Eighthours wrote:This has to go on Steam. If it doesn't, there's something seriously wrong.
Jonathan Blow wrote this on his blog back in summer 2008:
I called Valve 2 years ago. And then again a year later. They were very slow to get back to me and were very unprofessional (and one might say rude) about it. Clearly they were not very interested in the game. They agreed that they might publish it, but said they would sell very few copies.
Since then it hasn’t been a priority for me to try and deal with them; it just hasn’t been worth it yet. At some point, later, maybe — but they haven’t made themselves a publishing partner that I am eager to work with.
He posted this in December:
Oh, and about Steam: Originally they did not seem very interested in Braid, but now that it’s a successful game they seem to have changed their mind. I haven’t signed a contract with them, but they seem interested, so the biggest factor now is just me finishing the PC version and giving it to them.
He then said this just yesterday:
When it comes to a publisher like Steam charging different amounts in Euros vs Dollars, that is something I have no control over. But, at least the game will be available in multiple places, so that if a different online publisher has a foreign-currency policy that you like better, you can get the game from them.
If Valve gives me the choice to offer the game at the equivalent price in Europe as it is in the US, then I absolutely will do that. I’ll tell you that so far, my interactions with Valve don’t lead me to believe they are going to be very flexible on pricing, but maybe this is a separate issue.
If Braid launches on Steam, it will support Achievements.
To me it looks like it probably will come to Steam at some point, but I can see why it hasn't been released there first!
BTW, he posted this yesterday too:
I am going to start talking to Sony soon about a PSN version. A lot of people have been asking for that. But of course I can’t promise anything until a deal is signed!
Edit - here's his statement on the pricing change in full:
Braid for the PC is now $15.
Yesterday, Stardock announced that they would be selling Braid at the end of March for $19.95. This price has proven to be unpopular in certain areas of the Internets, so I’ve reduced it to $14.95. Pre-orders from Stardock have not been charged yet, so if you pre-ordered at $20 you will still get the game for $15.
Some people have asked why I picked the $20 price point. The answer is, I just looked at some comparable games on the PC and saw how much they were charging. Crayon Physics Deluxe, World of Goo, and Aquaria, among many others, are all priced at $20. It seemed reasonable not to charge less for Braid than for those games.
But ultimately, I don’t care that much about the PC release price. The XBLA version was nicely profitable, and my goal with the PC release is mainly to get the game out to a wider audience. Sure, it would be nice to earn the optimal amount of money from that release — I have interesting ideas for games that I want to make in the future, and making games is very expensive, and I will probably have to hire people to help! But ultimately, I would rather have people talking about the game itself, what they like and dislike about it, than about how many American Fiat Currency Dollars it costs.
So, you’ll be able to buy Braid for $14.95. Stardock is one of two or three Windows PC-oriented download sites that I have signed with. The others haven’t made their announcements yet, but when they do, I’ll post it here.