ANSWER:
Steam has a thing called Playtest. It works from your main game app. So you have to go through the normal process of paying 100 dollars, uploading build, waiting for review, and then you can use the playtest feature.
(some other methods are mentioned below, but this is what I’ve went with)
original:
When you publish your game to steam, then add hotfixes/updates later, those changes automatically update the users local copy.
Is there any way to do this before it is published to a distribution platform like steam? Like some free distribution platform just for testing?
What I am trying to do is just eliminate my play testers need to download demo every time i make a update. The game is not ready to go onto steam yet - but if there is a way to use it for distribution while not allowing reviews/outside discovery, that could work as well.
Probably some people here know what sort of options exist for this? Any adivce is appreciated, thanks.
You can use steam before release, although I don’t know how easy it is to distribute to people outside the team. I just used it to synch with my partner on last title. Maybe you just generate pre-release keys and send those?
I was reading steamworks and it looks like there is support for beta releases there. That probably solves this problem, but i was hoping there may be something easier as with steam I have to first go through the entire account/app setup process which is a whole thing.
You have to do that anyway at one point! I doubt there are any other platforms that allow for automatic updating of games that is less work to set up than Steam. Most are probably a lot more work - including making them agree to have your game there in the first place.
Alternatively you could self-host, and have a launcher that checks for updates like it’s 2004, but that’s going to be a lot of work as well.
Well I’ve got to have trailer and some art ready. That’s coming soon, but right now I was just trying to make life a little easier for play testers.
It appears that on steam, if you have a verified account associated with your banking information, they won’t let you make a second one? I’ve written to support about this, seems weird. Steam will allow you to make multiple accounts from one email, but only one per bank information?
I guess I should also look at the epic store. I know that is curated but maybe the game looks decent enough to have a chance. Steam is fine but there is options so I should probably see what the deal is over there too.
I don’t believe any waiting period happened before I was able to distribute beta keys, but I’m not sure. Steam also has a feature called “Playtest”, which I think is new.
There are assets for just this purpose that greatly simplify the process. The following one has a wizard for making the builds and you only need a basic HTTP server to distribute them.
If you’re doing the old beta way with manually distributing keys the only waiting period is that for the keys which usually doesn’t take longer than a few hours. Most of mey key requests were done faster.
Don’t know how it works with the new PlayTest feature as I haven’t tried that yet. But you don’t need a store page/build review for getting the keys and these are the things that can take a few days.
Update: support says that the playtest uses same store page as main app, so it has to undergo same review process. Got to wait 2 weeks then.
original:
I’ve gone through with setting up Playtest on steam.
It looks like this has a shorter review process (it is telling me 3-5 business days).
One confusing thing though, in this block “release”, the language seems relevant to regular steam apps in that you got to wait two weeks before it’s “released.” I’ve written to support about that for clarification. I should know in a few days, will report what I learn for sake of future searchers. I must say, getting through Steams UI is like untangling a knot made of 10,000 ropes.
