Should We Go To Steam Early Access?

Awesome, thanks for the thoughts! :)

Slaves of Rome

Taon has a point here. Most people who use steam have games that they tend to play with friends or livestream, something that they likely won't do with Slaves of Rome. This means that few players are likely to pick up a copy less they risk people judging them for buying it let alone playing it. To avoid this, a customer would need a second account that couldn't be linked to their primary, a task few would put in the effort of doing. Even if there were people who bought Slaves of Rome on steam, you would be losing about 25%-40% of the sale price to steam, meaning the price would either need to be jacked up if you wanted to make money on it, or lowered enough that it would appeal to the niche that you are aiming at. Honestly, I think it would be better simply to sell copies of Slaves of Rome on either a website of your creation, or on a different platform, one more directed towards an adult audience.

David Pelletier

Thanks!

Slaves of Rome

It would be cool, especially since the 3d is perfectly well done.

AngeDivin777

Yes. There are a few builds before we'll get to it but we sure plan to do both eventually

Slaves of Rome

hello, would there be a French language later and an option to play with the controller?

AngeDivin777

English? :o

Slaves of Rome

Ajouter une fonction manette s'il vous plait, c'est injouable par la plupart des joueurs. Et une langue française serait bienvenue, c'est les jeux multilangue qui ont le plus de succès des ventes...

AngeDivin777

Ok I am glad to hear there will be a stand alone application as well a way to recieve the game other than through steam

ShadowKing042

Thanks! Message received! :)

Slaves of Rome

Oh, that's not even a question - the patreon will keep going no matter what and will be our first priority. We also won't go to Steam if we feel you guys are strongly against it - but you guys here on patreon were the first to support and this what allows us to do what we like so in any case it won't be just Steam. Never.

Slaves of Rome

If you are putting the game on steam make sure there is a non steam version as well not all of us want to put adult games on our steam accounts nor do we wish to have to switch back and forth

ShadowKing042

'A harsh feedback.' One additional point. While it's great to be proud of your work, there's a different sort of pride you should take on - being so proud of what your work could be that you put time and serious effort into it; listen to critique without the chip on your shoulder; and present it humbly. It appears right now that you all care a lot more about doing the bare minimum you can to get away with charging people money for it. It's rampant in crowdfunded products these days and you all could be capitalizing on *not* doing that by prioritizing your work.

Unapologetic Lesbian

Agreed. You want to shake up the adult game genre the way you said you want to, you need to pull out all the stop for content, story, and overall variety of things to do. That is what most adult games lack. Especially content. Most are just "here's some sex actions, you're the camera guy. Let's go" you need more than that.

Odessa Renette

Right!

Hunter, George

True.. but also will probably speed up the development :P

Slaves of Rome

Well.. steam now allows adult games but I see your point.. we have the same concerns

Slaves of Rome

Great points, thanks! We are always debated if to "take it to the extreme" and do what you suggest or release a shorter game (and not take 2-3 years, as you said) - if I understand you correctly you rather us taking longer but doing it "right"?

Slaves of Rome

Thanks! A harsh feedback but appreciate it - this is how we can get better! :)

Slaves of Rome

Yeah, that's true...

Slaves of Rome

With Steam behind the game, there would probably a whole lot of pressure for finishing your work - wich usually ends in loss of quality.

Vick

While I don't feel the game belongs on steam either, it's not because kids are there. Kids are everywhere on the internet. The internet and steam are not Disneyland, it doesn't need to be catered to them. That's what content filtering is for. The game shouldn't be on steam for the host of problems it has, not because kids have access to the internet.

Unapologetic Lesbian

hope that helps yo

Cheese

usually when a game goes on early access for the first time steam features it and advertises it to those who match the criteria the game offers, but it only does so once or twice to each individual. if the person doesn't immediately love what they see they will pass it by or just press follow if they care when it comes out. With the amount of content you have currently it's about 50/50 in my guess, that people will follow your game and investigate it further or just pass it by because they want instant gratification. thats what i mean

Cheese

so there are two types of early access debuts as i've observed being part of the steam community. One, you have a bunch of followers that believe in your concept and stick by it making it greatly popular, and Two, it gets looked at and liked but then ultimately forgotten about even if there are good base concepts and frequent updates.

Cheese

"Adult games need to become more visible." there are many children out there on Steam. Adult games on Steam is a bad idea.

Lightmaxime

Gotta make alternate Steam accounts for games of culture ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

vladeemer

Would be kind of worried that some censor group would get it banned.

James Gregory

As said before... you have a proof of concept here... I wouldn't call it a MVP. You need something (beside the slave and punishment) which makes it special... parts of the "world" just empty... so either concentrate (which means reduce - compress) or add content... and do something about the emptiness of your game... if this is Rome... you need to add a lot more center of the world feeling... which means population... so are you ready for Steam / Early Access... nope... how long may it take? At the current seed maybe 2-3 years. You asked... my honest opinion.

Noply

I would rather my friends not know when I'm playing a game like this

imnotshareingmyname

Honestly, big no. I'm still waiting to be wowed by this game. It has very little gameplay atm. The mechanic of it being a slave nullifies any consent no matter what sort of disclaimer you put up and that's a big red flag alone that could get the game crucified by the steam community. Despite what you're saying about equal gameplay for all genders and sexualities it's clearly built by and for straight men with very little effort apparent to cater to anyone else in a serious way. There's very little dialogue, and the very little available atm is riddled with grammar and spelling errors with not much put into the writing quality. The sampling of world available is boring and the graphics leave much to be desired. I signed on as a patron and have stayed out of curiosity and hope this will all improve as I understand it is early still. But having known indie developers personally who have put up a boatload more effort over a much longer period of time out of their own pockets without patreon and not succeeded because of stupid reasons, it's honestly an insult to the industry imo that you're even billing this game as AAA, let alone considering making this leap rn.

Unapologetic Lesbian

I’m just afraid they’ll delete it because title

I mean they either get slammed until steam takes them down or they generally don't do well by themselves and disappear in the sea of other games trying to get greenlit. Only exception I've seen is Honeypop and that was because it was a match 3 puzzle game with nsfw pics, nowhere near the adult content you guys are trying to pull. Don't get me wrong I helped kickstart Honeypop but they weren't pushing as many boundaries

Odessa Renette

What do you mean by 'last long'?

Slaves of Rome

To be honest I feel as though any adult game that gets put on steam doesn't seem to last long. But on the other hand it is a great way to distribute a game.

Odessa Renette

Get the game on early access. Adult games need to become more visible. Make the industry take note how a small group of devs can make a great adult game and make money. It will help legitimize adult games.

Joe Guarino

What do you mean eaten up? Like not be very visible there?

Slaves of Rome

The game would get eaten up by early access right now I think, though it could go either way.

Cheese