It was greenlit on Steam. But SBS chose to do a private Alpha/Beta (for those who invested in the vision). This is the old school way, before developers decided to go for the cash grab, releasing their unfinished games on Steam.

So there will be stages of this game.

• Alphas 1 &2 and Betas 1 &2 that you purchased with your package or bought during the Alpha/Beta sales will be released on the website for those who invested. (content will be wiped)

• The Exposition access period, which is like a pre-release for backers to set their mark on this world will be released when the Alphas and Betas are finished. (content will not be wiped.)

• Then 3 months after the Exposition, CoE will go into full release. I am not sure if it will then be released on Steam. But I don’t see why not as it will be a game tested and ready for the public.

Hope this helps.

Well, if it doesn't go to steam, it will be for the the normal reason of bottomline. Steam takes a 30% cut on sales, and an extra 5% for developers using the Unreal Engine, so unless steam changes policy by the time development is finished (and they might, due to market pressure), SBS will need to decide whether that's worth it.

Thank you both very helpful.

If it does go to Steam I hope their will still be another alternative as well. Personally not a fan,..

Maybe the Dev's could consider going the same route that Mordhau did for its launch given both games Alpha, Beta and Live plans seem very similar, community interaction wise (Mordhau is a medieval FPS - with swords!) .

Mordhau's Dev's gave access to purchase and download both from Steam and their own website. Subtly, their website bundled the additional supporters DLC into one download option and a separate core game another option each a final single transaction/price. While this doesn't seem earth shattering it is an effective way to highlight community versus corporate given Steam strips these out as additional DLC.

While total price may not vary dramatically, it's this Steam interaction method and action of a sterile, template, cash orientated focus as business with a "next one on the virtual shelf to flog to the masses and take our cut, then stack up the next" which I believe saw the Mordhau community make sure to trumpet across Steam boards that the Dev's direct download came with a Steam key without the hit to the Dev's hip pocket. I hadn't seem that type of supporter/player inter-activeness since I guess Dark Age of Camelot days.

Anyway, it is a reality that Steam needs to be on the distribution with ~90 million global platform users. However, I haven't seen any Steam comments, let alone backlash to having their users "diplomatically" being marketed to on their boards (Steam has Dev links on their store pages anyway). Guess proves the point though that growing that big and having access to that much information about so many users activities (pure gold as another cooperate saleable income stream) focus these days is monopoly economic rent; dollars over community.

Sad really, maybe I am too nostalgic, given most things that work get incorporated.... Looking back at the GameSpy days it seemed so much simpler... gamers just gaming, server matching, file downloads, peer to peer.. Then again, happy with new tech marching rapidly, funded by corporate.

It was amazing and thrilling and back but if for simplicity and lack of bloated commercialism we still had to live in a world with a download dialogue box for say Halflife.exe doing single digit KB/sec and estimate time left of HOURS....... haha

Having the option to buy on Steam as well as from the developers own website is a great combination. I like Steam for two reasons. The rating system is spot on. If I take the time to read through the reviews I know before I play if I'm going to like a game. A few times I have wanted to like a game that I knew because of the rating I wasn't going to like yet I bought it anyway hoping I would. This brings me to the second thing I like about Steam; their refund policy. I don't abuse it but the few times I have bought a game that I did not want to play they gave me a full refund with out a problem.

If Steam purchase is available for CoE I will most likely port my account over to Steam.