A case for publishing the game on Steam

[Wuzzy]

If you don't like Steam, don't use Steam. It's as simple as that.

This is missing the point. This topic is not about whether we should use Steam as users.
Its about whether we, as a community, endorse a platform such as Steam.

Also, I doubt few players are even aware of all the scary anti-features and their impact, so few of them actually make an informed decision.

And frankly, I think saying “If you don't like it, don't use it” is completely missing the point here. This implies that this is really just about my personal dislike and that the problems don't really matter enough for anybody else. As if I would just imagine that Steam has malicious features like scanning your entire RAM. So, frankly, I disagree completely.

I don't have anything against the idea of Steam. But I do have something against its execution. Frankly, I think nobody should be forced to “buy” convenience with e.g. having their entire computer scanned. This is just crazy. How this can be acceptable to anybody is a mystery to me.

And as I stated multiple times already, Minetest does NOT have to be popular. Minetest can continue just fine without being on Steam. We CAN afford not being on Steam.
But if popularity IS your goal: I think if Minetest becomes something truly great, it might even become very popular on its own, even without Steam. Simply when people start talking about it. It's not as if Steam is the only way to make Minetest known.

[azekill_DIABLO]

Steam does real crap with games, sometimes breaking compatibility and giving a bad idea of the game. You should really think to itch.io, it would be a good option!

[PolySaken]

I Think that minetest should be on steam.
Only once 0.5.0 is out as the latest stable version.

[redblade7]

Steam takes everything, including compiling from source, hacking existing mods to fit your needs, running a server and handling kicks and bans (and what mod to use for doing so, if you're allowed to use anything not associated with Steam accounts and VAC to begin with) yourself, setting it up on your VPS, etc out of your hands and into theirs. DRM or not, forget it. If you sign the game and its mods over to Steam, there will be fallout by people like me who don't want to give Steam backdoor access to possibly everything on their VPS (secure.enable_security anyone?) shutting down their servers forever.

[rubenwardy]

running a server and handling kicks and bans (and what mod to use for doing so, if you're allowed to use anything not associated with Steam accounts and VAC to begin with)

That's not true. Unlike the Xbox, Steam does not require you to use their account system or servers to play the game.

compiling from source,
hacking existing mods to fit your needs,
setting it up on your VPS

Citation please, smells like BS

DRM or not, forget it.

DRM is optional on Steam, we obviously won't be using it

If you sign the game and its mods over to Steam, there will be fallout by people like me who don't want to give Steam backdoor access to possibly everything on their VPS (secure.enable_security anyone?) shutting down their servers forever

It's your loss if you leave the community for something that isn't even a problem

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The only thing that may happen is an encouragement to use Steam workshops for mods - it's more convenient for users at least, even if not required. I don't see this as much of an issue unless they require you to remove any in-game mod stores

[redblade7]

DRM or not, forget it.

we obviously won't be using it

So we definitely are doing this? Has every mod designer signed off on it?

If you sign the game and its mods over to Steam, there will be fallout by people like me who don't want to give Steam backdoor access to possibly everything on their VPS (secure.enable_security anyone?) shutting down their servers forever

It's your loss if you leave the community for something that isn't even a problem

How would VAC not need access to shell (wouldn't it be needed to scan RAM using closed-source code)?

[rubenwardy]

So we definitely are doing this? Has every mod designer signed off on it?

We don't need every mod developer to "sign off" on it, and that's a stupid thing to do.
We only need celeron55's approval to make it official.

How would VAC not need access to shell (or to scan RAM)?

That comes as part of installing Steam, not from Minetest. Minetest would remain available independently - which is perfectly allowed, lots of games do it. You do not need to install Steam on a server, and you'd probably find that difficult anyway.

Ultimately if you don't like Steam, don't install Steam

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My opinion is that Minetest should probably go on Steam at some point, but it's currently not good enough. It needs lots of work polishing UIs and making it easier to make good games. Plus good games bundled by default

[PolySaken]

people seem to fail to understand that putting up a version on steam doesn't instantly destroy minetest.
It's just another way of installing that many people would likely find easier.

[redblade7]

We don't need every mod developer to "sign off" on it, and that's a stupid thing to do.

If the mod is GPLv3 or Creative Commons with -NC you might. Mods might have to be digitally signed by Valve's key

[rubenwardy]

If the mod is GPLv3 or Creative Commons with -NC you might. Mods might have to be digitally signed by Valve's key

Please stop making stuff up. Unlike the App Store, Steam is perfectly fine with copy-left software

[ANAND]

My thoughts - Steam is the ideal platform to "spread the word" about Minetest, but there's still a lot to modify and / or refine (IMO), before it makes the bow on the center-stage in front of a much-larger audience. From the previous posts, it is clear that there are no major hurdles from the Steam platform itself. However, we might have to wait for 0.5.0 before we can choose sides...

[Linuxdirk]

Steam is the ideal platform to "spread the word" about Minetest, but there's still a lot to modify and / or refine […]

As long as those modifications are not just because they are needed to publish on Steam it’s fine I guess. As soon as a game changes because of Steam it’s lost.

[ANAND]

As long as those modifications are not just because they are needed to publish on Steam it’s fine I guess. As soon as a game changes because of Steam it’s lost.

True - I too wasn't hinting at modifying Minetest just for Steam - I was referring to the general refinements and the polish that Minetest needs, to be released to a whole new audience (who are typically not as familiar with the concept of FOSS), as there are still some minor flaws and bugs in the engine. Can't blame the dev team for this either - they're doing the best they can IMO... Again, we can't take a stand prior to the advent of 0.5.0 :)

[lightseer]

Personally, I absolutely hate Steam. I don't get it why people voluntarily install it. I will always remember it as the MS Windows application which was forced on me to play some of Valve's games. It was awful. There is a reason why you can find many no-Steam cracks in the cracker scene. Hint: It's not becaue Steam is so great. Also, Steam is proprietary software. Surprise! Why exactly should we care about proprietary software? It would also send the message that we, as a community, are absolutely fine with proprietary software.

What is completely out of question is that Minetest starts using any of Steam's APIs, DLLs, and whatnot because you have to depend on proprietary software. I hope we can at least agree on that.

Also, I don't even see the point. Are gamers really too stupid to just install the games on their own? And there are dozens of other “game listing websites”, Steam is not unique.

Yes, Steam is popular. Maybe too popular. There are now so many games on Steam that it is hard to stand out. I think it deserves to die. It's not even guaranteed that Minetest will become more popular because of this.

I understand your popularity argument seems to be a strong one. But why does Minetest have to be more popular? I think it already has a quite large and healhy community and player base. You can always find many players online. In this sense, Minetest has already succeeded. For players who rarely or never play multiplayer (like me), popularity doesn't even really matter that much.
I think Minetest doesn't have to be more popular. Popularity is not a bad thing, but by no means a requirement.

You should concentrate your promotion efforts on other online free software games like Xonotic where lack of popularity is a big problem. Xonotic only has a few people online at any given time which is sad.



But OK: If you really love Steam so much, make a free software clone of it, but without the bullshit and malfeatures and questionable offers. Then I might get mildly interested. The problem is, Steam has quite a lot bullshit in it. xD

Regarding the money suggestion: No. You have no idea on how to fairly divide that money, and some people WILL feel betrayed and maybe even start to envy each other. This creates two classes of developers: Those who earn $$$ and those who earn nothing. We can no longer treat each other as equals this way. Let's not destroy our community.

If you've grown accustomed to the ease of use of distribution platforms like Steam, it's quite difficult to go back to the installer/make; make install way of doing things (same for app stores and package managers).

What the hell do you have against package managers?

I mostly agree.

Also Steam is not polished enough for minetest. minetest is a fast, low latency game engine. One of the biggest problems I have with steam is that its search engine is terrible, chunky, slow. It does offer Linux games, but you cannot search based on your hardware capabilities. There is not a way to search for games that will run with less memory or older cards. The assumption is always that everyone is running the latest and greatest and most expensive hardware. Also it takes *forever* to get through lists of games. Its almost as bad as google's play store. I don't think you should honor steam by adding minetest to it. At least wait until they fix their broken search engine.

[Byakuren]

What do you mean by low-latency?

[issa]

i think it would be cool, and give u a reaally cool good access to many users

[MineYoshi]

What do you mean by low-latency?

High speed in exchanging data; by example that you click a node and then it does it function, very quickly.

[Byakuren]

What do you mean by low-latency?

High speed in exchanging data; by example that you click a node and then it does it function, very quickly.

High speed can also mean high throughput, which doesn't necessarily require low latency. I want to know specifically what lightseer means by low latency, because I have no idea what steam has to do with Minetest being "low latency".

[MineYoshi]

What do you mean by low-latency?

High speed in exchanging data; by example that you click a node and then it does it function, very quickly.

High speed can also mean high throughput, which doesn't necessarily require low latency. I want to know specifically what lightseer means by low latency, because I have no idea what steam has to do with Minetest being "low latency".

No idea. I think that some kind of high response speed in-game that maybe Steam gets to ruin somehow. Maybe Steam is something that may slow a lot the game, I don't know.