Just wondering if the folks at Steam would be a little more generous in putting VO up now that Steam is compatible with Mac. Any news on this?

What were their objections in the first place?

From what I recall, the devs said they looked into it but got no response.

Valve / Steam have formally declined to include Vendetta Online.

Wonder why, can you elaborate inc?

I really can't. They wouldn't say why.

Ironically, it could be because you offer the game for free download. My guess is that they take a cut of the profit of the original purchase and then the rest of the monthly fee is all the developers'. So it wouldn't really be profitable for them to market effectively "free" games.

Not to say that you should make the download non-free, this is just a theory that can be shortened by saying <Kleiner>Awwww, fiddle sticks.</Kleiner>

Who knows, it might be possible to arrange a deal where they get a cut of the first payment of any Steam-purchased VO, but eh... I guess there are too many holes in a deal like that.

Edit: or it might be possible to make it 10 dollars on Steam but make the first month free... but I guess I'm making too many assumptions about your conversation with 'em :/

It's unfortunate that steam has decided not to carry VO, I think it could really add alot of users to the game.

As for how to work it, I've no idea, some fashon of giving them a cut of subs from accounts made through steam would be the only way I can think of.

For that, the subscription fee would have to be raised, I think.

I'd imagine that, if it did happen, the price label on the Steam site would be ten dollars and the first month would be free. Steam would probably just take a cut of the initial ten dollars.

It would just have been packaged as an "included time" thing, like how they do with EVE and various other games. Someone buys via Steam, gets a special key. I don't think our being declined had anything to do with the business model, or free downloads.

If anything, I suspect they made a judgement from our metacritic scores, which are all based on the game at the time of release in 2004. So, yay, we get to labor under the burden of six year old reviews.

At any rate, they have firmly declined to publish VO. I do not believe they are interested in alternative "deals", or that that had anything to do with it.

So I looked up Vendetta Online on metacritic...

A lot like "Freelancer," only boring and with a monthly fee. [May 2005, p.94]

lol

Yeah, but I checked through some other MMOs on Steam, and there are some with much lower metacritic scores (EG CrimeCraft).

Well, I have no idea. It was a very disappointing experience. I spent the better part of a year trying to raise someone at Valve, then more time talking (seemingly) favorably to them at GDC, then came home and was turned down by someone I had never met with or spoken to.

On the upside, things are looking more optimistic with Direct2Drive.

I hope you get a break soon boss. You deserve it.

With the recent Steam-4-Mac and upcoming Steam-4-linux it might be a good time to try and (re)pitch a truely native multiplatform mmo title at them ;) If not now then very soon(tm)

Dude, they turned us down after GDC this year. Ie, late March, around 2 months ago. We were all jazzed to be a launch title on Steam for the Mac. It's not like the landscape has changed since then.

If they make a Steam for Linux, without us, that'll be pretty hilarious (in a sad way).

Aye, hopefully VO will make Steam for Linux. We're really the only truly native multi-platform MMO I can think of.

We're really the only truly native multi-platform MMO I can think of.

You mean other than Planeshift, Regnum, Eternal Lands, A Tale in the Desert, EVE, Diaspora...

That isn't free-to-play, yeah... other than UO and A Tale in the Desert (forgot about those D:). I don't think EVE supports Linux. I guess it would have been more accurate to say one of the only non-F2P truly multi-platform MMOs... certainly the coolest