Korvath85

Really a "so long, and thanks for all the fish" moment. A great vision developed by great people, taken over by a corporation that's doing corporate things. This one hurts. Thanks to the devs. I hope a publisher picks up the mantle - so much potential.

I'm not trying to say steam is the best thing ever or the best thing for SQUAD to do, even. I don't think they should go Steam only - I'm saying that I'm surprised they haven't, what with Steam Workshop (lesser point, I like CKAN and stuff much better) and delta patches (because we all know they haven't been up to par with patching). My only knowledgeable point of view on this subject is from a testing standpoint as a software engineer myself - Steam has an *outstanding* test suite, honestly. The number of metrics and instantaneous reports you can get for testers is really second to none. Not to degrade testers, but it really does eliminate the "send an email if it crashes with what you think you did" test model. The devs can actually view the system logs and other system metrics that wouldn't be included in 90% of independent test cases. I just think that it's the best way they could handle a public pre-release stage. It'll all be better in the end.

What do those two articles have to do with this, exactly? Darkspore closing it's doors and the Linux Game Publisher being dead in the water? Neither are Steam, and Steam hasn't had many if the issues other content publishers have. For example, as soon as you purchase a program, you never have to go online again. Launch the app from the file system instead of the Client. Now, I'm not saying steam is a catch all, and is the best for all involved. But fir a developer the size and resources of SQUAD, my opinion is that it's the best way to go. Read: delta patching.

Good...goooood. Let the butthurt flow through you. As a developer, I wanted to chime in on pre-release testing. Testing on Steam is really one of the best options for an external pre-realease test program. It allows you to specify parameters, limit participation, and many other things. Steamworks has a full API for pre-release testing. Two of the biggest benefits of Steam pre-release testing: Audience Targeting - by utilizing Steam's Hardware Survey of opt-in gamers, they can distribute based on any number of variables, i.e. Video Card, CPUs, Memory, OS, RAM, etc etc etc. Really, really good for the compatibility testing. Bug Reporting - Steamworks enables SQUAD able to track new issues and crashes in real-time and triage them based on severity and number of affected users. It auto-collects minidumps (logs) and parses them for you. Plus, the rapid build distribution is a benefit. Honestly, I'm surprised SQUAD hasn't switched to 100% steam and offered the opt-in to the steam client for buyers through other services. This would be a good game for the Steam Workshop for mod distribution and updating.