Tips for Launching Your Game on Steam
Entry posted by Josh ·
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I thought I would take a minute to write down some of the things I have learned about releasing software on Steam, in order to help with your game releases.
First of all, always wait a week after you are "finished" to release a major update. This is because you will always find little problems, and sometimes major ones, after you think you've finished everything. Leadwerks 3.6 was scheduled for release at the start of this week, as far as I knew everything was working, but I knew to give it a buffer of one week. During this week I found and solved a lot of small problems that will make the postponed release much better.
Second, you need a "latest" and a "stable" build. Steam has a wonderful feature that lets you create multiple branches for your application. Leadwerks uses a "beta" branch for more frequent updates and testing. This receives updates several times a week. The default branch is for official releases, and only gets updated every couple of months. You do NOT want to be releasing new features and fixes on your default branch immediately. It's very scary to release updates to thousands of people without widespread testing being carried out on them first. The "latest" / beta branch lets you get a large pool of testers who have all opted into the branch, so they will be more forgiving if you break something.
Third, create a sticky thread in your game forum that points users to the download locations for graphics drivers, like this. This is the most common problem you will run into as a game developer, no matter what technology you use. Also, make sure you configure Steam to install OpenAL, and the VC 2010 and 2013 redistributables.
Finally, I recommend releasing support one platform at a time. In the beginning you will have to upload frequent updates. Although Leadwerks is generally platform-independent, it's better to make sure things are working on Windows first, and then add Linux once everything has calmed down. This is the approach I am taking with Leadwerks Game Launcher.
These practices will help your game launch go as smoothly as possible. Good luck and have fun!
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