About distributing a game

You have to use DRM when you are distributing on Steam? I wouldn't like have protections in our game.

Yeah, to play games via steam you have to launch & play the game through the steam desktop app.

Games on GOG come with no protection at all. You buy the game, it gets added to a database saying that you have paid for it, which will let you download it again & again, as many times as you like. There's nothing to prevent people sharing your game online via file sharing platforms, p2p or torrent services & there's no reason for crackers to waste time creating patches or embedding shitty viruses into the keygens/patches. I guess they figured there's no point in wasting time, against the inevitable, which is that the game will eventually get cracked & shared online.

Hi Ke4,

I understand that it is difficult, I had the same troubles some time ago.
Most resellers (like Steam and GOG) will take a % of your sales.
And if you really want to sell on your own (Paypal button or other solution), it is now difficult with the new VAT, as they explained before.

Steam/Gog/others:
If your games sales up to 1000€, they will keep 30% and you will receive 700€.
To these 700€, you have to remove taxes in your country (in France I pay around 20%)
So your net revenu is 540€ (unless I am mistaken).

But honestly it is normal, as Steam and Gog will bring you a lot of visibility and much more sales. I tried selling my game ASA on my own (on my site, on Desura, etc) and it is very difficult. I didn't make a lot of money, really.

On the other hand, it is quite difficult to be accepted on a site like Steam or Gog. For Steam, you need to have enough votes through the Greenlight process (it can be very long, or never happen). On Gog you have to convince them that your game is good enough to appear in their store.
Difficult!
(and it is true that a Steam game is not DRM free)

Desura/BigFish/others:
Happily there are other solutions like Desura (as I said above) or Big Fish Games (and many more, just search on google). They will also take a % of your sales, but they will accept your game and will bring you medium visibility.

Itchi.io/others:
A last solution is www.itchi.io (and probably others). They won't take anything from your sales (that's what they say in the FAQ, I never checked if it's true).
However you won't have a lot of visibility and it will be difficult to make good sales.
I like itch.io quite well, because it is easy to use and very opened. I have added a free demo on their store, named TBT: The Black Tower, and I find the result very nice. I suggest you have a look at them! Of course it's DRM free.

Paypal/eJunkie/others:
If you really want to try selling on your own, there are different sites to allow to sell a product. Paypal is a possibility, but there is for example ejunkie (and more). Be careful with the new VAT problem though, with these sites, 'cause you'll really be on your own...

Good luck

@Simon_ASA

Thanks, it's really helpful,

In Czech it's 15%, but before these 15% there is a 60% for costs which i don't have to taxing, so it's really not so bad. But what i'm a bit afraid of.. Steam is the biggest service, everybody knows it, a lot of people has an account there. That's I think is a big advantage. Won't it be annoying for people, that they have to create an account there?

But yeah, that DMR thing sucks, i don't mind about piracy, i just dont want this.

The Paypal solution (Gopay) don't know if i understand to the VAT problem properly, but i think that VAT and standart taxes are different thing and i dont have the obligation to pay that. But i don't know i don't know this terms and stuff in english, i would have to ask someone. Still, now i would rather prefer some seller service and thanks for all these tips!

You do know what DRM is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

https://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm_digital_restri... -- (more fun to read, as it's an anti-DRM dedicated website)

VAT & Taxes are the government's version of DRM (PRM - Peoples Rights Management through taxation for sweet F.A, or in the U.K's case, it is to pay for primo, ultra-soft, silky-smooth toilet roll for the queen to wipe her ass with - probably)

It's a protection against piracy, right? Why it looks that i don't know what is it?
I don't follow you now.

Well, not really. It's a form of controlling where the media can be played. For instance to play games you've paid for on steam, you need to play them through the steam client application.

Basically it's a control thing. Security is a part of it, but it's mostly down to control. Companies determine how games, movies, audio can be played/watched/listened to & how.

If you buy something then you expect to be able to download it & use it at your leisure online, offline or on whatever machines (computers) you own.

Here's a good example of DRM: you purchase an expensive application from your store & it will only let you register once & it stores/sends the details of your machine & ip address etc to a server which indexes all that information to the activation key you've just purchased. Now what if you had to reformat your pc, or have a new IP address because you've swapped ISP or moved house. Or maybe you have a secondary computer or have bought a new computer & you want to install the software onto it, but you can't because it's not accepting your activation key or because you aren't connected to the internet.

Here's a massive example: Microsoft have been buying up various web services like skype & hotmail & have been implementing some annoying bloody changes into them such as in case of microsoft account (outlook) it checks if the IP address is correct & if not then it will sometimes say someone is trying to access your account & then it kicks you out of your account & makes you go through lots of annoying hoops to unblock/re-access your account. I fucking hate geo-restriction management, it's one of the most annoying forms of DRM & is often enforced on other websites such as youtube & most TV station/production websites that will only let people in the country of shows origin watch the online catch-up episodes of a show.

Like the pretty annoying origin app for their games, ahh!


Anyway, there are months of work waiting for me, i don't need to handle it now.. good because it's not fun at all and i will better focus just on the developing the game.

Thanks for all those tips guys, i will keep it in mind.