Here is yesterday's post.
Hi everyone, the subject we will deal with today is quite different.
I swore to myself when I started to develop Extra Life that I would always do what was necessary to be transparent with you. To tell you about my success as well as the failures I have encountered. Because don't think for a second that everything goes smoothly with every update.
We often encounter a ton of problems, the goal being to solve them in the best way possible. Today we will talk about Steam. Steam represents for any game developer the holy grail of the online store. However, it's necessary to think twice.
The positive points:
- Steam is strangely more permissive on the adult content, take for example the theme of "rape", as much on Patreon it is an almost immediate closure of page, on Steam it is not the case.
- The user base on Steam is about 130 million people. But I don't think for a second that everyone has activated "display adult content" but if 10% have done so it's still huge, much more than itch.io
- If the game sells well on Steam, it's the insurance to ensure the sustainability of extra life and to be able to offer more projects in the future.
The negative:
- Some contents authorized by Patreon (for the moment), are not authorized on Steam.
- Steam validation is not to be underestimated, it's much more complex than I thought. This earned me a ban.
- Steam, takes a 30% commission on absolutely all sales. As a reminder, Patreon takes about 16%, and itch.io is according to the will of the developer so between 100 and 0%.
The origin of the Steam ban.
I thought the ban came from using the term high school and dating sim in the game which implied minors. I guess there is no such thing as an 18-year-old high school student. The other problem was Chiaki, it's a character that was deliberately underage but had no lewd content (which is perfectly normal).
Steam refuses any representation of a minor in an adult game, whether there is content about her or not. As long as Chiaki is 12 years old in the game, Steam will never accept the game.
The good news is that even after a so-called ban, it's always possible to take the Steam validation exam by paying again the 100$ fee.
So here's what I'd like to suggest, forget the 12-year-old Chiaki and say hello to the new 18-year-old Chiaki instead. To keep some coherence in the story, Chiaki would be Minato's twin sister, extremely shy as if she was hiding a terrible secret.
The advantage of this character is that she doesn't speak much so I won't have to change much text. The last interesting point is that Chiaki is 18 years old and can become a lewdable. To finish convincing you, here is the sketch of the new 18 years old Chiaki. What do you think about it?
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