Steam Achievements

Looking around the internet a bit I've already found some posts about Steam achivement implementation for PA and while the devs did respond with a "maybe" I feel very dissatisfied. I won't leave the game if it never gains achievements but it was disappoint me to a huge extent. After all, Steam is the future of gaming on the PC platform and I will not buy games on anything else (Origin, Uplay, non-steam games). I would highly appreciate such Steam integration even if we don't see the "invite to game" feature added (I love achievements that much). Any other thoughts and agreement statements on this? Maybe disagreements? Lemme know what you think.

[Disclaimer]: I use the Stand Alone Launcher as opposed to Steam.

There are actually a lot of people on here that would disagree and in fact say Steam has caused a lot of problems for PC gaming.

While I use Steam(and Origin and Humble and standalone) I think that PA should do things within itself rather than rely on something that not all(or vast majority) of the community uses(in general or for PA).

To be honest, I think you need to pull yourself away from Steam if you think that "Not Having Achievements" makes you "Very Dissatisfied" or "Disappoint me to a huge extent".

I also have to disagree with the "Steam is the future of gaming on the PC" statement of yours. While I do believe Steam is very helpful and a wonderful program, that's all it really is. It is the games themselves that are the future(and what have saved/advanced) of PC gaming, not Steam, Twitch, Skype, Windows or Google Chrome.

Unless you can actually post some sort of study that proves that Steam itself(not the games on there) has saved PC gaming(or vastly expanded it) then I have to regard your argument as an opinion not as fact.

Achievements would be cool (especially if they were available off-Steam for people like me) but only if they were put in late in development, maybe even after the initial release, currently the devs have a game to finish and making Steam integration, or even just in-game achievements would be a pretty time-wasting move.

They're wrong; horribly, ridiculously wrong.

As much as I dislike how Steam works, Quitch is correct here.
Not only is Steam a much more moral distributer than say, Gamestop, it's also allowed for much easier entry into the industry for indie developers, which is great.
It's also got unbelievably frequent sales which no one can deny is always fun.

I see your point, although you sorta have to admit that it's kind of nice being able to manage everything including achievements with one client. And maybe being "very dissatisfied" and "disappointed to a huge extent" is a bit of an exaggeration, but it's something I really enjoy and adds more value (replay value too) to the game in my opinion (along with competition for those who compete for achievements with their friends). I do understand how Steam has caused problems though and you're right, GAMES are the future. I essentially meant it's helping unify and build a gaming experience which people who aren't tech savvy can more likely have a better experience with a client than having to manually install games and such. Steam is basically a simplified console-like experience add-on for gamers who may prefer consoles or don't like the hassle of disorganization, etc. The reasons can go on really, but no Steam has not saved PC gaming in any sense - I can vouch for myself and friends that it has improved the experience nevertheless.

I'd love to see Achievements and Steam Cards. Would give me a reason to play on Steam.

I like Steam.

As far as developer time... I imagine this wouldn't take that much time. Just build off the systems that are already built into the game. There already is/will be extensive statistics compiled. So the hardest part is already implemented.

I can strongly agree with you on that one. While I haven't bought tons of games yet, I have seen tons of great sales and got a few sweet discounts that I wouldn't have got with buying the game traditionally standalone. Personally, I think the only reason against further Steam support is how Steam can cause development issues.

(I have not and will not vote to keep the poll fair)
These current stats are interesting and it's looking very mixed... I can see why the devs said "MAYBE".

My main issue is that Steam doesn't sell games, it sells licenses to play games, which means you don't own a product you own a license to use a product. (REDUNDANCY, HO!!!)

This isn't the greatest method of distribution, I can see why it's used as selling digital products isn't exactly possible per se, but it's not a very good replacement
This removes several advantages like warranties for replacements (should an account be stolen, for example) refunds and the like.

While you have a good point, one thing to argue against is stolen accounts. Valve did make it difficult to steal an account from someone and made it easy to secure your account - it's just some people don't secure their accounts very well. While the idea of now actually owning the game can make Steam a turn-off, it's not like you're going to need to own a game anyway when it's just going to die in 3 to 10 years or if you get bored of it. I personally believe that paying less for a game rather than paying full price and owning the game is worth it, even if you are paying full price for some games just for a license. But truly, whether you buy the game standalone or through a platform, there is always that miniscule possibility of something going wrong; you never know in this day and age. Overall it's just a matter of perspective: would you rather say tomAYto or tomAHto? No, we won't decide which pronunciation this debate is

Yeah, like I said it's still a good service. I just think it'd be nicer if it was possible for Steam to actually give ownership of a game.

It's not like I blame Gaben for this, though. The idea and possibility of selling digital products online is in such a legal gray area it's starting to look like the age of ancients from Dark Souls.
Ah well, what can ya do?

While things like trading cards and achievements are nice, I think a lot more people would enjoy more functional things like Workshop Support and Cloud Saving for Galactic War.

Those would really enhance the experience IMO.

I can agree with you on that. Do you think if PA grew enough in the next year, Uber could expand possibilities? This is truly their first "flagship" game, after all.

I think the Steam Workshop is a clearly laid out, easy to use forum for sharing and downloading mods (even though Raeven makes it easy!), which is a big part of the future of Planetary Annihilation.

I think Friends and Steam Achievements are good fun as they encourage us to play socially.

Steam also enables us to share screenshots of PA easily and show off how awesome it looks.

The Steam Community Forums are eye-gougingly painful to use/read, but that's why we don't use them.

All in all - Yeah, why not? Steam is widely used, Valve are the 'good guys' of the gaming industry.
Most gamers use Steam, and we want PA to have a long and illustrious future.
That means not reinventing the wheel as far as the social side of PA is concerned.

Very well said; I totally forgot about some of that!

I would like to point out that you never ever own a game if you "buy" it as a regular customer.
For example, Uber owns PA. You paid money for it, but you cannot claim to own PA.
The only thing you own is, yes, a license to play PA. No matter where you bought it.

And that's all you can reasonably expect if you paid such a relatively small amount of money, because truly owning the game would mean that you probably would have to pay for the whole development costs on your own which might be more money than you make in your whole life

Steam simply makes the fact that you only own a license a bit more obvious.
And yes, it also makes it a bit more tedious, as you cannot easily install games without an internet connection and so on.
And in the theoretical event of Steam shutting down there might be issues with obtaining and playing Steam games, etc.

But apart from such inconveniences, you own games on Steam just like you would if you bought them from GoG or had them on disk without any external drm.

@Topic
Any kind of Steam integration is nice, as a huge part of PA's userbase plays through Steam.
But development should be focused on making PA awesome first and foremost and this goal should not be compromised in any way by an effort to use more of Steam's features.
Because even Steam users probably care more about the quality of the game than about tight Steam integration.

PS:
Steam (or more specifically: Valve) have some major influence on PC gaming. Not only because of how they provide a service many players and developers enjoy, but also because without Valve there would never be such a large push for making Linux a viable alternative to Windows when it comes to gaming.

Having tried it myself, I can say that it definitely is not there yet, but this development might become VERY important over the next few years.

Yep, as a Linux user, I'm definitely in the Steam camp. But even I would prefer them to get to version 1.0 before they move on to luxuries like Steam integration.

Full steam integration (at least achievements and cards) is a must for the launch of the game.

I really wish they'd handle mod downloads in the same way they handle game patches though. When I've launched a game I want to play it, not wait on mod checks and downloads.