Debating whether trying to publish on steam is worth the hassle

[parttimestorier]

I've just recently released my first commercial project on itch.io, and now I'm wondering whether it would be worth it to try to publish it on steam as well. Looking at this list of requirements for publishing, the review process sounds kind of complex and intimidating. I also have the impression that most of the audience for my kind of game - short EVNs that might be a little rough around the edges - is already on itch.io, and that people who only use steam are less likely to be interested. But on the other hand, I've heard some other VN developers say that publishing on steam went well and got them a lot more sales, and I've also had people who seem interested in my game ask me if it's going to be on steam. So if anyone here has any recent experiences with publishing on steam, how did it go? Would you recommend it?

Also, the bottom of that page asks you sign into your steam account to get started with the Steam Direct sign-up process, so I'm also wondering whether that means that my personal steam account needs to be connected to my developer/publishing account. Is that how it works?

[Mutive]

So my thoughts on having gotten a Steam game through the process:

1. You're right in that it's pretty involved. (And it takes a minimum of several weeks.) It will almost certainly involve creating assets specifically for the site, learning how to use their uploader (I'm convinced the idea that you can directly upload is a lie. They claim it's doable, but couldn't get it to work. Grr...), etc. Their tutorials are fairly helpful (although long....) and the staff are pretty easy to get support from. But no lie, it takes a lot more work than Itch.io does.

2. It does cost $100 USD, so if you're doing it purely for financial reasons, you'll have to weigh what you hope to gain vs. that cost.

3. At least for me, it got a LOT more users/reviews/playthroughs. Like 10xs as many. (But my game was free to play, so YMMV.)

4. It's also handy in that you can view stats (how many people actually played it after purchasing, length of play time, routes taken, etc.) Since I'm very interested in that kind of thing, this alone was worth the $100 + extra work. (I saw the extra work as a learning experience, anyway...)

5. Reviewers on Steam are far less friendly than on other sites. They will not hesitate to complain loudly. This is either good or bad, depending on your feelings. (I generally like feedback, but was a little annoyed at someone who went in a tirade when I couldn't get my achievements to work. Like, dude, this is a free to play game. You literally spent nothing on it. Stop whining.)

Other people, I'm sure, will have different opinions. (I'm curious about them!)

To me, it was worth it for the game I launched there, but I haven't gone through Steam for other games. (Mostly because, aside from Eidolon, the other projects have been games that have only taken a month. It's not worth another month to get it on Steam!) If I do spend a lot of time on a future game, I'll probably go through the Steam process again, but I'm not looking forward to it.

[Aviala]

Steam is a hassle, but in my experience, the vast majority of my sales come from Steam. Your royal gayness has around 200 downloads on itch, and more than 10x that amount on Steam. Steam takes a bigger cut from the revenue, but it still generates way more money for me than itch.
But then again, LoveBug, which is a much smaller and weirder game, doesn't generate much revenue at all since it's such a niche game (it's about dating game devs at a game jam). We also put WAY more effort and money into marketing YRG than LoveBug, so marketing definitely affects sales a lot!

There isn't a clear-cut answer whether you should have your game on Steam, but in my experience, you're almost guaranteed to at least earn back the 100USD you put into the "enterance fee". Your only risk is that you spend time figuring out the steam process, but don't get a lot of revenue in return. You just need to figure out if you're willing to take that risk. :)