With the release of S3 coming hopefully within the next couple of years, is it time to revisit releasing the game on Steam?

It would boost the player base and provide a giant amount of new revenue for the devs to keep working on the game. It could really give LFS the kick it needs to get back to 1,000+ people online again.

Please consider this topic again. It can help improve the game.

No. It would bring more players, that's right, but it would bring a lot of FPS kids too (who have no real life), and crashers, crashers, trolls etc. Result: fair racing and Multiplayer completely destroyed... Just don't (ever) publish it on Steam. Never.

Quote from MandulAA :

No. It would bring more players, that's right, but it would bring a lot of FPS kids too (who have no real life), and crashers, crashers, trolls etc. Result: fair racing and Multiplayer completely destroyed... Just don't (ever) publish it on Steam. Never.

This. We already have enough immaturity at the demo side. We really don't need a new level of insanity coming up.

Totally agreed with previous comments.

I wouldn't like to see LFS become another AC in terms of quality of public racing. More people != more fun in that case.

It would create some problems for server admins but it could give LFS a significant amount of good players who otherwise wouldnt have found the game.

Quote from cargame.nl :

Totally agreed with previous comments.

I agree

judging from my brief attempts at racing on lfs servers in the past two days, i have to say that i disagree. completely.

lfs' online racing is not nearly anywhere it has been. for the odd hour of just-for-fun racing one may choose which of the cargame servers to join, as far as i could see. in case there is any alternative i have not yet found, please enlighten me.

granted, a whole bunch of crashers are nothing i would like to have on the servers. lfs on steam wouldn't come for free, so their behaviour would have its price. being banned on all the remotely popular servers will either cut off wrecking intentionally or just leave them without a place to wreak havoc.

but what lfs, in my opinion, desperately needs is people. people actually playing this game. amongst all the idiots a wave of new players would bring, there surely must come a heap of nice players too.

as the lack of content updates seems to fail to induce a constant inflow of new players, i think other means should be regarded. i'd rather kick the odd wrecker off the server than race two people all night long.

to me it seems that there is a conservative fraction of the community, wanting to preserve things like they have always been. sure thing, easily understandable, as this has been a great game in the past. in reality, though, this looks a lot like closing the eyes to the fact that the sim i love seems to gradually lose players over time, basically bleeding out and left to die.

can a bunch of new players ruin multiplayer if, to be honest, there is not really any?!

216 racers are there now online @AC .. Some racing simulator active on Steam. Probably half has a hacked version so didn't payed anything.

LFS currently has 276 licensed racers online according to LFSWorld.

End of research.
--

Conclusion, when LFS gets regularly updated, like six times a year .. It would crush any other racing sim. Steam or no Steam 'supported'. Oh and by the way, Iracing also doesn't need Steam. Weird?

iRacing doesn't need Steam because people flock to it because of an active community. 300 racers online is nothing compared to what LFS had in the past, adding the game to Steam would give the devs more money to work on the game as well as allow more people to find the game and buy it.

People aren't buying AC because it's in Steam's early access section, many people have lost faith in the games that are categorized that way.
Crashers have to be dealt with anyways, admins can always ban them. I've had to administrate a DarkRP server on the game Garry's Mod, half of the players that connected had to be banned, it wasn't that big of a deal because after they were banned, there were no more bad players.

AC is also significantly harder to run and harder to navigate compared to LFS, online racing in that game is very confusing compared to LFS. Those 200 online players in LFS would actually help new racers, the 200 online racers in AC don't do much to help new racers.

And lastly,

Quote from Biohazard :

can a bunch of new players ruin multiplayer if, to be honest, there is not really any?!

I have to agree with this, what harm can it do. LFS players always have wanted to preserve the way the game has been, but why are we going to hold the game back?

Administrators have to deal with rammers anyways, whats the harm of adding new players to race with? LFS used to have many, many, many more active racers than it does today. If it were put on Steam it isn't like hundreds upon thousands of players are going to join at once, people would pick it up slowly, and most likely the # of active racers would only jump to the same amount it used to be.

I wouldn't mind if LFS was on steam..It would benefit LFS in some ways and also there could be some consequences (e.g. more immature players to deal with daily, but that's manageable). I also think that LFS will eventually get more immature players even if it's not on Steam at the point when a new update is released that might seem appealing to new players. I would like to see LFS on Steam, it would bring new players in and I personally wouldn't mind if some immature players show up..you can always deal with them, just don't visit completely random servers and stick to those that you are familiar with and are known for good and clean racing.

Would the multiplayer system change if LFS goes to steam? Because at the moment multiplayer is best of all sims and I wouldn't like it to be changed. It's so easy to use and has so many different options.

I also agree about that it will bring lots of stupid kids who likes to crash on purpose and doesn't even know the rules. At least that's how it's going in AC and Race07.

E: And I think S3 will highly boost amount of drivers when it get released.

Why would the Devs want to get involved with Steam? The way things are run now is simple, no other parties involved so everything goes direct to them and they have full control over how things are run.

Sure Steam "could" bring in more users but I can't see it making a huge difference in numbers, anyone remotely interested in online sims/racing will no doubt know of LFS along with all the other sims, they don't need Steam to highlight them.

Quote from GAVD999 :

Why would the Devs want to get involved with Steam? The way things are run now is simple, no other parties involved so everything goes direct to them and they have full control over how things are run.

This. And everything is fine. I don't know how does Steam work with developers, but I'm sure they (Valve and co.) keep some on the profit for themself...
After there are some real content updates, we will see if the number of players increases enough to keep it this simple. If yes (and well, let's hope it will), I don't know what is this fuss about Steam. But let's not decide this question, the LFS dev eam has the right to make the choice (and I think I'm not the only one who doesn't want LFS to be on Steam).

Quote from master_lfs.5101 :

adding the game to Steam would give the devs more money to work on the game as well as allow more people to find the game and buy it.

It's already known that our devs aren't motivated by money,otherwise we would have already S4 level content with older physics by now.

Quote from cargame.nl :

216 racers are there now online @AC .. Some racing simulator active on Steam. Probably half has a hacked version so didn't payed anything.

LFS currently has 276 licensed racers online according to LFSWorld.

End of research.
--

Conclusion, when LFS gets regularly updated, like six times a year .. It would crush any other racing sim. Steam or no Steam 'supported'. Oh and by the way, Iracing also doesn't need Steam. Weird?

i think you should have continued your research for just a little bit. whilst the absolute numbers you have given may speak against a 'dead' lfs, what is behind it doesn't. subtract demo users, cruisers, drifters, blackwood car park crashers and just take in who is actually racing - well, i can see the tumbleweeds on eric's racetracks. when was the last time about a hundred of those were on the lfs servers at the same time?

concering the potential lfs has i agree completely. all this would and could unfortunately does not attract anybody when there are five years of seemingly no progress. if there is no updated content, which i consider not just right around the corner after that amount of time, read: lfs in its current state depends on new player influx. whether that is under the label of steam or any other means, i do not mind.

in other words: does this look healthy to you?

Quote from Biohazard :

subtract demo users,

Read please, I said licensed racers, not racers.

And yes I should have said licensed drivers not racers. But anyway, you think the kids@AC are actually racing? 80-90% is hotlapping, crashing somebody else, votebanning and/or cruising.

So Steam offers nothing more then quantity not quality. Not going to do any further research, I formed my opinion, Steam brings nothing of value. Besides you need to do all kinds of obligations as developer and I believe Scavier is not waiting on obligations.

But you can freely discuss another 51 pages about Steam, if you would like to spend your time like that

Quote from Biohazard :

in other words: does this look healthy to you?

Pretty amazing with five years of no content. Steam or no Steam, would have looked the same.

Quote from cargame.nl :

But you can freely discuss another 51 pages about Steam, if you would like to spend your time like that

no, thank you very much. i think i have stated my point, after slowly changing sides in this discussion over the course of years. apparently though there is not much backing for possible changes due to a rather stubborn conservative majority (?) of the community. guess i will have to sit back and wonder how people can be satisfied with the current state, at least if they have the comparison of the situation some years ago.

There aren't many obligations after publishing to Steam. You release your game and just release updates through the platform, 30% of the money from Steam sales goes to Valve.

ScaViEr doesn't have to implement Steamworks for multiplayer if they don't want to.

Also the devs don't have to change anything in their current systems to support Steam other than integrating licenses with Steam accounts. You could continue using LFS.net for downloading and etc. while people who want to purchase the game on Steam can do so.

I play games DESPITE them being on Steam, not BECAUSE they are.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I play games DESPITE them being on Steam, not BECAUSE they are.

That is not the point, the point is to expose more people to the game via a new storefront.

I genuinely think that people who might want LFS will have heard of it. I knew of AC and Half Life 2 and TeamFortress from magazines, websites, word of mouth etc. I don't think I've ever 'discovered' a game via Steam.

Quote from tristancliffe :

I play games DESPITE them being on Steam, not BECAUSE they are.

so do i.

again, i do not want lfs on steam for the reason of it being such a nice and necessary platform to put a game on. steam and all the likes are a pain in the arse, no doubt. should that somehow bring populated servers and actual multiplayer racing with it, i for one would be willing to make that sacrifice.

at the end of the day, the devs have always been very certain about what to do and not do to their project, so all of this talking probably serves no other purpose than to fill this forum with things to read during a slow day anyway.

LFS on Steam is fine as long there is a non-Steam version. Short term sales boost, new players, etc. No new problems would arise from new potential noobs and crashers as those are simply dealt with as they are now. Either airio experience lock or the admin bans, simple

The real problem is supporting two branches of LFS among few other things including legal crap. I vaguely remember Scawen saying they like their freedom of LFS development how they want, when they want and all that stuff. Steam ties your hands a bit if you're a dev.

For us end users it wouldn't matter which version we use but for Savier it would require some research about the cost effectiveness. In my opinion it's a short term gain for a long term obligation.