News Getting the most out of your Steam Release (+ new Steamworks homepage)

lashman

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Today we're releasing a couple of new informational resources for developers and publishers to help them get the most out of each Steam release. We've launched a new Steamworks homepage that details all the major features available to game developers via Steam and some new documentation specifically pointing out the features that can be used to help build an audience and communicate with players via Steam.

New Steamworks Homepage
We've heard from quite a few game developers that aren't aware of many of the tools and features available for free via Steamworks as part of releasing a game on Steam. So we thought it would be useful to put together a better overview page that provides a summary of all the ways that developers can make use of the Steam platform. Among these tools are ways to help build an audience, manage business, communicate with players, and solve common development challenges.

You can check out the full new information site on the homepage of Steamworks here: Steamworks - Build & Distribute Your Games on Steam

Marketing Tools & Features Documentation
We've also gotten a lot of questions from game developers about how to reach the right audience for their game and build up to a successful launch. So, we've put together a set of documentation to draw attention to the tools and features that Steam provides for game developers to reach customers and stay connects throughout the lifespan of a game. Many of these are tools that Steam has had for a long time, but who's value we haven't been good at communicating over time.

You can find this new resource here: Features And Tools, Marketing (Steamworks Documentation)

As always, please let us know what you think, or if you have any feedback.

Sincerely,
-The Steam Team
👀👀👀





and some choice stuff from the new Steamworks page:


















 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
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I just had a look at the new Steamworks page, it's basically a better frontend for finding all the features that were already there.

IMHO, if you manage to develop a game you should also have managed to understand the previous documentation, but it doesn't hurt to give people a better access point.

It's certainly impressive to see all those consumer- and developer-facing features gathered in one page.
 
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lashman

lashman

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I just had a look at the new Steamworks page, it's basically a better frontend for finding all the features that were already there.

IMHO, if you manage to develop a game you should also have managed to understand the previous documentation, but it doesn't hurt to give people a better access point.

It's certainly impressive to see all those consumer- and developer-facing features gathered in one page.
yeah, that's EXACTLY what i've been saying .... there's FINALLY a place to show everyone who asks "what are they even doing for that 30%? just sitting on their asses, not doing anything"

... speaking of which - i just added all the "spicy bits" to the OP :)
 

Nyarlathotep

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Apr 18, 2019
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IMHO, if you manage to develop a game you should also have managed to understand the previous documentation, but it doesn't hurt to give people a better access point.
Yet it wasn't that long ago 'devs' were complaining about steam automatically setting local market appropriate regional pricing as though they were sneakily being robbed of income ¯\(ツ)/¯
 
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lashman

lashman

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Yet it wasn't that long ago 'devs' were complaining about steam automatically setting local market appropriate regional pricing as though they were sneakily being robbed of income ¯\(ツ)/¯
which is really weird because (as a dev) you don't set the price and regional prices in a different place in the backend ... it's LITERALLY the same place ... all the regional prices are just below the US price ... not even "scroll down to see them" kind of below ... they're literally 5px below the US price (which you HAVE TO set - there is no default value there which you can just miss by accident by clicking "next" too many times or something)
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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I just had a look at the new Steamworks page, it's basically a better frontend for finding all the features that were already there.

IMHO, if you manage to develop a game you should also have managed to understand the previous documentation, but it doesn't hurt to give people a better access point.

It's certainly impressive to see all those consumer- and developer-facing features gathered in one page.
Well this current situation has shown that it doesn't actually matter what you offer, it only matters what you say you offer - whether that's true or wrong.
 
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Nyarlathotep

The Crawling Chaos
Apr 18, 2019
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which is really weird because (as a dev) you don't set the price and regional prices in a different place in the backend ... it's LITERALLY the same place ... all the regional prices are just below the US price ... not even "scroll down to see them" kind of below ... they're literally 5px below the US price (which you HAVE TO set - there is no default value there which you can just miss by accident by clicking "next" too many times or something)
yeah but didn't read lol
 
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lashman

lashman

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Looks good. One of these days (in the next 5 years) I'll get my app and start poking around there.
i already have mine ;)



looks like they're changing some stuff in the backend as well:

 
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Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
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Amazing changes and stats, I like that they have reworked the site to make it more useful and improving their service for the devs, that Marketing guide for beginners is something else, hopefully a lot of people will improve their way to sell games, anyway, glad their are updating their services.

that new traffic reports page is really cool.
 
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lashman

lashman

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Amazing changes and stats, I like that they have reworked the site to make it more useful and improving their service for the devs, that Marketing guide for beginners is something else, hopefully a lot of people will improve their way to sell games, anyway, glad their are updating their services.

that new traffic reports page is really cool.
yeah, all really great stuff ... let's hope people actually read it :)
 
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Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
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Always interesting to see the details on the developer side. So there is where all the "greedy" 30% goes :p

For all the talk "for the developers" Epic does.... what exactly does the EGS offers in terms of tools? Or is all "please email the tech guy" (or tweet Sergey) to change something?
 
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Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
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Always interesting to see the details on the developer side. So there is where all the "greedy" 30% goes :p

For all the talk "for the developers" Epic does.... what exactly does the EGS offers in terms of tools? Or is all "please email the tech guy" (or tweet Sergey) to change something?
The only public tool we know they provide is an open API to enable and make simpler cross-play and cross-platform. But I'm kinda sure that they provide some more things in the private scene, maybe assistance but who knows, not that they are that open about this things.
 

JMTHEFOX

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Looks like a massive improvement from the original page. My only personal nitpick is that the site really LOVES using the color white.
 

Rogue Agent

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This is yet another great resource detailing what Steam offers. Unofficially, we had great posts, lash's twitter thread and a comprehensive document detailing Steam's benefits vs. EGS. Now it's nice to see official resources mentioning all these benefits.

Can't wait to dig into this one day.
 
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lashman

lashman

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This is yet another great resource detailing what Steam offers. Unofficially, we had great posts, lash's twitter thread and a comprehensive document detailing Steam's benefits vs. EGS. Now it's nice to see official resources mentioning all these benefits.

Can't wait to dig into this one day.
i already have :) lots of good stuff in there
 
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Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
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This is yet another great resource detailing what Steam offers. Unofficially, we had great posts, lash's twitter thread and a comprehensive document detailing Steam's benefits vs. EGS. Now it's nice to see official resources mentioning all these benefits.

Can't wait to dig into this one day.
And this is why Valve should totally consider the "Steam 101" for new users, resources for the devs + resources for the players about how to get the best of the platform and improve the tools for better recommendations and better self-curation.
 

Rogue Agent

Takes too damn long to finish games
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i already have :) lots of good stuff in there
That's nice to hear. Can't wait!
And this is why Valve should totally consider the "Steam 101" for new users, resources for the devs + resources for the players about how to get the best of the platform and improve the tools for better recommendations and better self-curation.
I agree. This would be extremely helpful for anyone. If everything like this is in one place, it's so much better.
 
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