Steam Greenlight

[Cowinatub]

Some of you may be aware of the Steam Greenlight system which is going on right now, for those of you who aren't...
Steam Greenlight is a system on Steam that lets developers to upload games, and then gets the community to vote on whether it gets put on steam or not.
I think it would be really nice to see BfW on there, as it would increase the games popularity significantly.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Personally, I speak from a viewpoint of not knowing much about Steam, so I could very well be wrong in my assumptions... but based on what I do know, in my mind Steam is associated with commercial games and heavy DRM protection and lots of things like that which generally go against the whole open-source "mindset."
Is Steam a good place for free, open-source software like Wesnoth, or am I correct in my understanding of Steam? (I really do mean that as an honest question; as I said, I am fairly ignorant about Steam...)

[nuorc]

Having excessively played Civ III, I spontaneously bought Civ V for my new laptop. Civ V comes with Steam. After my experience with this, I will never ever spent a single cent for anything Steam-related nor will allow any Steam-component to be installed on my puter.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

Really? I've never had any bad experiences with Steam (apart from the client occasionally crashing). It does have DRM, but it's non-invasive DRM, so I don't really notice it. What was your experience that made hate it so much?

[nuorc]

I bought a DVD with a game and after installing I couldn't play (online activation + ~3 hrs update).

While not always online, the Steam-environment frequently thought I should be online to be able to play the game. Or the client crashed, and I couldn't play. Or there was some server problem and I couldn't play. When there were updates, I couldn't choose to update later and couldn't play for a while (sometimes another ~3 hrs).

The Steam-&%$§"! took over my whole system, slowing it down, doing intransparent stuff (background processes, sometimes causing system probs).

On the lighter side: with roughly a dozen updates, the pretty unfinished game I bought became somewhat playable + enjoyable (if it weren't for the lovely Steam-environment).

[Pentarctagon]

nuorc, please stop advertising. I'm fairly sure that selling steam accounts is illegal, and even if its not this is not even remotely an appropriate place to do so.

As for steam, I have it and have experienced no real problems with it, though I'm not sure of the real benefits of having wesnoth of steam.

[Iris]

Yes:

[...] You may not sell or charge others for the right to use your Account, or otherwise transfer your Account, nor may you sell, charge others for the right to use, or transfer any Subscriptions other than if and as expressly permitted by this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use).

[ancestral]

After a quick read, it appears the Steam Subscriber Agreement doesn’t seem to conflict with the GPL, as others distribution stores often do. I’d be curious to see if there is a developer’s terms of service as well, as it could differ from this one.

You may not use the Software for any purpose other than the permitted access to Steam and your Subscriptions, or as otherwise permitted by the applicable Subscription Terms.

This seems to suggest it honors the subscription’s (a particular game’s) license.

[nuorc]

Actually I wasn't advertising, but trying to convey my disgust with this steam thing.

(I bought a game and I am legally entitled to sell it (providing I don't continue using it etc.). The game is not functional without the account (not my decision).)

[Cowinatub]

From what I've seen it seems to encourage unfinished games, and free games are also fine. They've let a free single player DLC free game onto steam, so I don't see why they wouldn't let a multiplayer open source game on.

[Kanzil]

There is a section called free-to-play games. I assume it is for games that are free .

[Crendgrim]

Free-to-play != free.
At least not the "free" Wesnoth is.

"Free-to-Play" ("free" as in "beer") games are, well, free to play and often charge their users a fee for certain bonuses. However, you are not able to see or even edit the source code in the most cases.
"Free" games ("free" as in "freedom"), however, are open source, so you are able to see and modify the source code if you wish.


That being said, it might be worth noting in this context that Wesnoth indeed is available on Desura.

[Gambit]

Assuming all the Wesnoth devs gave their blessing to publish our code on Steam, Steam would not agree to publish their code under GPL. Steam games must integrate with Steam's libraries and APIs.

Locked