Wait... Are they going to offer this to developers for purpose of Steam distribution? If so, sounds interesting. If not, I don't get it. How are they going to distribute Flatpaks of copyrighted titles?

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Man, I didn't even start the first one yet...

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I almost can't wait for it. It will gain popularity and it will happen bloody faster than we think. And no worries, prices will drop too. After all it's just a specialized smart phone, one that can't call or text without a PC, not much more. And we all know how much is 5 years old smart phone worth nowadays. And we all know everyone has one. I expect them to cut quite a chunk out of the movie screens market. Man, I <3 the times I live in!

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Well, I guess we will see how it comes out. I'm rooting for them, don't get me wrong. I'm just not envy of all the extra work some people will end up doing if it gets popular. I didn't get how it's in-game, I think it opens the browser... wouldn't be the first time I'm wrong, though. :)

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Quoting: tuubiYou'd have a point if Steam Workshop was a standard. And if games had any consistency in their UI designs.

Well, yeah, current state of affairs is not ideal. Well, who knows, maybe mod.io will become a de facto "standard" and Valve will switch. ;)

Quoting: LakortaYou don't need a standard for mod integration though.
Just like you don't need a standard for e.g. main menus. A game just needs a working solution so that you don't have to search for mods on multiple websites etc.. It would be completely fine if each game would have it's own workshop like mod integration, this just makes it so that developer don't have to spend resources on developing (and hosting?) their own method.
Ideally the average end user shouldn't even realize which mod integration the game is using (unless they need to register an account and can use that account for mod integration across multiple games).

Yes and no. If you use something that is supposed to be general (like mod.io) and then release to a specific platform with its specific solution (like Steam and Workshop), the existing user base is used to that UI and the way of looking for mods, etc. - they'll look in Workshop first, then complain, then maybe look somewhere else. Just like they ignore most of the dedicated forum pages and use Steam's Discussions instead. Sooner or later you end up supporting two solutions.

It would be an awesome solution if mod.io would auto-release all the mods for you on Steam Workshop as well (assuming you've enabled it in some config).

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Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: cprnI get the target audience is software that doesn't release on Steam at all but let's face it: most of games sooner or later does.

And they can still keep using mod.io, unless they absolutely need Steam Workshop for the Steam client integration. I don't really care if the game provides their own mod manager using some other service.

Yeah, but that's for as long as there aren't many. It kind of reminds an xkcd strip about standards. The one where they say:

- Hey, there are 13 competing standards for this!
- You're right! That's awful! We should make our own that will merge all the good solutions and leave out the bad ones to make life easier for everyone around!

...

- Hey, there are 14 competing standards for this!

When each solution has its own problems and many different games use many different solutions for the same thing it's very hard to make anything consistent and inconsistencies are what frustrates the end user. That's how e.g. Microsoft and Adobe stole big chunks of their markets.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: cprn....
P.s. I get how people don't like gaming services getting "centralised" around Steam but it's often due to having a wrong idea. It's like saying PC is centralised around Windows.

How's this for ya: monopolized

It's rather condescending to think that you, above anyone who disagrees with you, have the "right" idea.

The wrong idea of thinking Valve invented workshops because they wanted to take over the world in one way or another. They didn't. It was released for developers because they saw it working for Half-Life and wanted the same thing for their games without the effort of implementing the whole thing from scratch. Same goes for updates, multiplayer and input layers. The "according to facts" idea is usually the right one.

Also, it's far from monopoly. You can implement a different solution - that's exactly what mod.io does. All I'm saying is hating on Valve makes no sense here and it won't make life easier for developers. The opposite. All Steam service layers exist because of this sole reason - devs wanted it easier.

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Quoting: torham

Quoting: cprnWhich of these use DRM?

According to the HumbleBundle page, all of them do with the exception of Tumblestone. If they are DRM-Free they show an special icon in the bottom left of the game image.

Hmm... I don't know how accurate that is. Humble Bundle store adds "DRM Free" icon when they provide a Steam free copy of the game but many games on Steam don't use any of Valve's copyright protection solutions. I'll try to check if steamdb.info has something on Steam's DRM on their website when I'm at my keyboard.

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Quoting: torhamWorthless, only one game is DRM-Free.

Which of these use DRM?

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Quoting: Luke_Nukem

95% of the sales came from Windows users. This was despite Linux users arguing that lots would buy if a Linux version was made available.

This is a common theme it seems, yes lots argue for it, but come on, have a realistic expectation - it's not going to blow Windows out of the water regardless of how many argue for it.

Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out all of those Linux users (and many more) actually bought the game, and some of them (me) bought more than one copy for their friends as well, but it still didn't make much difference. As Luke_Nukem said, realistic expectations are the key. There are how many... several hundred thousands of Linux users on Steam? And how many declared they'd buy it... 50? 150? Assuming the game sold 10k copies, 5% is 500. I doubt there were 500 comments from unique Linux users in +1 threads. That's part of the reason why +1 threads don't make any sense for me whatsoever.

Above said, I'll try to cover them on our curator page sometime soon. They deserve a boost.

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