Desura Owner Bad Juju Games Files for Bankruptcy

@geraltitude: Got em! Thanks.

Desura was a dark place anyways

@austin_walker said:

Patrick's true heir :')

I just went to Desura and IndieRoyale to download everything I don't have on Steam. I'm currently playing some games I never bothered to even try until now. :)

I haven't spent enough time with Desura, so I don't have to much of an opinion about it. Though I got the impression there was some interesting stuff there.

Can't say I'm surprised by the news though

Steam at least has a plan in place, but if we're being honest: Steam's servers shutting down will happen probably after the bombs fall, not before. That or it will be Steam's servers that cause the bombs to fall.

@vectortheangel: That sucks man. Wish you luck finding somewhere to take it.

Indie Royale, too? I need to look into that to see what I need to grab before it goes.

I feel like Vinny talked about Desura all the time, I hope he is not too bummed. Some cool things came outta that site.

I really hope that Desura as a platform stays around even if the current owners end up shutting down.

It is by no means perfect and doesn't do a lot of things which Steam does to encourage people to actually want to get and play stuff on it (trading cards, decent instant messaging, etc) but any platform at all existing for games which haven't yet made it through Greenlight has always been better than getting individual download links from developers or websites.

I guess we'll still have GOG even if Desura shuts down, but at the end of the day I hope it doesn't come to that since there is a ton of lovably weird and wonky stuff on Desura that would have a hard time actually getting on GOG and Steam.

I guess that explains the whole "not paying devs" thing that was going on for a while.

And yeah, I've had Desura on my taskbar for about 5 years now, and every single time I accidentally click it, I count the seconds until the window pops up so I can close it.

It's too bad. Besides running the Indie Royale bundles (Which had some pretty nice games for the first year or two), Desura implemented some interesting features long before they appeared on Steam; namely, alphafunding (Early Access), a strong Indie focus, and Mod Integration (Due to Desura originally being an offshoot of ModDB). Their profit potential was extremely low for developers, and it sounds like the patching process was a pain, but they still made it pretty easy for devs to distribute Steam keys to existing customers through Indie Royale/Desura.

That last part is what's going prevent this from being a clean shutdown. Many devs going through Greenlight promised Steam keys for existing owners, whether they own it via IR bundle or Desura. Not only will this shutdown destroy a simple method (for both devs and customers) to distribute the keys, but it'll likely make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for devs to properly verify existing owners, since they will not have access to any Desura/IR purchase records.

I have a couple of games purchased on Desura from Humble bundles, but nothing I'd worry about losing. This is why I buy primarily through GOG. Speaking of, the summer sale is on now...

so much for that Mac version then. i guess.

This sucks, I have 92 games on there so far, hope they don't go any where as I enjoy looking through the catalogue of news games. I believe they certainly have their own space and place with regards to indie games and freebies.

This. Much stranger things have happened than Steam having to shut down someday. You can pry my discs from my cold, dead hands.

Too shame. Only bought one game there and that game was Xenonauts back in March 2013. When the game came out this year, it is a damn good game.

Now there are Steam Greenlight, but that does not always purchasing the game, unless they release an early access game title.

Indie Royale has a Desura bundle right now. Throw your money away, I guess?

Any company can crash due to some bad decisions/choices or the feeling that a paticular market is done. Though it seems unlikely Steam will ever close, it does not mean it never will and what will happen to all our games? Steam say they will give you the games but are you really telling me they wil provide you with games that have gone out of print but you still own? What if the company goes bankrupt, how are they going to afford the cost of hosting those games long enough for every user to get their stuff?

Digital distribution is awesome as a quick and easy way to get stuff, but there is always a very real possiblity that everything you buy through a digital front end will be gone tomorrow, there are no guarantees.

Although Desura is far, FAR from perfect, the whole sentiment of "it feels shady" or "it feel's virus-ey" smacks of ignorance and disdain for anything that would DARE compete with Steam/Origin. Like Austin (and others) have said, it's great for small, indy developers who don't want to jump into the piranha-pool of Greenlight or similar programs.

I purchased some much-enjoyed games off Desura (Bollywood Wannabe, Dominions 4, Towns, and more!) and hope they can keep the service running with a new owner.