What was the process to get Subspace on Steam?

[fencepost]

Hello Subspace forum!

I remember playing this game in elementary school with my brother, and being floored by it. It's awesome to see this community resurrect this game and keep it going after all these years!

I have some questions around how Subspace was able to make it to steam, and what that process was like for those involved in making it happen. I also belong to a community for a game in a similar boat, Myth II: Soulblighter. We've long talked about how to get Myth on steam, but haven't really made much progress due to the murky legality of this likely abandoned game.

- What was the process to get Subspace on steam? Was it similar to getting an indie game on steam?
- How much $ did it cost?
- Were lawyer(s) involved?
- What roadblocks did you encounter?
- How long did it take?

Would love to have a quick conversation with the responsible parties if possible.

Thanks

[qan]

The reason we were able to get on Steam is due to Continuum being in some ways a remake of Subspace. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the basic gist.

It didn't cost anything at the time, but it now costs $100. They used to have curation standards. Now, for a flat fee of $100, Gaben will let you sell a bug-laden, stock-asset 5 minute demo hacked together in GameMaker over the weekend. (Valve takes a 30% cut of sales, so if you sold this shovelware for $1, you'd need to sell 143 copies to make back that money.)

I think lawyers may have been consulted at some point, though can't remember. I wasn't involved in the process. (Currently I'm maintaining the Steam distro, though.)

The main roadblock was in demonstrating and claiming ownership. If you're looking at abandonware I don't think you're going to be able to make a good claim to ownership, unfortunately.

Overall the process took quite a long time due to the question of ownership.

tl;dr: I don't think you're going to be able to get this game on Steam. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

[Leland]

<< STEAM RELAUNCH >>


HI FENCEPOST

[fencepost]

The reason we were able to get on Steam is due to Continuum being in some ways a remake of Subspace. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the basic gist.

This is very interesting! Can you tell me more?

The main roadblock was in demonstrating and claiming ownership. If you're looking at abandonware I don't think you're going to be able to make a good claim to ownership, unfortunately.

Overall the process took quite a long time due to the question of ownership.

tl;dr: I don't think you're going to be able to get this game on Steam. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news

This sounds familiar - We haven't definitively identified the owner due to some conflicting patent/trademark documents online and general zeitgeist.

One theory is that Take 2 owns it but isn't aware they own it due to employee turn over, potential low value etc. We should probably talk to them to find out. Some people even claim to have talked to them, yada yada.

no butts hurt over here! you're most likely right, but I still want to poke around and see what it would take for it to happen

<< STEAM RELAUNCH >>

HI FENCEPOST

hola Leland

[Boldsen]

I dunno, Gaben looks like the guy who can be bribed with a few chocolate bars. He seems that greedy. Kidding aside, at least they still respect ownership...