Shortly after opening their Steam Greenlight campaign for the game Paranautical Activity, the two-man studio Code Avarice got a phone call that would have made any indieâs day: It was Adult Swim, offering to publish their game on Steam. Yeah, well, not so fast.
As Code Avariceâs Mike Maulbeck and Travis Pfenning explain in that video above, when Adult Swimâtaking a chance on a PC title after dealing mostly with flash and mobile gamesâwent to pitch Paranautical Activity to Steam, they were told no dice. â[Steamâs] response was basically, âWe donât want to send the message that indies should seek out publishers to get around Greenlight,'â the duo recalled.
Valve, through spokesman Doug Lombardi, confirmed the gist of the statement to PCGamesN. âOur message to indies regarding publishers is do it for your own reasons, but do not split your royalties with a publisher expecting an automatic âYesâ on Greenlight.'â
Maulbeck and Pfenning are not happy.
âWeâve got a Greenlight campaign that we havenât even touched in months, and now we have to resurrect it from the ashes,â they said.
They asked Adult Swim if it would work to promote their Greenlight campaign to get the game on Steam and the response was, more or less, no, because Adult Swim doesnât want to get sideways with Steam/Valve. âWe havenât officially decided if we want to go with [Adult Swim],â Code Avarice said. âThe fact we have to get on Steam with our own two feet,â after getting this kind of an offer from a publisher, âis really a kind of bummer.â
