I know this might be a silly questions, but is there a fee to get your game on steam? I know that there are other costs in the development process but is there any upfront cost like XBLA?
Thanks for your time 
I don’t think so. But it’s not very easy.
I know that you can’t just have a game you have to have a great game. Is there a thread telling me just how hard it is to release the game on steam?
You have to have a game that will attract Valve’s interested and quite a bit of luck.
I’m not sure if it has been discussed before, search the forums. I don’t think there are a lot of Unity games on Steam though.
What would you have to be lucky about?
Someone from Valve getting interested in your game, would require some luck I guess.
Minecraft was rejected from steam the first time notch tried it and when they changed their minds he didn’t need them anymore :P.
Braid too, although they eventually accepted when it was successful on XBLA.
The Steamworks FAQ should answer most of your questions: Steamworks
Basically you submit your game, they play it, and if they like it and think its a high enough quality game, you get in.
There are a few Unity games on Steam. Namely Bob Came in Pieces and Foreign Legion: Bound in Blood.
And that other game that completely escapes me, that was capture the flag with vehicles and cel-shaded-y graphics.
Ahh yeah, that was Crasher; it got taken down though, not sure why. If you search for it on steam the demo comes up but when you click on it it redirects to the homepage.
LOL, Epic FAIL
I am at same place as you,.so I’ll share it…
I just research about indie games… I find out that if you want to sell your games to xbox indie, you will need to join member of app hub. for $99 a year.
It include for XNA I think so… I has no idea.
and there no fee to sent any digital download store for pc games only, but they will took off your money if someone buy your games.
and of course they will want your game for free, for them to play your games. if they enjoy it then they will put it on their store.
Plus if you are non-usa like me, you will need ITIN…
( I am still waiting for ITIN… but I think so I’ll fail to have that. bah.)
Unity cannot be used to create games for XBLA.
Correction: Unity cannot be used to create games for XBLIG
As for Steam, I would worry about that after you get your game to a near-finished state. If they turn it down you can find other sources of revenue such as IndieCity.
aw that why I cannot find anyone use unity as engine in XBLA. but why did unity said that they can do that?
You can make a normal xbox, retail, game. Just not xbla.
You can’t use XNA, which requires that everything be written in C#, and the Unity engine is native C++ code. XBLA is OK. (Yes, all those X acronyms have tripped me up too…)
–Eric
Ive released an XBLIG. It was a great experience. I really wish I could use unity for XBLIG. Have there been any games for XBLA made with unity?
Where do all the developers go when they cannot get onto steam? Is there an equivalent of steam for mac? I was thinking about releasing this game for the mac app store but I feel that isn’t the steam equivalent.
Thats incorrect, you can create XBLA games. But if you are not in the position to create anything polished enough to get on steam, you likely also don’t have a game of a quality that microsoft would let on or for which you get an investor that pays you the engine license etc.
the only thing you can not do is create XBLIG games, which as eric mentions requires XNA + C# which unity does not offer at all
Hopefully once the next console cycle rolls XBLIG will be more like the app store and we can use unity for XBOX. That would make my year
Yes, the equivalent of Steam for Mac is, er, Steam.
–Eric
Of course it costs you to sell on steam. It also costs you to sell on appstore. As far as I know there isn’t any free stores. That cut that they take? thats the cost