I played Open Clonk on and off for years now, always coming back to the game and enjoying myself, however I couldn't play the game more consistently because I pretty much had no one to play the game with. See, most of my friends don't enjoy the game as much and others get really put off by the fact they have to download the game from the site and then download a bunch of mods. Which is somewhat weird but that still happened to me a few times.

It's very heartbreaking seeing last snapshot being released two months ago compared to frequent updates that used to happen. That being said, I figured I'd bring this question up once again.

Previously this question was asked and I just want to bring this topic up again because I'm convienced that Steam is where Open Clonk should be.

One of the points against Steam was the fact that you want to keep Open Clonk free for everyone and f2p games on Steam typically have microstransactions. That is correct however, there are quite a lot completely free games on Steam. One of such is Teeworlds, the game that feels like it is mostly sustained by it's community. I never really saw a lot of maintenance done by Teeworlds developers throughout the years so I suppose that once you get your game on Steam everything goes a lot more smoothly.

Ofc there's an argument about money, quite obviously getting the game on Steam is not for free and unfortunately I don't know much about that process. I don't have a solution except... well... maybe crowdfunding? It's just an idea and it doesn't really feel very viable, yet there is such option anyway.

Another thing that was brought up is that OC wouldn't be featured by Steam anywhere since it's free and probably wouldn't have any form of monetisation which is true and it kinda kills the point of having the game on Steam. Possibly making cards and badges for the game could somehow help? Not sure about that, not very well informed on these topics unfortunately.

However. There are other positive things about having the game on Steam, rather than just considering that as a way of getting more exposure. Of course things I will list now will require quite a bit of work but they could make a huge difference and attract more players and generally make the experience a lot more enjoyable for all of the players.

1. Automatic updates of the game. It's an obvious thing. Not everyone enjoys downloading games from a web-site and then installing them manually nowadays. People became quite lazy so manual installation and updating can possibly put off a person from giving something a chance. Also, it would be possible to set up quick access to beta versions of the game for players without having to update these, too.

2.  Steam Cloud? a bit of a useless thing, yet saving profile like that would be kinda nice I think? Steam Cloud could also be used to save save files or replays? Just generating ideas here more than anything.

3. Steam workshop. This is a huge thing. And by huge I mean REALLY huge.

3.1. Obviously this would make process of sharing mods and maps a lot easier and smoother, same goes to updating maps and mods. It would potentially encourage players to make more mods and maps. It also helps because it removes a bit of manual work. Like say Knuepplen is a great mod, yet to install it and run it successfuly I personally had to install the mod, then find Medals.ocd somewhere, install it and then I could play. I personally don't care as much about manual installation process, yet some of my friends refused to play with me because they didn't want to install so many things. With steam workshop it would've been a lot easier to install the mods I wanted to play with my friends

3.2. Localisation. A bit of a random thing, yet it is possible to translate the game via steam workshop. Dead Cells is a great example - it automatically finds a language pack in Steam workshop that suits your location/systemlanguage/whatever and installs it first time you launch the game

4. Multiplayer improvements via steam. I'm not informed on how it all works in different games, yet it's very convinient how you can just press "invite your steam friends" button and suddenly they can join your game without furiously refreshing the list of games or pasting your IP address

I think my perspective on that issue is more of a player's perspective rather than developer's (probably because I'm not a developer, duh?) and these things could improve players' experience above all. These improvements would make the process of playing and enjoying the game a lot easier and attractive (some of my friends who agreed to go through all of the troubles of installing the game and mods really enjoyed the gameplay!)

I say all of that because I care about the game but I really don't have much influence to cause a big change on my own. through my own actions. Yet I'd really love to see the game finally become more accessible for wider audience because I think it's really great and underrated

To sum my post up and make my points more clear (I might have worded poorly quite a few things):
I really like the game but I think manual installation and updating harms the game a lot. The fact mods are not very accessible doesn't help either. Things Steam offers in terms of automatization of installation and updating of the game AND mods would encourage more players to actually give the game a chance. Steam services could improve player experience drastically.

Ofc there are other ways of addressing things I brought up. But Steam looks like the best option because a lot of players use it already. The game could still be accessed outside of steam too if someone would like to do it that way (Teeworlds is played both on steam and outside of it for example)

The game has improved so much over the years and I really hope it won't be abandoned any time soon