Moving on from s&box + standalone licensing

I think I've got about 6000-6500 hours in the engine. It's not an accurate reflection of what I should have achieved but it was a decent run and I learned a lot anyway.  I've got a few serious long term projects, one of which is a boomer shooter that has been in development since about 2022-2023. I chose s&box because it was new back then, was changing a lot, and it was exciting. And I was familiar with Source.  I have made some serious progress on my projects lately and I can see them being positioned on a storefront like Steam. That has led to the feeling of sunk-cost fallacy and I'm starting to feel a bit dumb.  There are some things on my mind: 1) The platform is going nowhere, regardless of what I build. I'm not too fussed about this because it's clear the platform is a structure for rapidly-prototyped minigames, easy to jump in and out of. This isn't the reason I got involved and I just want to clarify that I always got into this engine as a way to make my own long-term larger projects that I could publish on Steam. So my projects are not really suited for this kind of platform or audience anyway - even if it is failing. But still, it definitely doesn't look good, and takes a lot of confidence away that I have in the company building all this.  2) There is still no concrete official statement about self-publishing. This is the main reason my review on Steam switched over from recommended to not recommended. This really needs to be clarified and is the reason I'm making this last-ditch post to bitch about it. When can we expect an official statement that isn't "ask us first"? Really with the way the platform is headed I think focusing on engine use and licencing is FP's best bet. If you are serious about opening this up, everybody needs to know where they stand.  3) Games are now greenlit before entering the playfund. This is a blessing and a curse. I'm already very aware of the nepotism that is in this community and the favouring of close mates or community members is not unheard of. But I also think that's fairly normal in these kinds of smaller communities. Regardless there is no clear process established yet that goes over any of these to instill confidence against inherent bias. There's also no clear rules on what's allowed and what isn't. It all seems discretionary. Does Facepunch handle the greenlight decision? Is it handled by the community? Votes? We all saw how that worked with the jam.  4) For exporting your game, this discretion goes even further. Firstly, you have to contact garry via email to submit your game that you already paid to put up on Steam. Then, they have to contact Valve to approve the licence. This seems fairly reasonable (albeit backwards, shouldn't you approve before I pay to stick it on Steam?) until you realise that the games currently on Steam made in s&box are still waiting for release or greenlight with no movement there. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but I cannot find any information on what kind of response these teams have had. It all seems like radio silence or ambiguity. Are there any movements there? Does anybody know what is or isn't allowed? What is the process involved and is there a checklist? 5) The engine is perpetually touted as "royalty free" which is really redundant if you've got extra hoops to jump through to get your game on Steam. I'd rather pay you royalties than have the ambiguity while I'm working. Cross my toes and hope it gets approved? Why would I do that?  To be clear I have never been a victim of game-breaking updates or API changes. I've always kept my code fairly agnostic and never really tried to do overly weird shit with the engine. So I'm not complaining about that. I'm also not bothered about politics or discourse. I'm just wondering why people who are making larger games with small teams shouldn't jump ship to another engine. What motivation is there to stick around exactly? I'm putting all this work in but there's no guarantee a) it'd be greenlit and b) I'd get to publish on Steam. This makes larger projects untenable, but now I'm in too deep, because I thought after 3-4 years you'd have something more than "send us an email and we'll figure it out".  Maybe I'm overthinking this and should just start porting over to Unity anyway. I'm writing this out because it's frustrating. But something's gotta give. I'm putting way too many hours into something that looks like it's falling to bits. If you gave us actual steps and processes, requirements, or things that are or aren't allowed, maybe I wouldn't be so keen to jump ship, but it all looks so grim, and with Unity 7 round the corner, what's the point? Basically I feel like I'm stuck in Limbo and I've also read the same frustrations elsewhere. Am I in the minority? 

Sorry, I’m not very familiar with the process of publishing games created using the Source 2 engine via S&box—do you have to reach out to Facepunch first before going to Steam, or how does it work? It all sounds a bit vague and strange at the moment. Thanks in advance for any clarification!

Just my opinion, but I don't think a lot of videogames are particularly successful and it's to the degree you shouldn't realistically be worried about these things. If you happened to actually make the next Meccha Chameleon or Lethal Company or Balatro or whatever it's success would easily allow it to clear the hurdles the original post is concerned about. If your indie game never gets that kind of attention then like... I don't know what you are expecting from uploading to steam. Anything you could get from uploading to steam isn't going to be overly worthwhile. I'm not being mean here, my point is it's common knowledge most games bomb, objectively speaking. Unless you have a following on another site, this is probably one of the better platforms for just get a few strangers to play your work and send feedback. Also I THINK you are allowed to upload a standalone executable version of your games to places like itch but you would need to double check that. Maybe only if it's for free or something IDK but like I said most games (in general, not just on sbox) aren't going to worth your time to make if it's just for monetary reasons anyways so who cares lol

 Why do you automatically think I want money? I don't care about money. I want my game to have reach and for people to play it. This platform and engine has everything but reach. They have haemorrhaged players. If I can't get an audience on sbox cuz nobody is on it then I've got no choice but to stick it on Steam (or itch). Goes against the motto. If you ever need a reality check please go to https://sboxdb.dev/ Screenshot_20261027_084922_Chrome.jpg 78.42 KB

I don't think you are in it for money (though you did mention the playfund in detail in your original post). So, because if you are just in as a hobbyist who wants share their game with people, a few hundred players to a few thousand players is genuinely a pretty good turnout for an indie game, which is what the platform currently is offering even before it goes free to play and the barrier to entry is removed. If you expected a greater turnout then your game would have to go viral or have a lot of promotion on your end and if it had that success then the hurdles you were concerned over obviously wouldn't stop you from getting your game published on Steam. Additionally, you can just list your game on other platforms like itch.io, which players of smaller less-sucessful indie games are already comfortable using. On top of all this, the publishing directly to Steam thing is still an eventual goal of s&box even if it takes a few more years. So, bluntly, if all of that holds I don't see what your issue is.

Very glad we agree on everything that having 0 players and sitting and waiting for them on a dead platform is a worse idea than getting your game on a platform or storefront with players on it. Good luck getting it on itch when you've been instructed not to distribute standalone builds of your project as well. Not sure why you think itch is an exception. Utterly delusional. You can read the below on the wiki. https://sbox.game/dev/doc/exporting/ Screenshot_20261027_102226_Chrome.jpg 601.75 KB    

Ah, I see. At this time apparently you can list it on platforms like itch and just link to the sbox game. Sorry about that, I did mention in my first post I wasn't sure, but I have seen some sbox games listed which is why I said it vaguely to begin with. Regardless, since sbox is going free to play soon anyone who wants to play your game would be able to use sbox for free so there wouldn't be any barrier there. Later, the publishing to Steam without needing explicit approval will still eventually happen. Unless your game is going to take less than a year or two to make and time is urgent for you, I doubt that kind of delay is that big of a deal. Even if it is, porting what you have on top of that development time could take longer unless you're using some, uh, modern automated assistance. Even after releasing your game though, you probably have other games in mind to work on after this and because sbox's workflow is basically the same as any other modern game engine anything you learn should transfer over to the next engine fairly easily. Separate from that, I don't really understand why you are saying this platform has 0 players. There are in fact games with 10s of thousands to 100s of thousands of unique player. Your indie game probably will not achieve that if it was released directly on Steam. And, I don't know if you have this, but If you already have a following of people interested in your work, since sbox is going free to play and the barrier to play games on the platform is getting removed, there wouldn't be anything stopping players like that from trying your game prior to the eventual publishing feature going live. If despite all of that the sbox player count is still a concern for you I would think it would be more reasonable to see how things might change after a few months of sbox becoming free to play before committing to anything drastic like porting your game to another platform. This is just my opinion though. I don't really know why you are being aggressive towards me about this fairly innocent discussion; from my perspective all of this this makes sense especially if money isn't a factor and its not like getting me or you ratioed is going to solve your problems here but idk