www.bugs.fortressofdoors.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/steam-meter-graphs-4.001.png]

defender's quest

Playing Defender's Quest with the Steam Controller

So I got back from Steam Dev Days. You might have heard that everyone who attended got a Steam Controller prototype from Valve, as well as one of the many Steam Machine models (courtesy of Intel). Bottom line -- it's pretty good! Read on for more details. This

defender's quest

Steam Linux Sale : Results

Shortly after we published our giant sales report, Defender's Quest: By the Number, part 2 [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/186940/defenders_quest_by_the_numbers_.php] , the Steam Linux client officially went public and was accompanied by a site-wide sale. The Linux sale featured every single

Steam Launch Date: October 30th

Quick blog post because I haven't done one in a while. Defender's Quest STEAM launch date:October 30th, 2012 That's pretty soon. We will also be launching on Desura, Impulse, GamersGate, and GOG. We will launch at $9.99 USD and equivalent conversions in

defender's quest

Defender's Quest coming to Steam!

Before I give you guys the big announcement I've been promising, first thing's first - yes, we've heard all about Steam Greenlight [http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight], in fact you've all been emailing us pretty much non-stop about it :) Now for the announcement.

The Holy Grail of Digital Distribution

Cross-posted on Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20120607/172033/The_Holy_Grail_of_Digital_Distribution.php] . Twitter handle: @larsiusprime The challenge of being an independent developer is that so much of your game's success is out of your control. There's no Department of Internet