Hytale is back from the dead and heading for an early access launch in January, but in an unexpected twist it will not be available on Steam. The absence isn’t a Steam decision, though: Developer Hypixel Studios says it just doesn’t want to be there at this early stage of the game.
That’s very counter-intuitive: Steam is far and away the dominant PC storefront, and conventional wisdom states that if you’re not there, you’re missing out on a major chunk of potential revenue. Witness, for instance, the reaction to the recent ban of Horses on Steam: Yeah, it was also dropped by the Epic Games Store and, for a day, Humble, but Steam is the one that really hurt, and developer Santa Ragione said losing it might force the studio to close.
But Hypixel Studios has a very good reason for taking a pass on it: Steam user reviews.
“We want to spend our time in Early Access working with the community and improving the game, rather than overindexing on negative reviews from players that aren’t as well-informed yet about what we are doing,” Hytale executive director Patrick “Lyall” Derbic wrote in a new FAQ. “Steam is a great marketing tool but one that we might never need. This doesn’t mean we will never be on Steam—just that we do not see the necessity of it yet.”
That’s a reminder of two things: One, that Hytale is not a new indie project struggling for eyeballs but a very high-profile game with a big built-in audience; and two, that Hypixel founder and saviour Simon Collins-Laflamme has said repeatedly that it won’t be very good when it first rolls out into early access.
And that’s potentially a big problem on Steam, where user reviews are regularly weaponized in response to grievances that may or may not have anything to do with the game being targeted, and may not actually be a grievance at all.
That sort of thing isn’t going to be an issue for Hytale followers who know the score, but those who don’t—and as popular as it is, being on Steam would undoubtedly expose the game to an even wider audience—are far more likely to either contribute to a negative user rating or be swayed by it. And who needs that?
It’s a bold move, and if Hytale is a success (just about a foregone conclusion at this point) I have to wonder if others will follow: Not that I predict a great stampede away from Steam (that’s just not gonna happen), but I can see where games that have built up a sufficient following might opt to stay away from it when first launching just to avoid any potential blowback over early access hassles.
