Penny Arcade and Hothead Games -- the developer behind On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness -- have just announced a joint partnership to launch Greenhouse, a brand new online game store, focused on digital distribution for independent games.
Not to be mistaken for a downloadable client application (like GameTap and Steam), Greenhouse is simply a website for digital distribution, putting it in direct competition with fellow indie game portal Manifesto Games. The site, which is currently in beta, will initially be the exclusive download source for Precipice, offering the PC, Mac, and Linux versions. Later, more Hothead Games will be distributed via the service, along with other indie offerings.
While the digital distribution market is getting a bit saturated as of late, let's hope Greenhouse's platform-agnostic approach to publishing keeps the service on our radar.
Reader Comments (20)
Posted: Apr 2nd 2008 2:21PM (Unverified) said
It wont. Its penny arcade. and if their game does suck, who are they gana blame for it? themselves. because they let it happen.
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Posted: Apr 2nd 2008 2:20PM (Unverified) said
Awsome second/third/first page post.
this is cool. at least they are not fallin into corporate hands. that would just be awful
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this is cool. at least they are not fallin into corporate hands. that would just be awful
Posted: Apr 2nd 2008 2:25PM (Unverified) said
I had actually sent a message to Giant Bomb asking about this. Also about the quality of the game from their standpoint.
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Posted: Apr 2nd 2008 3:13PM jhoff80 said
I wish people would just start using steam as opposed to starting their own services. For example EA's downloader is horrible. Valve should break Steam off into an independent company so that more game companies would use it, because nothing really comes close. (I realize steam had its issues in the beginning but now it works great.)
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Posted: Apr 2nd 2008 3:20PM (Unverified) said
I agree 100%. Have you ever tried to use direct2drive. Holy crap, that thing is a pain. With steam at least, everything is linked to one account at one central location.
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Posted: Apr 2nd 2008 5:31PM Demaar said
I wonder if they tried to work something out with Manifesto. If not they should have offered them to "join us or we'll crush you".
Seems odd to create an entirely brand new "service" when there are existing ones they could partner with. I've never visited Manifesto though, so there might be some valid reasons I'm not aware of.
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Seems odd to create an entirely brand new "service" when there are existing ones they could partner with. I've never visited Manifesto though, so there might be some valid reasons I'm not aware of.
Posted: Apr 2nd 2008 5:47PM (Unverified) said
Isn't this a little hypocritical and defeating of the whole point of the indy scene.
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Posted: Apr 2nd 2008 5:48PM jhoff80 said
To who_cares: How many games do you know of that even run in Mac and Linux anyway? I see 6 Linux, 14 Mac out of the first 60 games I looked at in the Manifesto Games collection, with some of those even being freeware so you don't even need a digital store to get them.
Lets face it, for real gaming, you're probably running Windows anyway.
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Lets face it, for real gaming, you're probably running Windows anyway.
Posted: Apr 2nd 2008 9:49PM (Unverified) said
This service is meant to compliment (not compete with) Steam. It's not an entire game service client, it's just a method of distributing the game. Once you have it, you can delete the download client.
That said, it'd be nice if they could get it distributed through Steam as well.
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That said, it'd be nice if they could get it distributed through Steam as well.
Posted: Apr 3rd 2008 8:46PM Luthorcrow said
Hopefully the game bombs. Penny Aracde is right up their on the bad taste list or list the list of things that are never funny.
Someone needs to be put a stake in that vampire.
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Someone needs to be put a stake in that vampire.
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