diregoldfish

It is no secret that Epic is amazing to other game developers, so working with them has been really easy and fun. This was by far the easiest storefront to work with.

And yes, I'm very happy with my choice. There was only one other place offering me funding at the time and they wanted both a larger cut of revenue AND I would have been on an even less known storefront. Also (knock on wood) the backlash against the Epic store hasn't been aimed at me. I didn't ever promise the game would be on Steam, I didn't have a Kickstarter... no one cared when Epic picked up my game! I have been very fortunate.

I was one of those rare generalists in AAA. I worked as a tech artist (focused on character rigging and technical animation) for most of my career. So I have a lot of training in scripting languages and I have a background in art, but that's still not enough to make certain types of games right?

I didn't have money so I designed a game I knew I could make. Kine is a single player puzzle game for a reason - I am not capable of coding a multiplayer game, or anything with AI. That is outside what I'm personally capable of. I don't have Visual Studio installed on my machine, I made a game that I could craft entirely in blueprint script. I leaned into what I could do and designed a game that didn't require skills I didn't have.

I had to take time to think on this one. It is possible to ethically use any monetizing scheme, but things like randomized loot boxes are often crafted in a way to take advantage of people. I personally prefer to make a game and then sell it for a fixed price. As a gamer when I buy a game I like having the comfort of knowing that I have bought the entire game and I wont need to pay some other, unknowable amount of money in order to enjoy the full experience.

If you love a game reach out to the devs and ask how you can best support them. Sometimes it is buying their game off of a website rather than a storefront, or buying merch, or simply promoting their work with good reviews and sharing their work with your friends. Self promotion sucks and most devs are slow to promote their own work, but EVERY dev loves seeing fans promote their stuff. This is true in both indie and AAA. When BioShock Infinite launched we read what people were posting about the game on different subreddits. It means a lot to us when we see people saying kind things on the internet. It just feels good to hear that your hard work is appreciated :)

The last few days are like every other day at the studio. Then they bring you into a room, tell you that the studio is going to close, and you get escorted out of the building within an hour.

At least that is my experience. They want to do it fast, like ripping off a band aid. And then they don't want you around the office breaking equipment or getting revenge on the company in some way afterwards. They want you to go home and cool off.

Yes, I've released games on Steam before and as a gamer the vast majority of my library is still on Steam. Also, I have meetings with Valve reps at different industry events. They are cool people and I am excited about the new features they are adding to their storefront. I'm probably going to have a beer to celebrate the launch with Ichiro (he's the Boston local that made the micro-trailers feature on Steam) later tonight.

There may be a divide between gamers as far as the storefront wars go, but there isn't really one between the devs. I have close friends that work at Epic and I have very close friends that work at Valve. None of my friends are upset that I'm releasing on the Epic Store first. I initially took down the Steam page for Kine when I signed my deal with Epic, but Valve encouraged me to keep it up and they were happy to put it back up again later. Valve wants their customers to be able to wishlist Kine on Steam so that Vale's customers know when the game launches on that platform.

There are gamers that will wait and only play Kine when it comes to Steam, we all know that. Epic is going to try their best to make a storefront that is as feature complete and compelling as Steam is. Valve is going to try and keep market advantage by innovating with their storefront. Devs (want to be able to eat, but also) are going to want gamers to play their games. Gamers are going to play their games where they want to. Everyone is pretty reasonable tbh.