StarDrive 2

[thesheeep]

However you gain "popularity", you have to do it outside of steam, somehow make it that people can find your gem inside the pile of rubble that is the steam catalogue. Otherwise, your game will sink to the bottom and be forgotten.

An unfortunate truth about any market that has wild growth.
Marketing becomes part of the developers' responsibility.

Can't say I like it, but I see no alternative, either.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Not to defend an angsty dev with two mediocre, unfinished games, but the huge heaps of "why the hell would anyone play this" garbage pushed on steam every day is easy to see.

The best way to make money in game development now is probably to make a 100$ udemy course on game development - no matter how trashy games your students produce, you still get paid.

 

[Ludovic]

I think it's a weird rant. He says he doesn't blame Steam, but then goes on to say it destroyed indie game development. Being an indie start-up is not a way to get a steady and secure income. That's not how it works apart from brief "gold rush" periods. Running a tech and/or entertainment start-up requires a good number of the following: Insane hours (which I don't doubt he put in), luck, talent, ruthlessness, exploiting other people, rich friends, existing wealth. He sounds a lot like bands who blame record labels, radio stations and the internet for their lack of commercial success.

Sure there is a lot of games on Steam, and for most people the majority is unappealing crap. But I am tired of the "hidden gem" bullshit myth that has been repeated over and over by bitter indie developers. If a good rpg or strategy game comes out on Steam, it will sell shitloads - and I'm sure there are other starved niches. But some people (and that's not this guy, but a general trend) seem to think they should be able to fund their multi-person indie studies (which are often just a group of friends of extremely varying talent) releasing really generic platformers, puzzle games or artsy bullshit games.

With the free access to quality engines, easy access to contractors via the net and low barrier of entry on storefronts, it's never been a better time to be an indie developer. There is just no free money from releasing games anymore. It actually has to be something the market wants. That reduces the value of social networking skills and increases the value of actual creative, artistic and technical skills. But yeah, the people who have 200k to invest would prefer the barrier of entry was 200k. No surprise there. But to complain about it in public? I guess it's free marketing and attention, Brigador-style.

 

[Destroid]

Is being on steam still good value then? It does cost you 30% of your revenue.

 

[Stavrophore]

Stardrive had potential -the combat system was fun, but the game was buggy, and other aspects of gameplay like diplomacy, economy, transport, technology, populations etc etc was really lackluster. Shame, but the guy apparently was bad at management. Should have not aim so ambitious, or at least if aiming so high, just gather a team, because you won't make it alone, unless you want to make your game within 10 years timeframe, and that's commercially no-go.

 

[adrix89]

Oh for fuck's sake. This is the 4X genre, its basically a Niche paradise. There is basically a active community doing the marketing for your lazy ass for free.
Look a this shit:
https://steamspy.com/app/252450
What the fuck you are complaining about?
You just needed to make a fucking good game. You were not even that bad, just mediocre.

Is being on steam still good value then? It does cost you 30% of your revenue.

Its convenient to the user. You basically have no choice.
Besides the user can look for tags and shit. Searching is bearable but should have been improved and made like RSS feed based on your criteria.

 

[Galdred]

Oh for fuck's sake. This is the 4X genre, its basically a Niche paradise. There is basically a active community doing the marketing for your lazy ass for free.
Look a this shit:
https://steamspy.com/app/252450
What the fuck you are complaining about?
You just needed to make a fucking good game. You were not even that bad, just mediocre.

Is being on steam still good value then? It does cost you 30% of your revenue.

Its convenient to the user. You basically have no choice.
Besides the user can look for tags and shit. Searching is bearable but should have been improved and made like RSS feed based on your criteria.

Indeed, not being on Steam could make a lot of users not bother with your game at all.
Steam now sucks as a discovery platform, but it still beats having your own website hidden somewhere on the Internet.

 

[flyingjohn]

Oh for fuck's sake. This is the 4X genre, its basically a Niche paradise. There is basically a active community doing the marketing for your lazy ass for free.
Look a this shit:
https://steamspy.com/app/252450
What the fuck you are complaining about?
You just needed to make a fucking good game. You were not even that bad, just mediocre.

Is being on steam still good value then? It does cost you 30% of your revenue.

Its convenient to the user. You basically have no choice.
Besides the user can look for tags and shit. Searching is bearable but should have been improved and made like RSS feed based on your criteria.

He is complaining because he is comparing the sales results to something like total war warhammer,stellaris or xcom2.
Basically he is acting like all the aaa marketing divisions and comparing niche sales to aaa sales.
For these people it is not just enough to be profitable but also to have a dick wavering competition in terms of sales numbers.

 

[Rahdulan]

So apparently dev's been at it since last week patching the game.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/252450/view/3062978883697591694
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/252450/view/3062978883703604545
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/252450/view/3058475918424273139

It is my goal in 2021 to release a total remaster of StarDrive 2, and this is a juicy update on the Road to Remaster (tm).

If you find that I broke something in your saved games, please upload it somewhere so I can grab it and see what went wrong. I've got a long way to go yet before this game is in a remastered state, but I think this gives you a great taste of what's to come.

• Added an Auto Combat toggle to the battle screen to let the AI handle combat for you
  
• Continued optimizations of strategy map performance
  
• Swapped out a few building graphics courtesy of wolfy301
  
• Asteroid fields on the battlemap are now more asteroidy
  
• Enhanced weapon sound fx system to allow for more variation.
  
• Upgraded and rebalanced weapon sound fx for:
  
• PD lasers
  
• Medium lasers
  
• Vulcan Cannons
  
• Disruptor Cannons
  
• Anti Matter Cannon
  
• Artillery
  
• Mass Driver
  
• General improvements to Muzzle Flash FX across the board
  
• Modified weapons:
  
• Disruptor max cannon range reduction
  
• Anti Matter Cannon increased projectile speed
  
• Cluster cannon range decreased
  
• Removed the old ground combat system entirely, and all associated quests. An upgraded quest system will bring these back in a new form soon.
  
• Solar Systems that are out of sensor range will now have the display of their names dulled slightly as an indicator
  
• Hex tiles that are not in sensor range now have a slightly faded coloring as an indicator
  
• Hex tiles that are unexplored have an even further reduced coloring
  
• Softened the color of the huge empire name plates on the strategy map to increase map readability
  
• Fixed an issue where antimatter cannon fx trails would disappear immediately upon impacting with a ship
  
• Updated Microsingularity FX to be cooler
  
• Fixed inoperable cluster cannon weapon

 

[Raghar]

What happened to developer? That's completely not common in the industry. Either he was fired from his last job, and has enough time and money to work on his old game. Or mafia aimed a handgun on his head and said "Finish it. My son paid 27.99 Euro for this game, and I want it to be playable."

 

[flyingjohn]

What happened to developer? That's completely not common in the industry. Either he was fired from his last job, and has enough time and money to work on his old game. Or mafia aimed a handgun on his head and said "Finish it. My son paid 27.99 Euro for this game, and I want it to be playable."

Too much skyrim.
No seriously,he spend most of his time playing popamole games instead of working on this.

 

[Raghar]

What happened to developer? That's completely not common in the industry. Either he was fired from his last job, and has enough time and money to work on his old game. Or mafia aimed a handgun on his head and said "Finish it. My son paid 27.99 Euro for this game, and I want it to be playable."

Too much skyrim.
No seriously,he spend most of his time playing popamole games instead of working on this.

Obviously, I do that too. My last two weeks were about dying in Dungeon Crawl. http://www.dungeoncrawl.org/?d But I still managed to find time to post, or watch twitch.

Frankly it should be impossible for him to finish all these games in mere two years. There must be another reason.

 

[RayF]

I'm so tempted to trigger people by arguing with a post from 2014, but I'll just pass and say I think it's really cool that he's working on this game again.