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The Ship?

D

Doches

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 17, 2010
7
0
Edinburgh, Scotland
Anybody remember The Ship? Quirky Source-engine based murder-mystery/hunt set on a 1920's cruise liner?

I work for a studio (Blazing Griffin) that's just bought the game from its original developer -- one of the things we'd like to do, because some of us (read: me) are Mac people, is put out an OS X port of the game. If so, would people prefer to play the game via Steam or via the Mac App Store?

If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, drop me a reply (either here or on the Blazing Griffin forums) and let us know.
 
It's not really about sales -- it's about doing things the right way. We're pretty keen on doing the OS X port either way, to be honest, and it's a crapshoot which is a better distributor from our point of view. If we had to choose one, the only real criterion would be which delivered the better experience.

I'm inclined to say Steam, from a personal point of view, but wanted to see everybody else thought.
 
I would agree, go Steam... I like the way I can purchase a game and get both versions mac and PC, not all games support this, but definately enchances the purchasing power from a consumer stand point.
 
Mas

I've had a series of poor user experiences with the Steam app, which I'll be happy to detail if asked. As a result after buying about 20 games via Steam in 2010, I've bought only 2 during 2011.

I would very much prefer your game be distributed via the Mac App Store.
 
PatrickCocoa said:
I've had a series of poor user experiences with the Steam app, which I'll be happy to detail if asked. As a result after buying about 20 games via Steam in 2010, I've bought only 2 during 2011.

I would very much prefer your game be distributed via the Mac App Store.
Click to expand...
I'm interested in this! What happened?
 
MasterTick said:
Yeah, the Mac version is definitely not as good as the PC version.
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+2 to that. PC version lot smoother and uses less resources. Runs way better in XP for me than OSX on my gimpy laptop.

I would say Steam. I never understood the Steam crowd until it came to OSX and games (albeit a small %) can be cross-platform with the same purchase or you can simply re-download games on multiple machines. Gotta love Steam.
 
Glad you asked

Dagless said:
I'm interested in this! What happened?
Click to expand...

Here's the list. Many of these are small issues, but combined with the big problems I finally gave up.

Before I start, I was excited to get Steam as it opened access to many new games. I went into my Steam experience excited and hoping (expecting) it to work. I had a positive attitude going in to my Steam experience.

1. The Steam client UI is horrible.
2. You need a separate logon/password for user support.
3. I eventually created a separate email address to handle the traffic I had for the problems with Steam.
4. Here is the complete text of one of their replies: "Hello Patrick, Thank you for contacting Steam Support. What issue are you experiencing with your Steam account? Or did you just want to write in and complain?".
5. Clicking on a Steam-supplied link in any of their reply emails takes me to a screen that asks me to create a new Steam support ID. I already have a Steam support ID, and the link has a ticket number in it. How can Steam think I need a new support ID?
6. I realized I was spending a good percent of my game time supporting Steam problems, not, you know, playing games.
7. I had some problem downloading Portal 2, don't remember know what the deal was.
8. Many problems with Steam lead to a domino effect where solving one problem leads to another.
9. On April 21, 2011, I have 6 emails from Steam regarding changing my password. This is to my support account, and did nothing to respond to my problem with downloading Portal 2.
10. Had some issue with being double-charged or not getting my secret unlock key for Eve Online in mid-2010, don't remember now what the exact issue was. Took a long time to resolve.
11. They closed one of my tickets as resolved, then denied they do that.
12. I exchanged 22 emails with them June 17 - 21, 2010. Their replies were unhelpful as they did not resolve the situation.
13. Had a few crashes in mid-2010. This had not happened since.
14. Had a support request denied because the subject line was not long enough (although non-blank).

Boy, dredging up all of those dark memories has been therapeutic for me. I have decided that setting up a game portal (Steam) that must be used to access all of your Steam games creates a dependency on that portal. If there are any problems, all of your (Steam) games will suffer.

I have since moved into the light of the MAS. That is a portal, but only for discovering, acquiring, and updating games. Actually playing the games uses the normal process for running any application, which has (for me) been much more problem free than Steam.
 
Loved the concept of the ship, played the original one a bit. The source game never really took off... hope to see it again.
 
^ Same! I meant to buy it years ago but plum forgot about it.

PatrickCocoa said:
I have since moved into the light of the MAS. That is a portal, but only for discovering, acquiring, and updating games. Actually playing the games uses the normal process for running any application, which has (for me) been much more problem free than Steam.
Click to expand...

To be honest those sound like some minor issues or just support orientated. Sure I'd like the OSX client to be improved, but I've never had such a problem that I stopped playing or buying games through it.
Just curious - what did you say when you first contacted Steam support? I've had to deal with them a couple of times in the past and they've been absolutely helpful and to the point on all occasions, whether it was reclaiming an old/lost account or getting money back on a broke game. I treated them with respect and they treated me with respect.

As for MAS, it's a store front and nothing more (portal). Steam is bigger, it's a veritable cross-OS platform. As a dev myself I couldn't name a better or more lucrative platform for PC/Mac.
 
Good Questions!

Dagless said:
To be honest those sound like some minor issues or just support orientated.
Click to expand...

Agreed. But they're issues that don't exist (or haven't for me) on the MAS.

Sure I'd like the OSX client to be improved, but I've never had such a problem that I stopped playing or buying games through it.
Click to expand...

I've had problems, more on the level of annoyances. I don't want to be annoyed when I want to play a game. I don't want to approach the night's game session with a feeling of dread.

Just curious - what did you say when you first contacted Steam support? I've had to deal with them a couple of times in the past and they've been absolutely helpful and to the point on all occasions, whether it was reclaiming an old/lost account or getting money back on a broke game. I treated them with respect and they treated me with respect.
Click to expand...

I agree. I'll try to dig up my old messages, but that would require me to log on to the Steam support site. Which, surprise, doesn't recognize my password and wants me to reset it. Again. Responding to the subtext of your question, my tone in the emails was probably annoyed but not rude or demanding, certainly no profanity or hissy fits.

As for MAS, it's a store front and nothing more (portal).
Click to expand...

You say that like it's a bad thing. I ended up at the MAS (after trying Steam as my primary game source for over six months) precisely because MAS is a store front and nothing more.

Steam is bigger, it's a veritable cross-OS platform. As a dev myself I couldn't name a better or more lucrative platform for PC/Mac.
Click to expand...

It turns out cross-platform is a synonym for compromised. I wanted to like Steam but don't.

The original question was what platform should Blazing Griffin release their remake of The Ship on. If it's on Steam it's very unlikely I'll buy it, say 1/2 of 1%. If it's on MAS it's still unlikely I'll buy it, say 5%.
 
Well, that's good to know -- sounds like most people feel pretty much the way I do about both. If I didn't also buy and play games on Windows I'd be a MAS person all the way, because it's simple (just a storefront) and the launching/drm process is incredibly painless.

But that buy-once-download-across-platforms thing is just too good to pass up.

Just a knee-jerk reaction to what y'all have said: I imagine we'll end up going with Steam first, and a MAS version sometime after. I'm getting the impression that the overlap between users isn't terribly large (i.e. most people buy games from either one or the other, but rarely both). Good to know!

Also, PatrickCocoa, MasterTick, Cougarcat -- have you seen Sebastiaan de With's redesign of the Mac Steam client? It's ace; I just wish it was real!
 
Doches said:
That is hilarious. How did I miss that?
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It is brilliant, if you port the ship, I will buy it.

If you liked that review watch all the old consolevania stuff, its brilliant, just a shame they arent doing it anymore!
 
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