Steam is a successful platform, but its control of the majority of the digital-download sphere leaves some ill at ease. Relic Entertainment Producer Jeff Lydell, however, thinks that switching over to Steam exclusively (dropping Games for Windows Live) helped Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War II – Retribution.
“Going exclusive through Steam helped drive awareness with their millions of users by way of banners and message support so by the time we opened the beta up to all Steam customers, we had a huge number of people playing,” said Lydell. “At the very tail end of the beta we partnered with Justin.TV and some of their top Starcraft players, who held several live streaming broadcasts of the Retribution MP beta and single player campaign mode to a receptive Starcraft fan base. This hype and activity helped us exceed our digital pre-order forecast by 129 percent.”
“The content of the game wasn't dependent on the online service provider. However, one of our goals when making expansions to our games is to address problems in the original,” he added. “The combination of requiring both a Steam account and a Games for Windows Live account had been a source of frustration for many of our players, so we took the necessary steps to fix that. We also got to take full advantage of the Steamworks SDK features like cloud saving.”
“The new online matchmaking experience is definitely a step up in many players' eyes. The new skill rating system gives better granularity on ladder standings, and makes it easier to see the changes in rating after a match. The Steam community features for organizing friends lists are all frequently used, and there are many groups with active users, as well the in-game chat lobby is always active with players,” he noted. “There was a lot of concern the move away from our previous expansion strategy would fragment the community. Looking at the numbers, it's clear most active players have moved over to Retribution, and the total hasn't gone down.”
Check out the full Dawn of War II – Retribution interview here.
