Steam

[CaptObvious]

Id like to state that above is correct in the research regard and id like to remind you that i had the idea to implement a research tree like endless space or something.

Also, id like to mention that you should engage this AFTER the steam release. Keeping your game afloat is the most critical thing atm and i dearly wish for a steam release because more players.

More players = more money for you and more fun for the players. More money for you = more game quality as you can possibly hire more devs. Better game quality = game runs by itself

A steam release in the current state would not bring more players. It was bring an "overwhelmingly negative" review score and no long-term new players. The game survives in its current state because of hardcore fans that can look past the huge issues with the game to get to the gameplay underneath to scratch the itch that this game does in its niche market. This is not a mass market game in its current state. It needs a huge overhaul in three key areas.

Graphics:

Hazeron either needs a proper artist or it needs to stop shooting for realism. If Haxus isn't capable of creating decent-looking realistic graphics that's absolutely fine. In this case, the art should be stylized so that the low detail art looks intentional. The game cannot ship with its current programmer art.

UI:

The current UI is lacking in a lot of ways. From icons that have no clear meaning (like when launching the game, you click spaceships instead of having a button that says "play"), to the confusing communication channels that don't work reliability (out of system ships don't respond on the fleet channel, even when it is set to universe range), to the unintelligible-for-mere-mortals new ship designer.

New player experience:

The current NPE is not great. Getting killed over and over by creatures that are the things of nightmares while trying to figure out how to get started. To get a proper sense of this, Haxus should put the game in front of people who have never played it before and watch them to see where and how often they get stuck.

I'm willing to look past all of this because as I mentioned, the game scratches an itch of mine that no other current game does. This does not mean that the general gaming masses will be willing to do the same.

This is before even going into server capacity. The current capacity would likely not be enough to keep up with a mass influx on a Steam launch and I'm willing to bet that the server software is not architected in such a way to allow automatic scaling on a cloud provider.

I really don't want to see Hazeron launch on Steam as I believe that it will be a massive failure that only serves to demoralize Haxus and kill the game completely.