I had this goal of taking a really simple game/toy idea and publishing it. Now when I say publish I mean just get it out on like steam and app stores for free. That is it. The game would not be so deep as to call for any ask in money but it would be a complete experience.
The game/toy idea I took was Colourboop a rip off from an older browser game called Moonshine.
Did I give up and not finish the project? That depends.
I finished the game/toy and even added some haptic feedback for iOS builds. Sure it is not something groundbreaking but it is a fun relaxing little time killer for about 30 minutes or so. Exactly what I set out to create.
Heck you can even play a web version here. Note, not sure if it will work on mobile browsers.
Well, once I got the thing kinda done. Works great on iOS, web, etc. I went through the valve steam process for getting approved for a game.
Never have a seen a more convoluted godawful experience.
The DMV is more coherent. No joke.
The process spans over 4 websites with different forms and processes. Every single one looks like it was designed 20 years ago. It blows my mind honestly. Best of all, one of the sites didn't confirm that I had paid so I ended up paying twice. 200 bucks for 2 games. And it still never said I paid.
So I finally get to a point where it basically said they are reviewing my application to see if I am legit.
...
...
...
Nothing. I get nothing back from the verification process after weeks and then months.
I know what you are thinking. The next step is to reach out for support but that is where the drive just goes away.
But why? Why does it go away so fast?
You see, we don't know how long it will take to contact support or even what support to contact. This ends up being many many unknowns to solve for all of which have unknown units of time to resolve.
Now when I look at iOS app verification it starts all over. So involved and convoluted. Many unknowns.
The more they build up the harder it is to know where to start, or to keep pushing on one until it is done.
We like to do things that have a start and end state with a known expectation on how long it will take to go from start to finish.
I knew all of this with the core features of the toy/game. I can break things up into units of work that can be completed in an hour or so.
This is not possible with the unknowns. I do not know if I can get something complete in an hour or 2 or days. I often do not know where the next step is if something doesn't work. The hardest part is when you get blocked waiting on something. I cannot just put in another hour and find a resolution to the steam problem. I have to wait for them.
This ambiguity means we need to track the status and keep pushing on it when we have time never knowing if or when it will get resolved.
I get overwhelmed and just give up. I'd rather get the next dopamine hit working on another project than slogging through support emails.
I cannot just give up not when the hard part is already done. The whole point of this little project was to get something out there. To go through these approval processes to better understand them and how they work. To make it so my next project won't be stunted due to publishing problems.
If you know of good guides or links on publishing on steam my lovely reader person, please do tell.
Cheers!