Steam’s guidelines state that the name a developer signs up with has to be the same as the name on his bank account, which leads me to wonder what the accepted procedure is for single-proprietorships which use the owner’s personal bank account (as is often the case)? Most of the indie developers there are listed as a company name, although I suspect many of them are very small sole-proprietorships which are just one guy in his bedroom, using his personal bank account. In fact I’ve seen people actually give the advice that you don’t even need to register a company name officially (much less set up a company bank account) until you start making significant money. Does anyone know what Steam’s policy is?
This is correct, there is an option to register in Steam a Sole Proprietor/Individual. Also, I don’t believe there is any restriction on this as how much you have to make before needing to change this.
But if you register as a sole proprietorship under a company name, the guidelines seem to require that you use a bank account that has the same company name rather than a personal bank account.
Hmm, I signed up with my personal bank account and everything went through alright.
Well, it looks like you’re using your real name for your account, so that isn’t a case of using a company name combined with a personal bank account.
BTW, congratulations on Metamorphic passing Greenlight.
Interesting, I see you, post on the dev forums? Or send a message to Steam, they’re pretty responsive. And thanks, good luck with yours!
Steam didn’t give me any meaningful response. BTW, how long did it take to get your account and game submission set up when you first submitted Metamorphic to Greenlight?
Well, get greenlit and make a company and then see if Steam will help you!
Do you mean the time to set up the page? Its really as quick as you want it to be, if you have all the necessary items, you could have it done in half an hour.
It’s pretty easy to make a business banking account but is frustrating in you don’t have the daily balance minimum to avoid monthly service charges. I’d tell you to join a credit union but a lot of those charge monthly fees as well but they are still your most likely place to open an account without monthly service fees. I have one where the minimum balance to keep the account open is $25. You’ll need to look for what type of credit union to join yourself - some are restricted by geography and some by profession.
I meant how long did it take for Steam to do whatever it needs to do to accept the Greenlight submission and post it publicly (they have to process the $100 fee, and presumably confirm your banking account, and enter the submission in the database, etc).
Some years ago, I tried setting up a bank account for a nonprofit I had founded, but it didn’t go well. I can look into credit unions.
A non-profit? Those aren’t usually good ideals. A good part of my phone & mail screening is used to avoid such organizations.
Its all pretty much instantaneous, theres almost no approval process if I remember correctly for submitting to green light. Very refreshing coming from iOS!
1 Like