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Jac_Solar · May 7, 2013

spindoctor said:
You do understand that "doing it the right way" is the reason they don't get any of the new/big games right? Just want to make sure...

Yes, and that decision by the publisher is at least influenced by Steam (It established the alternative way of doing it.). Perhaps it would have gone that way regardless of Steam. But Steam has been in a unique position to leverage their power against the publishers for awhile now, and provide DRM free games, though. Risky? Yes. But if they really had the interests of the consumers in mind, that's what they'd at least try to do.

What needs to change, however, is DRM. People who pay for a game should get the game, not a promise that you'd get to play it as long as the DD service provider is active.

If you've looked at how the piracy stats have been doing, you'd realise that DRM doesn't do much except bother the paying customers.

Wiktor · May 7, 2013

Zia said:
Yes.

Garderner's Dog.

JaseC · May 7, 2013

Jac_Solar said:
Yes, and that decision by the publisher is at least influenced by Steam (It established the alternative way of doing it.). Perhaps it would have gone that way regardless of Steam. But Steam has been in a unique position to leverage their power against the publishers for awhile now, and provide DRM free games, though. Risky? Yes. But if they really had the interests of the consumers in mind, that's what they'd at least try to do.

What needs to change, however, is DRM. People who pay for a game should get the game, not a promise that you'd get to play it as long as the DD service provider is active.

If you've looked at how the piracy stats have been doing, you'd realise that DRM doesn't do much except bother the paying customers.

There are many DRM-free games on Steam (even Steamworks ones); they're just not advertised as such.

beril · May 7, 2013

TucoBenedictoPacifico said:
But that's false. For many reasons.
First, because not getting into Steam doesn't mean you can't sell elsewhere. your own website, competing services, etc. Which are all "PC" options.

Second, because they are not really picking just the top ten.

Slight exaggeration, but without bundles I probably wouldn't have made any money on PC in my case. I would likely never reach the desura payment treshhold. I'm not really sure if gamersgate has a threshold, so I might be able to get a payment there but haven't looked into it.

Isn't it the top ten every month, plus igf finalists?

Beside, weren't you the one proudly claiming in another thread that you don't care about this PC version at all and you put virtually zero effort in it?

It's a port of a small game, and it was developed on PC to begin with, so it's kindof a given that the PC version didn't take much extra time. The "not caring" part came after the PC sales figures were in and after greenlight proved unsuccessful

You can't be bothered with it? You don't care about it and you are not willing to "make PR" for your product?
Then why are you expecting it to be approved? No, not even that... Why are you submitting it in the first place?

I've put about as much PR effort for all versions. On other platforms it's sold >100k with about as little marketing, so it doesn't make much sense for me to do a big push for the PC version that has done 200 copies to increase that slightly, or try to push the greenlight page instead of the versions that people can actually buy, for the longshot of an eventual steam release.

alexandros · May 7, 2013

Maybe this is just it beril, maybe the game is better suited to other platforms. Platform games are not really a traditional PC genre so the PC audience may not be that interested in them, unless there's some sort of unique twist (like SMB's bastard-hard difficulty or Terraria's roguelike features).

ikkei · May 7, 2013

I'd say Greenlight should only be used for games that couldn't pass an initial quality control, and after that, give them a month to take a fixed number of votes. If they didn't make it, they can resubmit their games, but they would go directly to this mini-GL, so they'd only pass if they got some fame or improvements.

Looking at how it's today, it's ridiculous to think that a sane developer would make a pc exclusive considering how GL is a lottery. Even if you pass it, it can take like 6 months to take your game on Steam after it was already made. And 6 months aren't too much for players, but for any developer 6 months with no income is a disaster.

alstein · May 7, 2013

GravityMan said:
Valve had better get their act together soon on Greenlight. If they don't, then there's a good chance that indie devs will soon abandon Steam entirely. They will go through GOG, their own websites, and Sony (PS4/Vita). Valve and Steam will be left out in the cold.

I don't have much hope that Valve will fix GL, though. They're increasingly seeming like a "we'll do whatever the fuck we want" type of company.

The infrastructure for another PC portal is in place- stuff like Desura. Folks aren't going to abandon Steam when it is 90% of the market though, and everyone will want to be on Steam unless Steam has a disaster on par with the PSN hacking outage, which I don't see happening, or Valve does something truly evil (Greenlight problems aren't Valve being evil, they're just Valve being stupid.) In the case of Valve going evil, folks would slowly gravitate towards Valve's competitors and gave them more legitimacy.

Stallion Free · May 7, 2013

ikkei said:
Looking at how it's today, it's ridiculous to think that a sane developer would make a pc exclusive considering how GL is a lottery. Even if you pass it, it can take like 6 months to take your game on Steam after it was already made. And 6 months aren't too much for players, but for any developer 6 months with no income is a disaster.

Where did you find that 6 months info?

alstein · May 7, 2013

ikkei said:
I'd say Greenlight should only be used for games that couldn't pass an initial quality control, and after that, give them a month to take a fixed number of votes. If they didn't make it, they can resubmit their games, but they would go directly to this mini-GL, so they'd only pass if they got some fame or improvements.

Looking at how it's today, it's ridiculous to think that a sane developer would make a pc exclusive considering how GL is a lottery. Even if you pass it, it can take like 6 months to take your game on Steam after it was already made. And 6 months aren't too much for players, but for any developer 6 months with no income is a disaster.

Why did indies make their PC games in the past? Steam wasn't guaranteed back in the day either.

The end conclusion is that indies should not rely on Steam, and should be cultivating a more open platform as an alternative, Desura is probably the best bet right now.

Consumers who like indie games should support alternative services or direct from developer- it helps other indies out if there's another game in town besides Valve, and it also means the money goes in the developer's pocket , not Valve's.

This is not me slamming Steam- but I do have an issue with Steam over how they handle this.

ikkei · May 7, 2013

Stallion Free said:
Where did you find that 6 months info?

It was just a random estimation, it varies a lot from game to game, but in the end what matters is that GL has introduced too much uncertainty and delay between the game launch date and the day the developer can pay the checks.

alstein said:
Why did indies make their PC games in the past? Steam wasn't guaranteed back in the day either.

The end conclusion is that indies should not rely on Steam, and should be cultivating a more open platform as an alternative, Desura is probably the best bet right now.

Consumers who like indie games should support alternative services or direct from developer- it helps other indies out if there's another game in town besides Valve, and it also means the money goes in the developer's pocket , not Valve's.

This is not me slamming Steam- but I do have an issue with Steam over how they handle this.

Until very recently nobody wanted to work for PC and old figures like Tim Schafer were making games for mobiles or consoles, if anything at all. Steam is what it's making it all work and if launching games there is a nightmare, then developers will stop working for PC, since the alternatives to steam mostly mean gifting your game in one of those bundles.

(sorry for the bad English!

)

Stallion Free · May 7, 2013

ikkei said:
It was just a random estimation, it varies a lot from game to game, but in the end what matters is that GL has introduced too much uncertainty and delay between the game launch date and the day the developer can pay the checks.

If your game is ready, it can be added almost immediately though. The majority of the games that take longer take longer because the devs chose to add things.

Robert at Zeboyd Games · May 7, 2013

alstein said:
The end conclusion is that indies should not rely on Steam, and should be cultivating a more open platform as an alternative, Desura is probably the best bet right now.

Desura is nowhere near a viable alternative at the moment if you want to make a living making indie games.

Sentenza · May 7, 2013

Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
Desura is nowhere near a viable alternative at the moment if you want to make a living making indie games.

According to some developers it's not even particularly reliable with payments.

alexandros · May 7, 2013

Yeah, let's be realistic here. Success outside of Steam is not impossible, success inside Steam is not a sure thing, but it's safe to say that being on Steam increases your chances of success exponentially.

Unfortunately, the question still stands: How do you design a truly fair curation system?

Chairmanchuck · May 7, 2013

alexandros said:
Yeah, let's be realistic here. Success outside of Steam is not impossible, success inside Steam is not a sure thing, but it's safe to say that being on Steam increases your chances of success exponentially.

Unfortunately, the question still stands: How do you design a truly fair curation system?

Maybe just make a mix between Greenlight and the old-system. As som people pointed it out, right now Greenlight is not a system that chooses good-games, but more like a popularity contest.
Thats why the Yogcast-Game got greenlit in just 1 month without much infos beside the Kickstarter, because they have a huge fanbase.
Same with the AVGN-Game.
Same with Dragons Lair. Everyone knows Dragons Lair, but who still needs it? It was voted, because people knew it, dont really think it was voted, because people thought its a great Game.
Then you have some pretty generic F2P-Games, that were voted just (my assumption) because they are free.
Without the Humble Bundle I also think Waking Mars wouldnt be on Steam till now.

It is about exposure, not really about the quality of the Game, that people vote for them. And that is why the system is kinda "broken". It is more about popularity, than about the actual Game.

Stallion Free · May 7, 2013

Chairmanchuck said:
Maybe just make a mix between Greenlight and the old-system. As som people pointed it out, right now Greenlight is not a system that chooses good-games, but more like a popularity contest.
Thats why the Yogcast-Game got greenlit in just 1 month without much infos beside the Kickstarter, because they have a huge fanbase.
Same with the AVGN-Game.
Same with Dragons Lair. Everyone knows Dragons Lair, but who still needs it? It was voted, because people knew it, dont really think it was voted, because people thought its a great Game.
Then you have some pretty generic F2P-Games, that were voted just (my assumption) because they are free.
Without the Humble Bundle I also think Waking Mars wouldnt be on Steam till now.

It is about exposure, not really about the quality of the Game, that people vote for them. And that is why the system is kinda "broken". It is more about popularity, than about the actual Game.

It is a mix of Greenlight and the old system. It's not the exact top 10 released every month or whatever, this has been confirmed.

Linkstrikesback · May 7, 2013

On the one hand, I hate greenlight as it is blocking good games being released on steam and developers from making the money they deserve.

On the other, it means indie games seem to be doubling back, at least slightly to consoles (Given Sony and Nintendo are looking good for this at the moment) where I would much rather play the games (Especially if they get a 3DS or perhaps Vita release).

But its my opinion that the Greenlight system just does not work. I don't know what could be done better really, but this is not a good option.

Chairmanchuck · May 7, 2013

Stallion Free said:
It is a mix of Greenlight and the old system. It's not the exact top 10 released every month or whatever, this has been confirmed.

It is now? I thought they replaced the whole process, when they introduced Greenlight. Seems not then. Thanks for the clarification.

alexandros · May 7, 2013

Stallion Free said:
It is a mix of Greenlight and the old system. It's not the exact top 10 released every month or whatever, this has been confirmed.

Yeah, exactly. Valve is already using Greenlight to supplement the existing system, so I'm not really sure what could be changed in that regard.

Linkstrikesback said:
But its my opinion that the Greenlight system just does not work. I don't know what could be done better really, but this is not a good option.

That's the problem though, isn't it? Most of us can point out problems with Greenlight but very few, if any, can offer concrete suggestions on how to eliminate them. We need to pinpoint a) why it doesn't work and b) how to improve it. Saying "Greenlight doesn't work because x game didn't make it in" isn't really a valid argument.

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