Hi, this is concerning Evolution RTS 291150.
I first want to say how grateful I am for valve allowing me to put my little indie game on steam in the first place. I cannot explain to you how much it meant to me to get approval.
Evo is a hobby for me, a labor of love. It has no microtransactions nor any revenue mechanics of any kind. It was always meant to be completely free and it was my way of giving back.
That said, I have endured years of abuse via steam reviews and other avenues (as a direct result of it being on steam), and frankly I am at my breaking point with it. Evo is a completely different (and revamped) game from what was released in 2014, yet valve offers no way to shed the negative reviews (which tend to simply breed more negativity due to the fact that there is zero quality control on these reviews).
Evo is my hobby. I don't have the manpower to have vast infrastructure, tutorials, guides, media, etc. I still work 40 hours a week and steam has become less of a helper than an albatross on my neck. Understand, I am not blaming value for this. Steam is not a platform that is designed for free games and certainly it is not designed for games with only 1 or 2 developers.
So with all of this in mind, it is with a sober (and heavy) heart that I formally request that Evolution RTS be removed from steam. It is still available elsewhere (Itch.io and a standalone version exists), so users are not left high and dry and I will continue developing it, but I need to focus on having it on a platform where it can thrive, in an environment that is designed specifically to work with indie developers and projects with very little manpower.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for the opportunity for my little hobby to be on steam. While the experience was unfortunately not as positive as I would have hoped, I am very happy that it was allowed to happen in the first place.
The above was the request sent to the steam team. For those of you who still want to play evo and follow it's development, I recommend that you install evo via itch.io (it's a client similar to steam, more lightweight and geared towards indie projects). The install from itch is identical to steam.
Furthermore, checkout our discord at https://discord.gg/v2hXV7e