BlitzMax: Steam Edition
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Programming/BlitzMax: Steam Edition
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| With the open-sourcing of BMX, I think our first order of business is to get it the popularity and attention the language deserves. I've got the okay to put this up on Steam. Vote for it here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=523449470 BlitzMax: Steam Edition will be stock BlitzMax 1.51 with the Steamworks hooks added into the IDE. I'm not making any changes or adding anything until we see which way the product is developing. This will be available for free. There exists a feature in Steam that allows the user to select a different application version, so in the future different variants can be added, and you can choose what you want to use. With the Steam Edition, all your games will magically get the Steam overlay enabled when they are run from the IDE. You can press F12 in any game to take a screenshot and upload it to the BlitzMax Community Hub on Steam. (Compiled executables will be identical to ones built in the standalone edition from BRL.) If you object to your screenshot being used on the Greenlight page please tell me and I will remove it immediately. Vote and help make BlitzMax the first programming language on Steam. This will get it a ton of exposure and bring in a lot of new users.  |
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| Interesting... |
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| Go RiK! |
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| sweet - voted |
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| Voted! (Although I had to do it thru the website as I couldnt see it in Steam itself) |
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| Moved this to the open source announcement thread instead.. more fitting. |
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| This is a great idea. Voting right now. <Edit> Although I can't seem to get the page to appear either. Even using the tags "Education", "Software", "Utility" etc. Using the direct link in a browser will work but I'm not logged in on that, only the Steam client. |
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| I really don't see the point in this... |
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| I really don't see the point in this... I guess that depends on whether you think there is any point to being popular and successful. This will double the size of the user base in the first three months. In my view, having more users would be a good thing for Blitz. |
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| If many students or teenagers know the existence of BlitzMax from Steam, they can learn programming easily after downloading this good software.! I hope that BlitzMax can be as popular as Python and Lua in the near future.! |
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| Current ranking: #86 OF 1,627 SOFTWARE TITLES IN GREENLIGHT Vote and I can get this up quickly. |
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| It got my vote, just had to look up my Steam password. |
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| I voted. 'cos, why not? |
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| Just voted, but where do you see how many votes it has? |
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| Hello, The documentation for BMax is severely lacking. It should improve adoption if you indicate exactly what kind of material the complete beginner can go through to learn: most are third party available in the Tutorials section, like this one (Beginner's guide to BlitzMax). The tutorials area: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/topics.php?forum=112 You have to keep in mind that most of BlitzMax users came straight from Blitz3D\BlitzPlus, so they were used to the Blitz style. People coming from outside have no experience in that. |
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| Still cant find this within Steam itself... Also cant see it here: http://www.iygamestudio.com/greendb/softlight/ |
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| Voted ;) But why christmas 2015? Just let it through the moment it is lit. |
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| Now at #64 / 1,671 software products in Greenlight. |
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| Nice :) |
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| Great! Thx for using Spooky Bonus screenshots. It's been Greenlit and will be on Steam next week. Regency Solitaire is already on Steam and got loads of great press, so feel free to use screenshots of that: http://www.greyaliengames.com/regencysolitaire/index.php |
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| Now at #59 out of 1,706 titles. Votes are going at a very slow rate now. It will take a while before it has enough. |
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| You can use any of my screenshots from http://platfinity.retrolutionary.com on the Greenlight page if you want to. Platfinity was done in BlitzMax, and will be on Steam soon! Glad to see BlitzMax on there, let's get Monkey(s) Greenlit too?! UPDATE: Platfinity is on Steam now!: http://store.steampowered.com/app/365440/ |
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| Screenshots of TVTower are available here: http://www.tvgigant.de/en/pages/screenshots Source (a bit bigger) there: https://github.com/GWRon/TVTower BTW: that screenshot in the first post ("Little Shooty Test") looks a bit hmm "dull" (less vibrant) and the overlay does create some "cheapish" look because of the "clearness" but this might be a windows 8/10 specific thing (am not using Steam, do not know how things tend to look there). bye Ron |
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| We need about 8 times more votes. If it was my company, I would do an email blast to the 20,000 registered users on the forum. |
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| If it was client of your company and you send me such an "alert email" I would check if I could have my lawyer earn some money (cannot remember to have had some opt-in for newsletters here). So this is not "just send an email and voila!". Seriously: When was the last time you have read an advertising email? Even 15 years ago ... with "Email" being a "top notch" thing, people did not really read mails. I have had about 50.000 subscribers of my newsletter ... and each time I sent one around about 200-300 people reacted to the content (eg. visited specific pages) ... Now "steam" might have a huge userbase, but compared to the "global user base" this is limited. And people without steam account, will think more than twice if it is really required _for_them_ to register to give that one vote. Another thing is, that of all registered users here, not all are still using their email address (enjoy some bounces). (But I see the point, that this might be a well suited "target audience"). But hmmm ...didnt you have a company which allows you to spam some ads for "BM:SE" around? Maybe it is the best option (regarding that this "steam edition" is your child, not Marks). bye Ron |
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| Wow. Mailing campaigns are pretty standard. They're the best way to get in contact with your actual customers. (I have no idea if the BRL forum includes this in the agreement when you sign up.) You have to do a nice formatted newletter-style page, of course. You say something like "hey everybody, this is the next step in BlitzMax's evolution, etc..." Promotional material can be pretty fun to design. |
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| Maybe it works for your, but I was running a gaming site and people were not really interested in getting informed about newly added freeware "gems" ... It of course depends on the crowd registering on your site .... and whether they register the newsletter manually (interested in them) or upon "sign up" ... which is often the case. Such people then wont really read your "announcement". Regarding "brl announcement", I think the Steam Edition is not of interest for all "BlitzMax users", so it might not be suited 100% perfect for such an campaign. Of course all is "imho" and 99% others might think different than me. Edit: I assume that the active ones here are the only ones you could activate for voting. Chances for all others are very low (else they would "lurk around" here). So advertising it on your website will most likely have a better chance (to reach "not-yet-voted-audience") than here on blitzmax.com/blitzbasic.com Edit2:@ design of newsletters I tended to make mine work without graphics (people do not have gfx shown in mails for ages now ...except you are a housewife watching your homeshopping-newsletter-mail). Nonetheless the biggest problem remains: the product you try to "sell" is not of interest for all people. And you cannot change that fact. bye Ron |
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| I don't why anyone would object to a polite, one time email explaining the situation and asking for their vote. Of course some people are inclined to take offense for the slightest reason. |
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| Yeah, I'd do the email. Registered users would like it I would think. |
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| It will happen, it will just take a while to get through the approval process. |
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| Perhaps it's worth seeing if the greenlight campaign might be added as a 'news' item on the main landing page of the website itself? I doubt everyone checks every sub-forum on the website to stumble across this item... |
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| @xlsior, yes, it should be! |
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| @Floyd I myself wont really care ... as it just would be landing in my spam folder or gets marked as such. I just wanted to make the people aware of what might happen ... if you ever got sued for your "computer actions", you wouldn't think the same. bye Ron |
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| I like the idea (in general) to 'marketing' BlitzMax. Considering the main-goal of BlitzMax as 'game creator', Steam/Greenlight could be the most logic solution. I don't know how many steam-gamers could be interested in developing its own game... but on big numbers there's always a possible result. The 'bad' side: in Greenlight there's everything (and Bmax it's a full, complete and ready-to-use product).... It's quite difficult even find the BlitzMax entry - 'utility and software training' are not terms I would use to looking for a dev language (Valve's limited vision I suppose). I would look around for 'other' forums/website dev oriented (even competitors :D) About the mailing list (I think JoshK was referring to BRL user base), well, I never received an email from BRL in more than 10 years, I really doubt they have a mailing system. In any case, I suppose that quite every BRL-user in this forum already know about the open-source of Bmax, so sending an email at this point seems quite useless. You could clinch that there's a % of registered user that are no aware about this... |
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| I would estimate that about 95% of total users are unaware of the open-source announcement. |
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| Well, if 95% of total users are unaware of this, the most logic explanation is they are using something else OR they are no more interested in BRL products. I have posted on a indie-game dev (italian) site about the 'open-source' destiny of Bmax: I can confirm they didn't know about this, but they also don't seem to be interested in (2288 user - not all active - 63 views, 2 post (of OLD blitz3d/blitzmax user) after 2 days. I posted all the links about official announce, your steam project, bmx-ng. In a week a will post if there are different results. This means 1) Bmax was not so well advertised (at the time), but who cares now :) 2) in this specific case italian-dev are more interested in using 'other' tools (I don't want to express any judge about their creations - some are very interesting and funny, but MX1 in some cases would fit better than other big solutions...). I have no data about how many registered users are also 'customers' (=they bought Bmax), this is something only BRL should know. Little ot: Believe me or not CRM (in general) is one of the most important asset for a firm/organization. Where I work (not related with IT), we analyse and use customer'data every day (even to just call them to for their birthday - I don't joke!) SO - the most logic steps, if BRL want, is 1. send an email notification to all registered user to grant 'marketing communication' if this was not specified at the time of the sign-up 2. allow other parties (with specific limitation etc) to use the list (of course only with authorized addresses) for marketing event. I think BRL's product *can* be all open-source, but BRL is still real and working and if they don't want directly care about marketing, they should consider to allow third parties to do this for them. |
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| Neat idea. You got my vote. I hope it's not too late to help BMX. |Edit| Could you update the screenshots for PRP? They are outdated.  |
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| Well, if 95% of total users are unaware of this, the most logic explanation is they are using something else OR they are no more interested in BRL products. Your ideas are bizarre. |
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| Well, thanks :D Seriously, can you get a better explanation of the low rank on Steam-GreenLight? |
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| #56 out of 2000 is actually pretty high. It's just not high enough to go through immediately. When i did my campaign I had about ten times as many votes, but that was only because I promoted the hell out of it...my mailing list was actually smaller than the potential audience BMX would have, but then I actually used mine. Marketing is about casting a wide net, and repeating yourself over and over. Of course some percentage of your audience will not be receptive, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. |
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| Marketing is about casting a wide net, and repeating yourself over and over. Completely agree Of course some percentage of your audience will not be receptive, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try Never said you (or BRL or anyone else) shouldn'try. I'm just discussing about possible solution(s) and problems: before trying any possible way, maybe it's better to value what are the possible feedback and cost/benefit. If I can help in some way, tell me. |
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| Perhaps a front page announcement would push Greenlight a bit. |
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| Voted! |
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| Voted as well. Totes looking forward to seeing more people using this awesome language. |
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| Where was there ever a thread about the open sourcing of bmx? I could not find it. Which is to be expected. |
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| Where was there ever a thread about the open sourcing of bmx? I could not find it. Which is to be expected. Right here, 4 weeks ago: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=105045 |
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| I upvoted and dropped a comment. I have my own games up on Greenlight, both made in BlitzMax. (you are welcome to include screenshots of my games in your campaign) Is there a module that adds the Steamworks hooks to BlitzMax? I'm in need of something like that and I wanna get it implemented sooner rather than later. Rising Runner - a puzzle "platformer" game, out 6 November 2015 via the itch.io service - http://devlin.itch.io/rising-runner and the greenlight link - which isn't necessary since it's actually greenlit now :) The Wizard's Lair - a graphical roguelike that I released in 2013 - also on itch.io http://devlin.itch.io/wizardslair and its greenlight page; http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=480979299 |
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| Voted. |
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