Website Changes
I want to streamline some of this website. We went through a lot of changes since the release on Steam in 2014 and learned what works and what does not.
The "Marketplace" is just called the default "Downloads" name now, and that literally is what it is for. It's a place to keep a permanent copy of your files. Paid files are still supported, and any purchased items are still available to download, but I do not have any aspirations of building this up unless it just happens spontaneously. Instead I will focus on DLCs and on just making the file format loading features as easy as possible, so you can just buy something on cgtrader.com and not have any conversion step at all. I have hidden all paid items that did not have any sales, but I will keep them on the server for now.
Most of your games have been moved back to the downloads area. I was the one who wanted everyone to move to the game launcher on Steam, so I will move them back for you. It would have been a great idea if Steam brought in traffic. There was some success with that, but it was not at a level that it justifies all the complication of going through that system.
I am finding that the gallery and videos do a much better job of keeping people's attention than having a bunch of custom game pages they have to click around to find something interesting, so I intend to move all the games, videos, and screenshots out of the games database and eventually phase that out. You are welcome to put links in your screenshots and videos, and it will bring traffic to your page.
One thing that really got me thinking this way was I have noticed some people post screenshots here regularly. I see them posting the same images on some other more general gamedev websites, and they seem to come here because they get more attention and feedback than they do on the bigger sites. I have even seen people post videos here and get more views than they do on YouTube (assuming YouTube views and comments are even real, which they might very well not be).
In general I am finding that pushing all the content together and serving it up at 25 dopamine hits per page works really well. I want to move the content out of the projects area and phase that out too, for this reason.
The chat feature I installed last week is a massive success and fills a huge need without sending all our activity away somewhere else.
I want the website to be more focused because that helps me think. I don't want any more changes. I don't really want to try any new ideas this year because I don't think it's necessary.
Going forward, we know now what our strategy is. On the consumer side, I just need to listen to you, the users, about what features you need, and deliver an improved overall quality over what we did with Leadwerks Engine. Although you don't have to do VR, focusing on VR gives me a niche of customers who I can help achieve some very interesting games, and it is gives you guys a way to sell in a market that has a lot of demand and isn't saturated. Imagine if there were 100 indie VR games available in the Downloads area right now. That would be quite popular.
On the business side, I plan to give them something they cannot say no to, which is why I am been spending so long developing this killer new technology.
In the end, Steam didn't have anything to offer other than another place to sell software, and it made me do some really weird things. There is no advantage to using any of the features built into Steam, except maybe the P2P networking system if you need it.
I don't think more "innovation" is really needed now. Mostly I just need focus on giving you the features you need with good quality and documentation. Of course, the new engine allows me to do that in a way I could not before.
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