Best way to communicate with players (on steam) through the engine

[Blackfield]

Hi all!

The release of Tales of Vogar is getting closer, therefore I wanted to ask you guys how you communicate with the players about updates and stuff?

Aside from the steam functions I thought of another way that has its pros and cons:
Implement a picture either before or on the title screen, that contains the message I want to send. If I want to change the message, I just need to replace the image and ask steam to update the file.

-> The only thing I don't like is that it is very repetitive. It either is distracting on the title screen or costs unnecessary time when starting the game, as there is no way to turn it off as a player. Also, the player has to update the game. I could also imagine that some just don't update games frequently

Have you guys thought of different ways to do that? What kind of message do you send them?
I thought about patch updates and also statistics about sales -> "since launch the game was sold 50 times. Can we get it to 100? If you like it, please recommend it to your fellow 2D RPG friends" or something like that.

 

[ATT_Turan]

If it's on the title screen, on one side or corner or something, that would be similar to what some other games have.

The problem is that if you don't find a way to do it dynamically in the code, and you're actually replacing the title screen image all the time, I would be very annoyed as a player to have to constantly patch the game for no actual change in content.

Just put the messages on the Steam feed.

 

[heyguy]

Many games have a screen showing recent patches on or before the title screen. So it's not a bad idea. I don't think it's annoying. If you're updating the game only to update the message, that would be unnecessary.

In the message, I would keep it strictly to patch notes, PR stuff, possible thank yous. If you have another game, you can advertise it there. The general public doesn't need to know about your game sales.

I feel like you might want to set up a Discord for your game or company if you want more direct communication. Oh, you can have mention/link to stuff like Twitter, Discord, Facebook on your message, too.

 

[gstv87]

as there is no way to turn it off as a player.

unless you make the menu to account for that and either display "THE" message, or not, depending on whether there is one.
THE message will be dismissable.

THE object message... the object that would have a title, a message body, a button for closing, and a routine to go up and down as evented.