Would HTC benefit if I played Aces High via steam?

[streakeagle]

I already have Steam for certain games. If it benefits me to use Steam, I do so. If there are no benefits from using Steam, I don't. Aces High is a special case for me. I don't benefit from playing on Steam, so there is no reason for me to migrate from my standard install. But, it wouldn't hurt me much to migrate to Steam other than copying over user settings and having to log in to Steam to play. But if doing so would help promote Aces High and get them more business, I wouldn't mind doing so as payback for all the work they have done over all these years on the one combat flight sim that has been on my PC's hard drive ever since I bought my first PC in late 2000.

Does HTC care? I am willing to migrate if they do.

[ImADot]

Steam will take 30% of your money before your subscription payment gets to HTC. So I guess it would benefit nobody but Steam if you switch over.

[Ack-Ack]

It's a double edged sword.  On one hand, you can help promote the game on Steam and then on the other hand, you take 30% away from HiTech's coffers.  Playing through Steam, Valve takes 30% of cut on the subscription.

ack-ack

[Gman]

Not sure if HTC will chime in on this one, but IMO I think it would be better for those of us "here" to stay put, and to interact via the forums/reviews on Steam, but not "move" our accounts over there, due to that 30% issue.  Let Steam be Steam, and let it expose those gamers there to this game via the tools and options there - moving over there IMO has fewer positives than negatives in terms of revenue/etc.  You can still have an impact on Steam without running your game account through it.  In fact, I would hope that eventually Steam players will figure out they can migrate over here on their own, much like other sims (DCS for example), which while having a presence on Steam is great for exposure, isn't actually required to use the game software. 

[JunkyII]

You can list it as a Non steam game in your steam catalog and it will show that you are playing Aces High III

[streakeagle]

Since HTC is now on Steam, they are obviously willing to accept the cost per user in the hope to more than make up the difference with access to a potentially much larger user base. My question is which helps them more: staying where I am, or actively flying/promoting the game through steam? As there is virtually no cost to me, I am open to whatever HTC would prefer, hence the reason I asked the question.

[EskimoJoe]

You can list it as a Non steam game in your steam catalog and it will show that you are playing Aces High III

This

[SirNuke]

Since HTC is now on Steam, they are obviously willing to accept the cost per user in the hope to more than make up the difference with access to a potentially much larger user base. My question is which helps them more: staying where I am, or actively flying/promoting the game through steam? As there is virtually no cost to me, I am open to whatever HTC would prefer, hence the reason I asked the question.

depends on your contact list...I know that if I play via steam other people are looking

[TWCAxew]

For me it would be better to play AH trough steam for a little bit. I have many old friends who used to play ah and moved on to other sims (which i still have on steam as friends). Maybe they will give AH a try again when they see mee logging into AH. If they don't take the bait i will move back to the non steam client sins there would be no point for me to deny 30% of my monthly fee which could be spend on server maintenance.

DutchVII

[haggerty]

The best of both worlds would be the ability to install and play through steam but login using the old HTC account.  I was out all day yesterday so I don't know if this is possible, but having steam show me playing it with the ability of my friends to right click on my name and go to the store page would be beneficial.  I currently run it as a non-steam game and only the friends that already played the game have mentioned anything to me when I fire it up.  There may be silent friends out there that are more interested now that it is easier access to them being on their familiar store shelf.

[Krusty]

You can list it as a Non steam game in your steam catalog and it will show that you are playing Aces High III

But will that give you access to the same community page as the steam version? If you take a screenshot will it upload there, or what?

[Lusche]

But will that give you access to the same community page as the steam version? If you take a screenshot will it upload there, or what?

As to my understang, no. It's just a startup link, not a full integration.

[JunkyII]

But will that give you access to the same community page as the steam version? If you take a screenshot will it upload there, or what?

No it doesn't count as time on the steam based Aces High III but people see their friends playing it...Krup has been doing it for months before talk of AH3 on steam even came up....its like sharing a friends business on Facebook.

[Mar]

Click "ADD A GAME" on the bottom left of Steam, select non-steam game, it will populate a list of installed programs on your machine, select Aces High and ok. Now you can launch it through Steam, which will let you use the Steam overlay in-game (unless you have the overlay disabled in Steam), where you can set screenshot shortcut, upload the shots to your Steam profile, etc. Your Steam friends will see "In non-Steam game: Aces High." AFAIK, the only thing you can't do while running a non-Steam game through Steam is "invite friend to game," and even then only for Steam games that support it.

[haggerty]

I played with it for a few minutes but it wants me to create a new account through the steam launch.  I wasnt able to figure out how to login with my current account.