All Steamed Up

[cdxbow]

One day RE or a derivitive like MekArcade may end up on Steam, and I wanted to get some answers to some questions about the service. Steam has about 70% of the $4 billion downloadable game market, so if you want to go commercial it is probably the place to be. There is a linux steam client in the works. If anyone in the community has any experience with developing with steam or the legalities please contribute. I asked my collaborator the Sugarman if he could look at the Steam Workshop Contribution Agreement, a weighty tome, and he has given me the relevent bits which I have pasted in italics, I also went looking around too.
:
What do you give Valve? -
You grant to Valve a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, assignable right and license to
(a) use, copy, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, modify, and create derivative works from Your Contribution in any media,
(b) identify You as the source of the Contribution, and
(c) sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law

Can I distribute my game in other ways?
With respect to Valve Games, You retain the right to use Your original work in the Contributions as You wish, even in the context of another game.
You may not license the Contribution to a third party on an exclusive basis.

Can I distribute my game for free on Valve?
Valve may choose to distribute Your Contribution for free and/or for a fee. Where Valve distributes Your Contribution for free, Valve has no obligation to compensate You.

Are Steamworks features required for distribution on Steam?
They are not required.

Can my game have open licensing?
Yes, but see this about Group Contribution, which may apply in the case of an open source project. You may submit a Contribution to which others contributed besides You (a “Group Contribution”) only if You identify all other contributors (“Contributors”) in the submission webform, provide their names and contact information, and specify revenue split percentages among the Contributors. Valve will contact the identified Contributors. All Contributors must confirm the Contribution, agree to and comply with this Agreement, confirm their personal information, and agree to the specified revenue split before Valve will accept the Contribution.


What is the Dev/valve split?
Valve don't tell till you sign on. Apparently 30% to valve - see Article here - http://steamreview.org/posts/finances/

Who sets the price?
Valve will work with you to set a price, but they hold a big legal stick - "If Valve chooses to distribute Your Contribution for a Valve Game for a fee, then Valve may set the price for such distribution in its sole discretion, and Valve will pay You as follows, conditioned on Your compliance with the obligations contained in this Agreement. Beginning with the calendar month in which Valve first distributes a copy of the Valve Game Contribution for a fee, Valve shall pay to You twenty-five percent (25%) of the Adjusted Gross Revenue (defined below) actually received by Valve from Valve’s distribution of the copy of the Valve Game Contribution during the calendar month."

Finally the very big legal stick, and The Sugarmans favourite: You also acknowledge and agree that other users, and Valve itself, may create other works that are similar to Your Valve Game Contribution(s), and that Valve’s payment obligations under this Section 3 only apply with respect to the distribution of actual copies of Your Valve Game Contribution(s).

So from a legal point of view they have you by the balls, but I guess it is supposed to be a mutually beneficial partnership rather than an adversatorial one, and many of these legal constructs are there just in case.

I haven't looked into the technical side of intergrating steam features other than a quick look at the API(eg https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/api) and there is a FAQ here http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/FAQ.php Steam are currently transitioning to the GreenLight system for new/indie games see http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight/

[fawstoar]

It'd be pretty amazing to see RE on Steam someday, even as just a free release. I don't think the open source mindset meshes well with Valve's, though. I suppose it's up to Quin.

If you replace all the textures and assets from RE in MekArcade, you could probably break free of the open source community to some extent, though then it's up to eihrul whether or not to let you use his engine for commercial distribution. In any case, I doubt the Cube engine will ever make it to Steam.

[Blindman]

With all due respect to others opnions, sillyness.

[cdxbow]

Why silliness?

Red Eclipse will end up like sauer unless it grows.

[ballist1c]

Why silliness?

Red Eclipse will end up like sauer unless it grows.

I dread to think...

Yea we should Greenlight this!

[cdxbow]

I would be happy to pay the $100 USD to get it on Greenlight, but Quin would need to think about when the right time is, his business model, promotional strategy etc. There would be a bit to sort out, even before looking at the integration of the steam API stuff.

[wowie]

I'd give my vote if this ended up on greenlight.

[Ulukai]

I must say that those conditions sound pretty scary... Of course, there is probably little interest in the Valve camp to go make own versions of all the games they have available on Steam Like you said, they probably have included all these terms just for their own backings. If RE or Mekarcade would ever make it to Steam, there is the chance to expand its playerbase. It could fit in a promotional campaign with the new RE video that's in the making for over a year now *cough cough*. Imagine how good that video would be when it sees the light

[raiden]

...If RE or Mekarcade would ever make it to Steam, there is the chance to expand its playerbase. It could fit in a promotional campaign with the new RE video that's in the making for over a year now *cough cough*. Imagine how good that video would be when it sees the light

This could be the main reason, maybe the only one, to use Steam. Yes, the video ... would be great .

[MandaPanda]

It's up to Quin if he wants to. I would up-vote if it was on Greenlight.

[Calinou]

Let the Steam people where they are -- locked in. I'm not willing to even support this Steam DRM.
If we don't have mainstream® gamers, it's a good thing because they won't flame the game with "amg no vehicles" or "no hats" arguments.

[cdxbow]

With all due respect I think that attitude is really unfortunate because it means RE is never going to get the player base it deserves, and will die a premature death. This idea, that we have this little gem, and we want to keep it to ourselves has been a theme in Cube community for a long time, and a damaging one. In gaming, if you are not going forwards, you're going backwards. It's a really tough market. We owe it to Quin and his hard work to promote it in every way possible, including through mainstream channels.

I understand the dislike of DRM, but there is not much you can do if you choose a service like Valve. Not my first choice, but a compromise I would be willing to make.

I am confident that our reading of the Steam Workshop Contribution Agreement means there can always be distribution seperate from Valve that remains it's current free and open self. That was the main reason we spent the time looking at it in detail. If it locked you in to valve only distribution then it would be off the agenda. The next step is looking at the technical side. Any takers?

[greaserpirate]

I don't see anything wrong with letting Steam use this game how it wants as long as we keep the ownership of this game. I can't really decipher if they're letting us do this, but as long as they can't tell us how to develop and distribute this game on our own, why not let Valve distribute it on Steam too?

If we don't have mainstream® gamers, it's a good thing because they won't flame the game with "amg no vehicles" or "no hats" arguments.

I can't see the reason in this argument. If people want RE to be just like <insert name of hated popular game here>, they can just play <insert name of hated popular game here>. And if they do criticise RE for being unlike popular games, so what? We either take it into consideration or tell them they can make a mod for it. I for one would be glad to see vehicle mods and hat mods. If I remember correctly, there were even some mods emulating Call of Duty in Red Eclipse, and COD is increasingly becoming the go-to term for indie gamers for "THAT UNSPEAKABLY EVIL MAINSTREAM GAME".

Not all 'mainstream' gamers are idiots, and if they are, we know how to deal with them.

[arand]

What do you give Valve? -
You grant to Valve a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, assignable right and license to
(a) use, copy, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, modify, and create derivative works from Your Contribution in any media,
(b) identify You as the source of the Contribution, and
(c) sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law

IANAL; TINLA, and I have no experience with Steam and how they handle their terms in practice...

The way I read the above section it would in theory be incompatible with our CC-BY-SA license. Since roughly speaking it implies that a contributor must provide Valve itself with the approximate equivalent of a zlib/CC-BY-only license when submitting the content, and any licensing terms besides that are not accepted for a submission (hence ShareAlike doesn't work, in theory).

I'm suspecting though, that if we had a chat with steam legal they might in practice be quite okay with accepting various free licenses, including copyleft ones, it can be noted that Warsow (whose code is GPL) is currently on steam (turns out not, my mistake, that makes things a bit more uncertain).

The ideal case would be that the license we give Valve is the exact same license that is automatically given to anyone else who downloads Red Eclipse.
___

Now, that's only with regards to licensing though, and other considerations might be more important:

• What do we want from Steam? (My impression is "users and free advertisement")
• How much extra work would Steam adaptation take, is it worth it?
• If it does happen, would we be able to handle a huge influx of players (moderators, master server, etc.)
• As mentioned, some kind of plan on how to advertise, integrate, and make the steam version appealing might be good before rushing headlong into greenlight...
• Should a steam version be free or not? (I get the impression that we do have a deal of influence on the matter)
  
  • The payment would basically be a coerced donation, since the game would still be free if one got it from elsewhere.
  • Would a low cost be more appealing that no cost at all (I suspect that it actually might be)?
    
    • However, a cost might make people who bought the game and later found it for free feel cheated?
  • I'm unsure if Valve would be okay with setting a price for an elsewhere free game, since it might be their reputation on the line...

[Calinou]

Why not make the Steam version paid if we absolutely want one? Something like 5 euros, so that people using Steam and feeling "cheated" will stop using it. 8D

[riidom]

[*] If it does happen, would we be able to handle a huge influx of players (moderators, master server, etc.)

There are 40 servers currently.. assuming an average of max 12 players per server, this is 480 players. If we hit that limit, a call for more servers on the forum would give us more space, I bet. And for moderators, we have to see how much trouble happens. Quick banning on all servers at once for a day, 3 day, a week should cut the problems down.

[*] Should a steam version be free or not? (I get the impression that we do have a deal of influence on the matter)

• The payment would basically be a coerced donation, since the game would still be free if one got it from elsewhere.
• A low cost might actually be more appealing that no cost at all (I suspect that it actually might be)?
  
  • However, a cost might make people who bought the game and later found it for free feel cheated?

[*] I'm unsure if Valve would be okay with setting a price for an elsewhere free game, since it might be their reputation on the line...]

Would be a nice income, of course. It should be made clear though, that there is a way to get the game for free as well (for fairplay, including a link too), and that everyone who buys it over steam basically is donating. From my understanding, no one should be felt cheated then. And if nobody pays, we have more users at least. I dont use steam myself, but from friends that do, I feel they are kinda used to it (to avoid the word addicted). So I guess, people would pay a few $/€ just that they can stay in beloved steam ^^
How steam itself thinks about that, would have to be investigated, ofc.

[Evropi]

You need 1000s of votes to have your game Greenlighted. I don't think Red Eclipse has that many active players, even if you include all the people that have ever played RE. It would be even worse for an as-of-yet unreleased game. Don't waste $99.

[quintux_v]

it can be noted that Warsow (whose code is GPL) is currently on steam.

could you provide a link to that? I just searched for Warsow at the Steam store, and there weren't any results.

I did find a discussion at Warsow's forums about Steam Greenlight, it's here if you want to take a look. There's a post on page 5 that lists some of the Steam Greenlight requirements. More towards page 7 is some discussion about what the Warsow team is using donations for, some of it seems to be minor revamping (e.g. upgraded playermodels, etc) that is somewhat related to prepping for Greenlight.

I also found out during my search about the Steam "Free-To-Play" section, found here. From what I've seen, the actual games are usually free, and then there's paid DLC which can be bought.

[arand]

it can be noted that Warsow (whose code is GPL) is currently on steam.

could you provide a link to that? I just searched for Warsow at the Steam store, and there weren't any results.

Ah, seems I confused stores here, Warsow is on gog.com, NOT on Steam, by bad.

[Evropi]

There's several of them... some more mentioned in this very topic here.

I'm not sure if the GPL contradicts Valve's terms (a permissive license probably does not), but even if it does, I'd expect a VLC Media Player (pulled from the iOS App Store back in 2011) or ScummVM (story) kind of scenario to play out. Basically, until a fanatically FOSS-loving developer notices it and makes a fuss about it, the stores (Steam, Apple's App Store, Wii Games Channel, etc) won't actually care.

[cdxbow]

Sorry to drag this one up from the depths of the forums, but I have decided to pursue this issue a little further, and to see if we can stimulate some interest in the cube forum with promises of fabulous wealth. The offer is genuine, and made with no disrespect to Quin, who has many other things to do. (Please don't yell at me for not discussing it first) and if anyone suitable should take up the offer, I would expect them to work smoothly with Quin, who would have to make sure it was all kosher. Quin also gets the yea or nea on the personal. I do, in a strategic sense think it's very important and I found the negativity in the forums about it amazing, and I guess it got to me a bit. Rush of blood to the head. I'm going to need my shakras adjusted after that visit. Let's see if there is any useful interest. Even thought about trying to 'kickstart' it.

[Sniper-Goth]

I don't think RE is ready for steam yet.

[Jamestonjes]

This could be a good thing, I can just imagine tons of people playing it, putting there maps on steam workshop, kick starter also seems like a good idea,

there are a few downsides, people will make maps of... disturbing things (It happened to me in a game before, they called the map "excite"....)