Our Steam page may be going unlisted fairly soon. We were contacted by Steam, informing us that we are not allowed to give Alpha or Beta keys as part of an external crowdfund as a means to fund development - since Steam doesn't profit from that. You guys may have heard of similar situations elsewhere.
We do not believe our game is in a state for Early Access - and we intended on releasing fully whenever we chose to go public. But, Steam demands that we change our plans a bit. If we are to go into Early Access, it would be likely be pretty stressful for us, especially if we have people coming in that don't necessarily understand the goals or ambition of this project.
We have a couple of options here:
- Unlist our page and sell the game to those who get the link directly.
This can be a huge setback for us. We have a good amount of traction on Steam that has been actively growing our community, which generates financial support for us.
- Go into Early Access in a super early state to ensure we have enough exposure to help us get a good amount of sales.
This is actually our less-preferred option, but we have to make sure we can put food on the table and the project gets developed. We also now have investor obligations, so this may be more realistic than we'd personally like it to be. This is just a gamble in general, since it can lead to potential magical success that drives a bigger future for this game. There just is no telling with this one.
- Become survivors in the mountains
Wait, no...
We're just in a pickle here. It kind of sucks. We don't want to be a typical Early Access game that sucks. But, we may have to be to ensure the survival of this project... and our bellies.
Let us know what you think. Genuine thoughts. We really don't need sugarcoated words right now, we need honest feedback so we know what the best option is. We can't leave things as they are, unfortunately. :(