I’m a Steam user. I have over a thousand games in my library. I’m also a fan of DRM-free games. Thankfully, most crowdfunded games tend to offer a choice of one or the other to backers. Up until now, Duke Grabowski wasn’t an exception. Things changed in the latest backer-only update, though.
During the campaign, DRM-free copies of Duke Grabowski were promised to backers. Of course, most people expected this promise to be honored. As of yesterday, the publisher the developers have lined up told them this no longer is the case. The whole DRM-free thing has been thrown out the proverbial window and only Steam keys are being offered. Understandably, the comments section on Kickstarter is in an uproar.
DRaMa
The reaction has been almost universally negative, with nearly every commentor speaking out against the decision. Several backers are demanding a refund because they only backed it because DRM-free was promised. Instead of getting militant, a few backers have decided it best to petition the publisher to honor the original promises. One has even written up a template to send to DukeGrabowski@gmail.com.
I hope this decision to make Duke Grabowski a Steam-only release gets overturned. Not everyone prefers to use Steam as a gaming platform. If forced to use it, people will be demanding their money back. I do feel for Bill Tiller and everyone at Venture Moon Industries as they’re not the ones making this change. Still, if anything will be done it’ll be up to backers to change the publisher’s mind.
On the plus side, the release date of October 6 has been announced. Unfortunately, Duke Grabowski will only be playable on Steam unless things change.
After a few days, we still have yet to have any clarification on the Steam-only release. The creators haven’t addressed the outcry, at least not in the update’s comments. The whole “noninterference by publisher” angle is why most people go through crowdfunding sites, to escape problem areas like this DRM issue.
As a dev, I can confirm managing both DRM free versions and Steam versions takes a lot of time. (and time is money) You have to make separate builds, update and test them both at the same time. And if you’re like me and you do Mac and Linux versions too, this is a ton of builds!
Not only that, but you need to send a new DRM free version to all the stores each time. With Steam, you can just update it there and it will automatically get updated everywhere. Much more practical!
However, a promise is a promise! And I clearly understand the concerns of people who don’t want DRM (I’m a gamer too!) So I don’t mind having to do this.
Though I guess the issue isn’t on the dev side, but the publisher… When you’re self published, you make less sales but at least you’re “free” and don’t have this kind of trouble.
Shipping DRM free and Steam builds isn’t significant work or a meaningful timesink (source: I ported and shipped both DRM free and Steam builds of Day of the Tentacle Remastered’s Linux version). The biggest hurdle (for me) was upload time, but since I can do work while that’s happening, that’s not something I can really say is a problem.
We did have an issue with GOG builds not going up late, but since GOG don’t let us control that stuff ourselves, that feels acceptable to me. Humble and Steam went live at pretty much the same time.
It’s more things to think about and more things to keep track of, and I totally agree that’s can be draining. If it’s something you’re committed to/want to do though, it (much like supporting Mac and Linux, or Mac and Windows if you’re a Linux based dev like me) doesn’t have to be a significant hurdle providing it’s something that was planned from the beginning rather than something that has to be hacked in/out later.
Yes, I meant the upload time (and compile time) in particular actually, quite long when you have a very slow internet connexion like mine… It’s annoying having to have to check if each build has successfully compiled / uploaded. And yes, checking that the suitable variables are set for each build.
You worked on DOTT Remastered? Cool! ^^
It took me 16 hours to upload DRM free and Steam builds of DotT for publishing, but that’s 16 hours I could spend on other work (or spend sleeping!), so it’s hard to count it as using up my time.
If you’ve got a build system set up (I just use simple makefiles for most of my projects), you can use that to set variables for you for each build variant (eg: if I want a Linux build of Winter’s Wake for dev testing, I run `make linux` instead of `make dist-linux`, or when I wanted a DRM free build of DotT, I’d run `./generate_linux_NoSteam && ./build_linux_NoSteam`). Of course, if you’re using third party engines/tools you’re at the mercy of what they expose, but most stuff out there allows you to automate doing builds/set compile time flags.
I don’t mean to demean the effort that other devs put into supporting Linux and doing DRM free builds – it’s something I’m very appreciative of (thanks for doing both with Demetrios!). I just feel like they’re not such big hurdles 🙂
Yes, unfortunately there’s no such thing as automatized scripts for building with Game Maker Studio. I have to compile each build manually from the interface.
That’s definitely a good idea, I’ll suggest it to Yoyo Games if nobody has yet 🙂
Yeah, crazy. I had a hunt around and could only find details on command line options that can be used with exported games.
Your workflow for managing Steam vs non-Steam builds must be way more cumbersome than the ideal.
Hope that’s something they consider!
[…] two weeks ago, Venture Moon Industries announced they were dropping the DRM-free version of Duke Grabowski. Understandably, many backers were angry […]
Based on the most recent Kickstarter update, it sounds like a delayed DRM free release is on the cards for later in the year.
I’m a big believer in trying to make these things simultaneous where possible, but that’s still a great thing to hear 🙂
Yeah. It sucks that DRM-free is releasing later but at least it’s being released. I think that’s all backers asked for.
[…] And because DRM is almost always annoying even at its best, there are some gamers who will only buy DRM-free games. Many Kickstarter campaigns for video games, in fact, explicitly state that backers and non-backers will have a DRM-free option for the game available, either through platforms like GOG and HumbleBundle, or directly from the developer. Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler! was one such game, with developer Venture Moon Industries promising both a Steam release and a DRM-free release when it collected funds from backers. Then, suddenly, once the company got a publisher on board for the project, it announced that the game would only be available on Steam. […]
[…] And since DRM is roughly always irritating even during a best, there are some gamers who will usually buy DRM-free games. Many Kickstarter campaigns for video games, in fact, categorically state that backers and non-backers will have a DRM-free choice for a diversion available, possibly by platforms like GOG and HumbleBundle, or directly from a developer. Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler! was one such game, with developer Venture Moon Industries earnest both a Steam recover and a DRM-free recover when it collected supports from backers. Then, suddenly, once a association got a publisher on house for a project, it announced that a diversion would usually be accessible on Steam. […]