Mana Games

[DutchTennis]

Any news on this? I voted yes.

[manutoo]

DutchTennis
21% of the required votes to be in Top 100, so still low hopes...

[danmasino]

Hi manutoo,

I voted yes obviousy I think this can be a good idea, it can help the community to grow up and maybe (in the future) to update the online mode at the same gameplay-level of the single mode! Good luck, cmon TE!

*i'm trying to convince my steam's friends to vote it ^^

[targetbsp]

If Steam is looking unlikely in the near future... any chance of a Desura release? It's where some of us client obsessed gamers go for our indie titles that aren't yet on Steam!

[manutoo]

targetbsp,
I just had a look at Desura... It seems to be 20 times smaller than Steam, so I'm not sure it'd be worth the hassle to publish TE2013 on it or not ; I'll have to get more details about what needs to be done to do so ; I'll look more into it next month.

[targetbsp]

It unfortunately is a fair bit smaller - but I think everything is!
I don't know anything contractually about getting on there but software dev wise there shouldn't be any difficulties. The client is actually optional and can be used Steam like to organise your games and updates or you can direct download from the Desura site (if the developer chooses). Even if you go the client way, you can run all the games outside of the client so there's no integrating the client into your program like Steam.

Also, they have the capability to distribute Steam keys to their customers for you when you make greenlight. I've had Postal 2 and Thomas Was Alone keys that way.

Thanks for considering it, I shall keep an eye out for any developments on that front in the future.

[Nigogu]

The game isn't going to be on steam, right?

[manutoo]

nigogu,
still very unlikely, yup.

[Woowhat]

Too bad. Many crap games are there so it should be room for another good one. Especially cos there is not a lot of choice when it comes to tennis games. Top Spin is a long time console port only and Virtua Tennis is just awfully arkadish.
I just voted but no statistics on progress is shown. How many votes are needed to get there? Hundreds, thousands?

[manutoo]

Woowhat,
got 2'500 votes, and it need ~45'000 to be in top 50, so that's pretty far away...
My only hope is that Steam team decides to add some sport games and manually pick the 2 or 3 best ones in Greenlight listing ; in that case, TE2013 has a chance, as it's likely not too far from the most popular other sport games (according to the number of comments, I can't see other stats).

[Elias]

Voted. Added links towards TE Steam page in Youtube videos descriptions as well.

What about using some modded Tennis Elbow video to show off on the steam website ? this may bring more appeal, you could simply tag it as modded/free content.
Showing that Tennis Elbow is open to modding can be seen as positive in Valve eyes i guess.
Just asking, not sure it's an option because of copyrighted material etc. Not sure what is the most sensitive content regarding rights ? 2D court pics because of adds (can be blurred or removed using pshop) ? adds on 3D courts (can be removed) ? recorded grunts from real pros ? Umpire voices samples ?

[manutoo]

Elias,
all the ads, brand logos, tournament name if not based on the city name, etc... ; and I will never do marketing based on any real player image, and almost 100% of Mods videos show real players in action.

[Wolfe]

Voted yes, this is a great game and deserves to be on Steam!

[ladja]

A larger audience would be very nice but I am very critical of Steam. In my opinion there are very keen on making money through a closed ecosystem of games...

[manutoo]

A little update on the progress :
TE2013 just got 60% of the votes needed to be in the Top 100..!
Moreover, it has half the 'yes' votes of the Top 50 : 3,558 vs 7,087 .
This means it needs 6000 'yes' to be in Top 100, and probably something around 6500 votes to be in the Top 50.
Being in the Top 50 = being released on Steam, so it needs 3000 more votes. I still didn't write anything about Steam in the newsletter, so I'll do that in next one, and hopefully, it'll bring a few hundred or even 1000 votes...
So maybe TE2013 will be on Steam in 2015..!