they already dont need any publisher since the R1 project
but too bad they already signing contract with a couple of them
publisher = bad, all they do is just milking money, they dont care about the damn bugs, players report, feedback
You’re probably right. Though publishers don’t necessarily have to have any influence on the development of the game, it is certainly common but not an ansolute.
It’s not even just hats, IMC would be stupid to not jump at the chance to implement steam trading cards for ToS when it goes live.
I’m not too sure how the decision to get a publisher or not works for an MMO but as long as they can get someone to do the translations properly Steam and Lord Gaben will be all ToS needs as far as distribution, advertisement, reviews, and feedback are concerned.
P.S. Inb4 limited edition dota 2/TF2 themed hats get implemented because of steam integration
Hm. Well, I will say it simply.
What’s the point in greenlighting a game throught steam, making a iCBT on it, if finally you won’t selfpublish it ? I mean, Tree Of Savior is THE GAME that broke the “world record” of greenlighting time ^^’ That’s something ! And I think IMC will make use of it~
Please no NCSoft, no En Masse, no Nexon NA, no Aeria Games, no EA (LOL, WHO KNOWS), no Perfect World…
Just no. Keep it on steam, it will be perfect, for the very first time !
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http://hack-engine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Aeria_logo.png
http://partnership.s2games.com/images/asiasoft_logo.png
#.#Triggered
Nah, steam has no say in the development of ToS or anything related to IMCgames. They are only there as an easy way to distribute thousands of thousands of copies to everyone for a fee ofc. The only say steam has is whether or not they choose to accept the title onto there store, which was decided by greenlight in this instance.
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cosmetics… I always buy the ■■■■ out of cosmetics in games that I enjoy… however sometimes they are bit too expensive. Eg. some full skins on dota 10 e??? lol wut.
I wouldn’t ,mind paying say 5 e for a new look and idk like another 5 for 10 day 10% job/exp boost.
Steam is not a publisher, Valve is. Steam is a distribution platform that IMC is using for the beta.
And you guys do not understand just what a publisher does, a publisher is a key and valuable ally to a developer.
It keeps the developer from having to rework their whole infrastructure to adapt to marketing, managing, supporting, hiring employees, dealing with outside forces, legalities, etc.
If a developer decides to publish their own game, a lot can go wrong, and when it does it will cost big bucks. Even if they don’t, all the changes they will have to make to get everything squared away will cost a lot of money. Employees are not cheap, professionals are DEFINITELY not cheap.
Having a publisher that has already established connections and all these departments takes a huge load off the developers, and will often leave a F2P game in a better condition.
For an example, let’s say they hire some lowly grunt to man a phone line for support. First of all, one person won’t be able to handle a phone line for a game, so let’s increase that number to something nice. I’ll still keep it lower then an what it would actually be.
3 people. First of all, they’ll probably pay more then minimum wage. But lets assume they aren’t. I’ll go with a nice number of $7.50.
Each one of those people will probably work around 30-40 hours a week. We’ll assume 30 cause why not.
30x7.50 = 225. Multiply that by 3. 675. They have to pay these employees $675 a week. That’s not including a benefits, insurance, or anything else. Not including equipment either, this includes a ticket system, phones, desks, computers.
That’s just one department, and a gross understatement of how much it costs. They need multiple departments for all sorts of things. Heck, that includes a department for managing other departments (HR). That’s also probably the cheapest department.
With a publisher they don’t have to deal with all this.
Just a short list of SOME of the departments they would need.
1) HR, to manage the humans.
**2)**Marketing, to manage marketing (A lot of money has to be pumped into here.)
**3)**Legality department, lawyers do NOT come cheap.
**4)**Customer Service, I’ll even lump IT support here, and feedback here. This also doesn’t come as cheap as you’d expect. It’s why a lot of it get’s outsourced.
**5)**Forums, community managers included.
**6)**And of course if you want this stuff to work well together you’ll need a building too.
**7)**Then there’s taxes.Financial.
**8)**Servers and server staff. Big cost here too.
**9)**Publishers usually handle localization too. Gotta have that staff.
Those are the ones off the top of my head, probably more tho.
EDIT 2; Also didn’t include the dev team, but yeah. Them too.
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Well, Valve has DOTA2 and is even better model than Riot’s. All heroes are free…so I think Valve could handle it pretty well if they wanted.
Steam is not a publisher, Valve is, and Valve only publishes in-house content (Portal, DOTA2, TF2, CS, etc), AFAIK they do not publish any 3rd party games.
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I also agree that IMC should go with a publisher, but honestly I can’t think of a really good publisher at this point. Valve will most definitely not publish ToS as they have never published a 3rd party game.
TF2 dont have a cash shop ??? (i mean not cash shop like riot or dota2)
i agree with this 
even tho im on asia… i know that feeling of your fave game will be ruined by greedy publisher.
Are people still trying to call Steam a publisher?
Do they not get that Steam is a distribution platform, and Valve only publishes their own games?
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Whatever you do, do NOT negotiate with TenCent.
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Although Valve has made some disgusting monetization efforts with Dota 2 (Hey good goy, pay 28 euro for this remodel with fancy effects and a bit of programming), it is still the single cash shop I’ve spend more money on than all other cash shops combined. I hope imcgames will pull off something similar.
P2W (or Pay2Advantage for those special people who have to take things literal) is just such a huge turnoff. Seeing other more successful in life players get their success in game too just because they can pay for it is a bit unfair to all the unsuccessful NEETs out there. So it’s a win+win/lose+lose situation with a cash shop. Wouldn’t you rather want NEET money anyway? They have brand loyalty.
I think it’s not impossible to keep the store cosmetics only while providing some other features that don’t directly affect gameplay. Such as character slots, and perhaps at the upper limits one time auction house slots and bank space upgrades.
There’s plenty of potential for cosmetics on things. Cosmetic spells, companions, hats, clothes, hair style, dyes, eyes, weapons etc. Will these things require development time? Definitely. Will you build a (high quality) game around it, not affected and gimped by F2P money mooching techniques, pleasing people? Definitely.
And hey, if you’re going to release on Steam anyway, it has a market and accounts have an inventory, allowing people to trade their cosmetic drops from ingame over the market nets a small income too.
+1 to this. Steam isn’t a publisher, they’re just a distribution platform; steam is a way to get your game out there to an audience and nothing more. That is what makes it perfect for ToS. Publishers are companies who exist solely to make a profit for themselves. If a game doesn’t turn a profit in spite of (or because of) what they do, they’ll just drop it, it’s happened dozens of times before. Every MMO player here knows just how awful publishers are, Nexon, Aria games, Gameforge, Perfect World, they all have their huge barrels of issues that absolutely no one wants to deal with; but people deal with it anyway because the games that these developers make are worth the hardship. Imagine what these games would be like without the publishers having a say in what goes on with the game. Making a deal with a publisher should be IMCgames absolute last resort to staying afloat, not their first option. This isn’t even taking into consideration how bad asian publishers can be, either. Publishers in China and SEA can be even a hundred times worse than anything US/Euro players have had to ever deal with. Making a deal with a publisher and giving them huge control over your game is signing a deal with the devil to get your product out there to people. Publishers are in it ONLY for themselves and no one else, they are a company out to make a profit and nothing more.
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Ew, lol players. Valve is in the same boat, actually its even better compared to riot.
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Well Played!
Well Played!
Well Played!
Well Played!