Pluses of Steam:
* Tried and tested API for online gaming and much more, with services that would cost millions of NOK to develop for each independent developer - available for free
* Immediate, automatic updates and patching
* Integrated game verification and cheat detection
* Direct contact with the world's largest online gamer base, with a lot of social media features, ladders and matchmaking. Even if we created a similar service (which we can't possibly afford to do), you'd have to sign up
somewhere to find other people to play, and then every game would need its own service for you to sign up to.
* The easiest game installation process in the known universe
* Once you own the game, a crash is no problem, and switching to a new PC is no problem. Just re-download and re-install. You can have it installed on as many PCs as you want.
* Sharing of savegames between different locales, if you want to (and you will not lose them in a crash, as above).
* Achievements. Yeah, we're suckers for them even if we don't like to admit it
* Lots of free data feedback to developers: what play modes and maps do gamers like, what are they doing in the game, etc, etc. This makes it possible to give players more of what the majority want, not what the loudest people want - and god bless the loudest people
* Direct, immediate feedback on crashes/bugs. If Steam detects several identical crashes, we are told about it immediately, so we can fix it immediately without relying on gamers reporting it accurately and immediately
* Direct sharing of mods and other user-created content with the entire community. You create a mod, you share it and get others to play and comment. Modders may even get paid for mods.
* Thin, memory-effective non-intrusive client
& loads more
This is, to be very frank, a case of a very vocal minority giving Steam a bad rep with, mostly, quite weak arguments (many based on what they hear others say).
The vast majority of PC gamers have been voting by actually selecting Steam (before it had anything resembling a monopoly) for a long time, and now Valve and Steam virtually owns the PC/Mac online game distribution market. It's because they have made by far the best business model and product available here and now. It is not only best for game devs; Turbo Tape Games consists entirely of avid gamers (so do Paradox). We were Steam fans before any decision had been made (or were forced upon us by reality) to be Steam exclusive. It is so easy to purchase, use, organize and play your games.
I do wonder if any of you actually remember when we bought a game on CD/DVD, hunted around the net for patches and updates, struggling endlessly to apply patches in the right order, ended up with another version than our mates so we could not play them online, the games had annoying CD-always-in-tray "copy protection", and the turnaround between bugs and patches were weeks or months not days or hours. I am sure you do. Do you miss it?
Whenever one company dominates, however, there is always going to be detractors. Thus these threads in every single game forum on Paradox Plaza, yet millions rush to Steam to download games and DLCs from them, because, SteamWorks simply works.
My sincere apologies if this rant upsets anyone. There are obviously people with no net connection who would have an easier time with an alternative, and we definitely would want to accommodate everyone who wants to play our game. We have limited resources and time, however, and there is no feasible alternative for us currently.
I'll leave this thread open, but I am not going to comment on this issue again, at least not before we have more practical information. We'll look into solutions for those who can't use it with Steam, but we are a small company with very limited resources.
Thank you for your continued support and patience, and again, apologies if this decision upsets anyone, but it is not possible to do it any other way and still get this game to market in time.