Proposal: should we push to get Pirate Galaxy onto Steam?

[SkyLord1]

I wanted to open this conversation because I believe that, as a community, we could give the game we all love a crucial push by finding a way to bring it to Steam.


The game is genuinely great, with huge potential and a unique identity, but let's be realistic about the current landscape: nowadays almost nobody discovers free games by browsing the internet the traditional way anymore. The vast majority of gamers look for content through official, established distributors, Steam above all. If you're not there, you practically don't exist for the mainstream audience.


The current problem: retention and funding


The current referral link system isn't working very well. New players show up, but since they get stuck right at the start without rewarding incentives to keep progressing, they lose interest fast. The game urgently needs a steady stream of income and a fresh flow of users. At this rate, we're going to keep losing the player base needed to keep it alive.


My guess is that if the developers haven't put the game on Steam yet, it's for economic reasons: Steam will take a cut of every gold purchase players make on the platform. That's an understandable concern, but it needs to be looked at long-term: once the game slowly dies off, where is the money going to come from then? It's better to give up a percentage of revenue in exchange for thousands of new players buying gold than to keep 100% of the income from a player base that keeps shrinking.


The benefit for everyone: making the game's model more flexible


If the game received more passive, steady income through a bigger community on Steam, the developers would have the financial room to reconsider mechanics that currently push players away.


Let's be honest: the membership requirement to use abilities and shoot at all is a massive barrier. I have friends who quit the game, or won't even start it, because it bothers them deeply to have to pay a subscription just to fight normally. If more money came in thanks to a bigger user base on Steam, the developers could remove the energy membership entirely. The game could keep generating revenue perfectly well through blueprint upgrades, kryonite boosters, cosmetics, and so on, without scaring off newcomers with such restrictive energy limits.


The proposal: two ways to open that door


To solve this and give the game real visibility, I propose we look for a way to bring Pirate Galaxy to Steam through two possible routes:


Option 1 (Community donation): if we pool together at least 300 to 600 dollars, that amount could be enough to cover the initial costs of getting the game onto the platform. It's not a huge sum for an entire community, but it would be exactly the push needed to give the game a presence there.


Option 2 (Paid game on Steam): sell the game on Steam at a low, accessible price (like 10 dollars) so it generates steady financial support for the company. It's worth noting that the idea isn't to change the current model: the option to play for free through the website would remain exactly as it is now. Steam would simply be a new entry point and an extra source of financial support.


I firmly believe that if we come together and make the developers see this, we can pull it off. It would be the perfect opportunity for people to give Pirate Galaxy a real chance and for the project to be sustainable over time.


What do you all think? I'd like to know if there's real interest in the community before proposing something more concrete or starting to organize a fundraiser. Looking forward to hearing from you!

 

[Fission]

Hi @SkyLord1 ,

Steam would certainly be an interesting idea to pursue, and it has been — and likely will continue to be — considered. It could provide additional visibility for Pirate Galaxy and potentially open the door to new players discovering the game through a more established platform.

That said, there are a few important points worth taking into account:

First, being on Steam does not automatically translate into thousands of new players. Steam gets a huge number of releases every day — often around 50 or more — and most of those games do not receive major visibility or community buzz just by being listed there. Some kind of visibility or promotion through Steam’s developer-side tools would likely still be needed.

Even with that, Pirate Galaxy is already 17 years old, which is impressive in itself, but also means it would be competing against newer and often flashier titles. Because of that, getting a strong influx of new players would not necessarily be easy.

Regarding option 2, making the Steam version pay-to-play while keeping the website version free would probably be difficult to justify community-wise. Many players would likely see that as unfair, and it could very quickly lead to negative reviews for the Steam version. For that reason, I do not think that model would work particularly well.

It is also worth considering that, for a long-running online game, adding Steam support is not just a matter of paying a fee and uploading the game. There would likely need to be some degree of integration between Steam, the platform, and the existing game portal/account systems.

None of this is meant to dismiss the idea of bringing Pirate Galaxy to Steam. I agree that it is an interesting possibility and could be valuable. I just think it is important to be realistic about what Steam can and cannot solve.

There is also a big difference between new registrations, players who actually stay, and players who eventually make a gold purchase. Each step becomes harder than the previous one. So Steam would not be a simple “click and get rich” solution, even if it could help with visibility under the right conditions.

That said, we really value this kind of feedback, so thank you for taking the time to write down your thoughts on this matter!

Best regards,
Fission

 

[Hydraxon]

My guess is that if the developers haven't put the game on Steam yet, it's for economic reasons: Steam will take a cut of every gold purchase players make on the platform. That's an understandable concern, but it needs to be looked at long-term: once the game slowly dies off, where is the money going to come from then? It's better to give up a percentage of revenue in exchange for thousands of new players buying gold than to keep 100% of the income from a player base that keeps shrinking.

When uploading a game onto Steam there is always that choice of putting your microtransactions or otherwise in-game payments on there or not, the Devs here could simply upload the game to Steam and choose to keep their Gold purchases separate entirely from Steam, leading to them having no 30% cuts from purchases made and if people want Gold they can still buy it in-game which links them to the official Splitscreen website to do so.

The downside to this of course is people not being able to use their Steam Wallet to make purchases but that's something they're going to have to deal with if the Devs don't want that extra cut on their revenue sources.

First, being on Steam does not automatically translate into thousands of new players. Steam gets a huge number of releases every day — often around 50 or more — and most of those games do not receive major visibility or community buzz just by being listed there. Some kind of visibility or promotion through Steam’s developer-side tools would likely still be needed.

Even with that, Pirate Galaxy is already 17 years old, which is impressive in itself, but also means it would be competing against newer and often flashier titles. Because of that, getting a strong influx of new players would not necessarily be easy.

Regarding this, the game simply existing on Steam means it's well within peoples searches when looking for new games to play. Over time it's going to equate to more new players regardless of the amount as right now like SkyLord mentioned the old traditional ways of finding games is just not very efficient anymore.

This isn't a case of wanting thousands of new players in a fast amount of time imo, it's more about having that steady drip in as people find the game while searching in general vs how it is right now, it at the very least puts Pirate Galaxy back into the possibilities of being able to be found again by new people as a whole and not just hearing about it from current players.

 

[SkyLord1]

Hello again, thank you so much for such a detailed response and for analyzing these points from the team's perspective! I really appreciate the constructive tone of the debate.


I perfectly understand that Steam is not a magic solution of "click and get rich" and that competing with 50 daily launches is a harsh reality. However, I would like to deepen your points with arguments based on the real situation that we players experience day after day:


Visibility on Steam vs. Current Web Traffic
It's true that Steam is saturated, but the big difference is that it functions as a permanent storefront thanks to its tag-based search engines (like "space games," "retro MMO," etc.). Being realistic, nowadays almost nobody arrives through organic traffic to the official website; the few new registrations happen because we veterans try to bring friends manually. Therefore, even if Steam's algorithm brought us only a handful of new users per day through casual searches, that would already be much more traffic than the website currently receives. Furthermore, the fact that the game is 17 years old is not a weakness; on Steam there is a huge market of players looking for games with 2000s aesthetics who value the stability of a long-running project, something that new titles rarely offer.


The Vicious Circle: Energy Membership and Fear That the Game Will Die
You mention the difference between registering and staying, and that's where the real problem lies. I have friends who wanted to return to the game but end up discouraged for the same reason. They feel that the energy membership (having to pay a subscription just to be able to use abilities and shoot normally) is a huge barrier to starting over. Add to this the lack of new players. My friends, like many others, feel that it's not worth investing hours of gameplay and effort into a project if they see it losing life as time goes on. There is a real concern in the community that the game will die, and that very concern makes people not want to invest their time or money here. We need a change that breaks this vicious circle.


Why Current Methods (Like Referrals) Are No Longer Enough
Even when we try to convince those friends to come back, the referral system is outdated. In other games, referral links give valuable rewards and strong incentives to both the person inviting and the person arriving. Here, the benefit is almost exclusive to whoever invites, leaving the new or returning player without an initial push during those critical hours where they decide whether to stay or not.


The Payment Model Dilemma and Negative Reviews
Regarding the option to monetize on Steam, I understand the risk of negative reviews if the game were paid on the platform and free on the website. To solve this, the approach could be different: the game on Steam would be published as Free to Play (just like on the website), but a "Founder's Pack" or optional welcome DLC (for example, at $10 USD) would be offered that includes some gold, an exclusive cosmetic, or a cryonite booster. This way, nobody feels cheated and a clean and well-accepted revenue stream is opened on Steam.


Technical Cost and Commissions vs. Game Survival
I know that connecting the servers with Steam's API requires hours of development and that Valve charges commissions on transactions. But it must be analyzed long-term: if the game is losing users little by little, how will money come in the future? Furthermore, if they're worried that Steam will take a percentage of sales, this wouldn't affect current revenue because the markets would be separate. The team would continue receiving 100% of payments from the community already playing from the website, and Steam revenue would be a completely new extra gain. It's a better business strategy to give up a percentage commission to Steam in exchange for a new flow of players buying gold, than to keep 100% of a community that gets smaller every year. If this extra money came into the game, they would have the margin to remove the energy membership and sustain themselves with the sale of blueprints, cryonite upgrades, and cosmetics, eliminating the biggest barrier to entry for the game.


Conclusion
Nobody is asking Steam to save the game overnight. What I propose is not to close the door to the world's largest video game platform when current acquisition methods clearly need an urgent boost. As a community, we consider this game a lost gem on the internet and that's why we're willing to look for alternatives to support it before it's too late.


Thank you again for the space to debate this so maturely!

 

[Vesperion]

Wwaayy back when Steam Greenlight was still a thing PG was voted and got Greenlit by the community but afterwards it was never added to the Steam library so devs seems to have discontinued the idea to go to Steam at all back then already hence applied for Steam Greenlight and got approved by the community that the game is also available at Steam

 

[- A Z A E L -]

Hello everyone,

I truly appreciate that both Community Manager @Fission and Senior GM @Hydraxon have taken the time to thoroughly analyze @SkyLord1 's proposal. It is great to see a debate with such maturity between the staff and the community.

I imagine that if the game hasn't been brought to Steam at this point, it is due to the technical complications involved, because obviously it is an old game and adapting its current infrastructure must be an immense challenge. However, contributing to what has been discussed, I would like to give my point of view on the arguments presented by all three sides:

1. Support for SkyLord1 and the commission dilemma: The risk of redirecting payments

I fully agree with SkyLord1 that the organic visibility provided by existing in a modern library is key nowadays. However, analyzing the economic concern regarding Valve's 30% commission and the theoretical possibility of allowing the download on Steam but keeping gold purchases separate by redirecting users to the external website to evade the fee: we must be very careful. Valve's policies strictly prohibit this practice to avoid fee evasion within their platform, and it can result in a commercial ban of the profile.

Nonetheless, the legal solution already exists and is used by many active games: operating with a multi-launcher system. The game can maintain its own independent launcher on the web and, at the same time, be available on Steam or Epic Games Store. Users buy through the platform they prefer, centralizing the servers and supporting the same company. The profit margin is diversified and a new market is added, without touching the 100% that veterans already leave on the classic website.

1. Response to Fission: The barrier of distrust and the harsh reality in Aurora

Fission mentions that moving from registration to retention is the hardest step. The retention problem starts right from the technical distrust of the very first contact: from personal experience when trying to invite friends, the first reaction of many when sending them an external download link is to ask if the website installer is safe or if it contains a virus. The modern public is conditioned to download everything from centralized and secure stores.

Just because the game is 17 years old or considered for low-end computers doesn't mean it is bad. I currently have an RTX 5060 and a Ryzen 7 5700x; I mostly play it for nostalgia right now, but even when I had my previous PC, I played it because I truly considered it a good game. The problem is not the quality, it is how it welcomes the player.

I know that with the starting ship you don't consume energy during the tutorial, but that is not enough. People want to enjoy the experience and, by the time they reach Aurora, something happens: whether they didn't understand the mechanics, they didn't like it, or whatever it may be, the reality is that they end up leaving. If 1000 new users miraculously managed to join today under the current conditions, how many do you think would stay? Maybe 20? They enter a world with deserted starting zones and a very aggressive monetization system that blocks their basic capabilities with the energy membership before they can grow fond of the universe.

1. My reality in Gaia and the inevitable limit of time

I play on the Gaia server, I am level 99, I have invested real money buying memberships, the green paint, and I have always liked to support the project economically. My biggest motivation in PvE was always helping new players complete missions and guiding newcomers with the Sirius bosses, but that beautiful dynamic has almost disappeared because the fleets are inactive and my friends have left due to the constant drop in users.

I imagine the developers know that the decline in users has had a severe impact and that they keep server costs at the absolute minimum to keep the game running for longer. But this has a logical limit. It scares me to come back, put money into it again, and have the server end up dying in the end as has happened with others before. A veteran player might endure and tolerate having to continuously refill energy, but it is still exhausting and in the long run they will end up leaving too. Those of us who have played this for years are becoming adults, acquiring other responsibilities, and there will come a time when we will inevitably stop playing.

If putting the game on Steam is definitely not possible due to technical complications, I truly hope that at least the current community can continue to enjoy the game for the time it has left, because we hold a lot of affection for this universe.

 

[Hydraxon]

Wwaayy back when Steam Greenlight was still a thing PG was voted and got Greenlit by the community but afterwards it was never added to the Steam library so devs seems to have discontinued the idea to go to Steam at all back then already hence applied for Steam Greenlight and got approved by the community that the game is also available at Steam

Yea from what I understand the current system Steam uses now is called Steam Direct, where rather than have a community vote it is purely up to the Devs decision on whether or not they want to have their game readily available on Steam, there is of course a process to go through it isn't as simple as just upload game and good to go.

 

[sergi211]

The real issue is that releasing on steam a game implies a 30% of the generated revenue goes to steam itself and not everyone can afford that, also in case of a mmo they have to spend money on servers and network services therefor i doubt that splitscreen can afford it.
Now considering that a potential steam release could bring thousands of new players would the servers be able to handle that amount of players and in a future were the player base reduces can they merge servers ?
I highly doubt they can but hey if they pull it off good for them i guess

 

[Alinoe]

The real issue is that releasing on steam a game implies a 30% of the generated revenue goes to steam itself and not everyone can afford that, also in case of a mmo they have to spend money on servers and network services therefor i doubt that splitscreen can afford it.

This 30% commission only apply to Steam players, not for players outside of it that could either be on another game distribution platform (that can apply similar conditions) or be on the launcher itself that we have today (where SplitScreen make their own conditions).

Also this commission only concern in-game triggered transaction from a Steam application.

For any in-game purchases, you'll need to use the microtransaction API so Steam customers can only make purchases from the Steam Wallet. You can learn more about how to complete this integration in the Microtransactions Implementation Guide.

You can use the Steam Wallet to purchase individual items or to purchase your in-game currency.

(Source: Steam Documentation about microtransactions)

 

[Jaax]

Might have been said but, it's much easier for me to tell someone to play this game with me it's on steam, then search for pirate galaxy, click the first link, click register, make an account, download the launcher, sign in again on login screen then play. If u could just install on steam and have ur steam account, be ur account - it removes barriers.

 

[Sleep]

Might have been said but, it's much easier for me to tell someone to play this game with me it's on steam, then search for pirate galaxy, click the first link, click register, make an account, download the launcher, sign in again on login screen then play. If u could just install on steam and have ur steam account, be ur account - it removes barriers.

Some people is also skeptical if they don't know the game beforehand, they are much less more likely to do all the steps required rather than just downloading steam and being on an actual ''login'' where they can just use their steam account or simply register with the game already downloaded

 

[StickManTwit]

I've longed for a Steam release for this game ever since the Greenlight campaign was announced a decade or so ago, but I think the ship has sailed on this front.

The most important aspect to me is whether this is actually doable on a realistic timeframe. Ultimately I don't think it is. The game is written in Java on-top of a game engine that has largely fallen out of favour, so the developers would have to spend a significant amount of time to get the client to work properly with Steamworks' integration regarding achievements, overlays, and especially account based authorisation tied directly into Steam's infrastructure. Since the game's F2P with microtransactions, there would have to be an additional layer of work to create a completely separate purchase flow that works with both that existing system as well as Steam's own payment system concurrently. Both of these require significant amounts of development time; in my previous game development project where we had 3-4 server engineers and at least two infrastructure developers at any given time, effort poured into this would have stretched into the range of anywhere between 6-18 months of continuous work. Scale that down to the small team Splitscreen has, and you start to see the issue.

The second most important aspect is whether we really want to do this at all. Think about, if PG is released into Steam today, what would the response really look like from people encountering the game for the first time? Look, I'm not going to sugarcoat it; I love PG dearly but most aspects about the game are very outdated compared to the gaming landscape that most players are used to now. The three biggest things that Steam reviews usually dog on are poor or outdated UI/UX, empty servers, and "pay-to-play" systems. Guess which issues Pirate Galaxy struggles with the most? Reviews will come in fast and brutal, player retention will be incredibly low after the first hour, and all of that will result in a terrible return on investment for even getting the game onto the platform in the first place as all this will all but guarantee long term low visibility on the storefront. PG is a product of its time, and that time was 2009. The minimum expectations for what players want out of any game they invest time into, no matter the genre, has risen dramatically over the last 16 years.

The two most important things to solve before Steam can even be considered is the energy-membership system and the possibility of a server merge (or at least server consolidation), and both of those things are huge discussion points and developmental tasks on their own for a dev team of this size. We gotta chill out.