Future of Game Launcher

[Josh]

Let's talk about Game Launcher.  I would like your feedback on it and what direction we should go with this.

Steam Direct now allows you to publish a full Steam title for $100.

I originally thought we would integrated Leadwerks GUI into the current editor and so I was interested in doing that with Game Launcher first.  I no longer think this is a good idea, and I want to revert Game Launcher to the previous style GUI which was not as cool looking but worked better.  This is why it currently takes a long time to start the first time, and why new games are not showing up.  Eventually, Leadwerks GUI will be able to handle the HTML display but it's more work I don't want to focus on right now.

The idea of Game Launcher was to give your free games more exposure.  However, the application gets buried on Steam and does not have any exposure because it is free.  I actually sell more copies of the game engine than the free game launcher!  Perhaps I should consider charging $1.99 for it?  However, I would not be able to handle sending out payment royalties for this.

itch.io and GameJolt are both popular portals for indie games, and both have an API that could allow direct publishing from Leadwerks editor, in the same manner that game launcher publishing works.

So with itch.io, gamejolt, and now Steam Direct, do you feel like game launcher is still useful, or should I focus on integrating itch.io or something?  Do you think charging a small amount for game launcher is a good idea, in order to increase the number of installs and get your games more exposure?

[Genebris]

I don't see how itch.io would be any more useful than game launcher. At least with launcher we don't need to download any executables. And I don't understand why would anyone pay for a bunch of low quality prototypes when they can get actual polished games for the same price.

For me the best solution would be simply enabling web page with games, then Launcher interface would be irrelevant.

[Angelwolf]

I'll be honest - I like the Leadwerks Game Launcher - at least the older one which seemed to work okay. I'm in agreement with jen about charging for it, though. The games are often prototypes or tests and I think users might be a little upset if they spent money to use it. At the same time I can see why it could be seen as, well, not worthwhile.

I'd be very happy with any outcome so long as there's a place we can easily publish our games to (ideally from within Leadwerks - to whichever portal!) with perhaps a little database or gallery of published games.

[Einlander]

I consider the game launcher to be a workshop extension of the editor. Instead of sharing projects you share games with people who currently have no interest in buying the editor. I would use it more but it simply lacked common usability. I should be able to see what games I already have subscribed to, there should be a page that mirrors the steam page with it's description and screenshots with the option to unsubscribe if possible.

The problem is that you are giving the option of steam direct as an avenue of exposure, when it is not even an option for 99% of the games in the launcher. I know my game has 'potential', but $100 worth? Nope. The project was a project of love and was always going to be free so there is no way I am spending $100 for a 1 level experiment. Vectronic, that has production value and a goal.

Every game that is released on steam is not potential exposure for Leadwerks. There are no outward tells that a person is using Leadwerks, and a splash screen is a nicety and not a necessity. Further we have frameworks, mine included that make Leadwerks pass almost for the Source Engine. When releasing through the launcher, you force the audience to know that 'This is made with Leadwerks'. Every game in the launcher is a testament to what Leadwerks can or can't do. In fact The launcher should link back to Leadwerks in some way in passing explicitly encourage the user to make their own version of the game or even a new one.

The launcher should be able to contribute some statistics for you to use. How often is each game updated, how many players play a specific game, genre or author. This can help you make relevant time sensitive templates. We are on the tail end of the zombie onslaught shooter and entering PvP Battle Royal games. And guess what? We now have networking in Leadwerks. Kind of timely don't you think?

For all the things I have wrote there is the problem of reality. These things take time to create. Josh is only one person and he has other things he has to do to survive. Hiring another person to do some simpler things costs money so many things will have to wait. If Josh did an gofundme campaign I would donate (it is a donation and not an investment) some money so more things can get done. As long as it goes toward community enhancment or must have things in the game engine.

TL;DR

Game launcher is missing many features but It takes time money and manpower to improve.

[Einlander]

7 minutes ago, jen said:

I miss the gallery on top of the forums. That was a cool feature.

I mean who doesn't like looking at chris.palusak's screenshots for days on end? Shame what he does to the recent queue. I also liked the gallery.

[Rick]

The launcher I tried a couple months ago didn't even work with the new GUI so I stopped using it.

Interfaces to publish to those other sites is a good idea. Integration is always good but takes time.

Game Launcher should be made with nw.js. Hire a web developer to create it. Should be fairly cheap as web developers are a dime a dozen and give you a much more modern feel to it. You've wasted too much time on GUI stuff for the Game Launcher and it still looks pretty old vs a modern web UI look that a web developer can make that you run with nw.js. I would also see it as a nice intro to nw.js for you to ease yourself into for other tools for the engine that may be handy down the road if you like it and find it easy to work with. It would be nice to settle the GUI library that you make your tools with once and for all.

[Thirsty Panther]

I liked the Game Launcher as it was. It makes sense that if you are selling Leadwerks exclusively on Steam then giving users a way of publishing games on the same platform for free is a good fit. 

I'm not using LW to make a fortune. I use it as a hobby, away of keeping my mind active and as an artistic outlet.

Having the Launcher makes it easy to show my creations to friends and family.

 

[Angelwolf]

11 hours ago, jen said:

I miss the gallery on top of the forums. That was a cool feature.

At the risk of de-railing, I loved the gallery too. Yeah, sometimes it was filled with landscape screenshots, but occasionally there'd be an image there I'd want to click on because it was interesting and inspiring.

[Josh]

The first thing I will do is revert the game launcher to the previous GUI.  At the time I thought the image loading would be quickly solved because I thought we would switch the current editor over to Leadwerks GUI, but as I began to think about a new editor written in pure C++ I discarded that idea.

[reepblue]

That would be a start. I'd say roll back to the old GUI and see how it goes from there.

[Josh]

I've updated game launcher.

• GUI is reverted to the old style.
• We're only going to support Windows right now.  I feel okay doing this because the app is still "Early Access".  I love Steam machines, but I am not going to worry about making them work right now.
• I added a debug option so that physics can be debugged if needed.
• Updated the game executables to Leadwerks 4.4.  Vectronic shows some problems with collisions and a couple games crash.  Because Newton is loaded as a DLL, the physics can now be debugged externally with Visual Studio.

[Josh]

On ‎7‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 6:20 AM, Angelwolf said:

At the risk of de-railing, I loved the gallery too. Yeah, sometimes it was filled with landscape screenshots, but occasionally there'd be an image there I'd want to click on because it was interesting and inspiring.

This is not quite as easy as it used to be.  Since the site uses responsive design now, skin edits are more complicated.

[Josh]

Here are some of my thoughts:

• I like having game launcher as a unit testing tool.
• With Steam Direct, visibility might be more important than ever.  It might even be soon that titles released in Game Launcher have more visibility than titles released on Steam itself!
• My experience on Steam tells me that if Game Launcher cost $1.99 and had frequent 50% sales, the number of users would be much higher than it gets as a free product.  It sounds counterintuitive but it's true.  I do not mind giving away an unlimited number of free keys, but the fact is that free products on Steam have poor visibility.  How well-received that would be on Steam is a separate question.

[reepblue]

2 hours ago, Josh said:

Updated the game executables to Leadwerks 4.4.  Vectronic shows some problems with collisions and a couple games crash.  Because Newton is loaded as a DLL, the physics can now be debugged externally with Visual Studio.

The physics in that is really botched in that demo as I had no idea what I was doing. I should just replace the app with a different one. In-fact, I should just make the full game at this point regardless.

[Josh]

12 minutes ago, reepblue said:

The physics in that is really botched in that demo as I had no idea what I was doing. I should just replace the app with a different one. In-fact, I should just make the full game at this point regardless.

Regardless, it should behave the same way.  Buttons are not staying pushed when the box is touching them, and moving floor in the second room has no collision.

[22346_1495437037]

I was just looking through the game launcher, and kinda cringed a bit. Not at the idea of the launcher (though it does seem odd having a game launcher provided via another game launcher :p)... but at most of the projects on there.

Having used a bit of LW, and seeing what some others have been able to produce/accomplish with it, I know it's a capable engine and can yield some really good results. The thing is, the Game Launcher really does not deliver that impression at all, as there is a lot of odd, incomplete projects, tests, clones, etc. 

Were I not already familiar with LW, and decided to check out what others were creating with it through the Game Launcher, I'd likely be turned away from LW altogether. It just doesn't do a good job of showcasing what LW can do, but seems to serve more as an app version of a WIP/Showcase forum thread.

I would say, if you want to keep some kind of launcher closely integrated with LW, separate it into clearly indicated categories/tabs. Keep finished games only in the Finished Game tab, WIPs in that tab, demos or tutorial type projects in their own category. Allow people to select specifically what they want to browse through, and/or add the ability to specify it through a search function.

As it is right now, there are extremely rough and raw "doodles" mixed in with what look like they're completed projects, and it creates for a very "messy" presentation.

Maybe create something like what Unreal Engine has, with its own Launcher... From the launcher you can launch Leadwerks itself, browse finished games, WIPs, etc on line (as the game launcher does now), view the latest news, browse the asset market, maybe  embed these forums in it, etc. Maybe a real-time chat client embedded... Make it part of an all-in-one community/software that touches all parts of the LW universe.

'course, that's all rather ambitious and might be beyond the scope of what you're wanting to take on, what with an entire game engine to support and all :p.

Anyway, my thoughts regardless.

 

[martyj]

So with itch.io, gamejolt, and now Steam Direct, do you feel like game launcher is still useful, or should I focus on integrating itch.io or something?
I think it's useful. A large amount of our community wants to develop games for fun. They don't want to spend $100 to be able to share the game with friends. 

Do you think charging a small amount for game launcher is a good idea, in order to increase the number of installs and get your games more exposure?
I don't think people paying for the game would increase exposure. How many of us own games on steam that we paid for, yet haven't even touched.

[gamecreator]

31 minutes ago, martyj said:

They don't want to spend $100 to be able to share the game with friends. 

Why would they need to?  Can't Lua users upload standalone games anywhere too, including free places like Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.?

55 minutes ago, 22346_1495437037 said:

Keep finished games only in the Finished Game tab, WIPs in that tab, demos or tutorial type projects in their own category.

I agree with this.  It's important for users to find what they're looking for.  I don't have time to try random "games" that bug a minute in or go nowhere.  It would be even better if there were Steam-like requirements that required at least 3 screenshots and optionally a trailer, which could be viewed through the Launcher.  Another useful piece of information would be to see how much time people played the game on average.  The higher that number, the more likely the game is worth playing.