Green Biker Dude
Banned
motion for everyone outraged to move to origin or the windows store, where indie developers get all the support they need
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Steam axes submission process, ALL new pubs/devs must go through Steam Greenlight.
- Thread starter chubigans
- Start date
Successful indie developers are a very small subset of an already small subset.
There's a big difference on professional people deciding on the potential sales of a title in Steam, and a small amount of people voting on what games they want.
The difference is that now Indie developers need a significant Advertising/Marketing Budget to ensure that they are popular enough before even getting into Steam, while before, with a professional analysing it's sale potential, this was not a necessity.
We even have companies such as dtp entertainment (Gray Matter) competing with small Indie games, which further puts smaller games at a disadvantage.
Ideally we would have both, one or the other isn't a desirable situation, and the information we have so far is that Valve moved from one to the other.
Gentleman Jack
Member
That's not the whole story here. Crytek has a preexisting audience constantly trawling media outlets for updates and stuff like this does not get missed. Indie devs don't even know how many people have voted for their game on Greenlight.
Greenlight is not any better than an online petition, from a dev's perspective.
The comparison irrelevant because Valve shouldn't be the decision makers, and your point only highlights that there are problems with current Greenlight system.
Speaking from my perspective, because I value PC as an open platform. While I take issue with "Steam becoming PC gaming monoploy", I always saw value in Steam being a "platform within a platform" argument. Greenlight is a first step in addressing that concern, as far as its vision goes.
Klendathu Club Owner
Member
Greenlight isn't a bad idea, but I agree that it shouldn't be the only way to get your game on Steam. I doubt that niche games will benefit from this. Valve should implement another way: Pay a higher fee and have your game looked at by Valve employees.
I think this will just make people vote on random games to get the free stuff.
So I take it no one agrees with my idea to add incentives for voting, like giving out items / hats / points that can be redeemed during a sale for something / etc?
I think this will just make people vote on random games to get the free stuff.
The whole Steam being a monopoly is an issue on itself, and one that deserves discussion, but I don't think that Valve handpicking games alongside a community decision would make Steam any less of an open/closed platform than it is now.
At least in this context where we are discussing consumers (a small number of them at that) being the sole gatekeeper of what (Indie) games are allowed into Steam.
In such context, having Valve handpicking indie games alongside community decision games would surely be more desirable than just having the community voting, for a variety of reasons (which I already adressed in other posts).
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
My impressions on Greenlight (used it since day one, voted on every single that's been put up, reported dozens of in-violation content), along with my suggestions on approval in general:
1) There's some really great stuff going up there. Really great stuff. I hope that really great stuff makes it onto Steam. And a lot of it is stuff that I've never heard of before despite reading lots of indie stuff, so I get the feeling that the nominal point of Greenlight--discoverability--is possible. I think people should take a few minutes to scan through Greenlight.
2) There are plenty of amateur projects that are clearly nowhere near ready to be sold commercially. Placeholder fonts, nonsensical menu UI, mostly concept art, no trailer, etc. I don't mean that they're nowhere near completion, I mean that it's clear that the submitter does not have the capabilities required to release a commercial game. That's fine, independent and amateur games are great. But more devs need to reflect on these things and realize that they don't necessarily need to charge money for the first game they make. Valve can't solve the problem of idiots submitting clearly non-tenable stuff and gumming up the works.
3) There are plenty of submissions by established commercial publishers who clearly weren't able to get on Steam before now. Stuff like Euro-style simulation games, lower tier point-and-click adventures, and low-end F2P stuff. I have no idea what the answer is here, but I'm pretty confident Greenlight is not the answer. Perhaps it'd be a good idea to allow trial Steam publishing licenses to a subset of publishers who have commercial presence, actual staff, etc. and set some sort of quality/sales criteria they need to meet in order to get unrestricted access going forward.
4) I also think it'd be good for Valve to delegate certain tastemakers to have approval. No need to say who they are, just do it in silence. Is there a reason why John Walker can't vouch something onto Steam? Edmund McMillan? Terry Cavanagh? The Humble Indie Bundle guys? Pick a few dozen people who you authorize to have provisional approvals, have them sign NDAs, and
4) Greenlight would work much better if you were Greenlighting a submitter's ability to post stuff to Steam, rather than a particular game. I am not individually interested in anything that dtp entertainment is putting up on Greenlight, but clearly the whole sum of their work put together merits them a position to add stuff to Steam. This also helps remove the feeling that Greenlight has a "finite number of slots" or that Game X being Greenlit means Game Y isn't. If you're Greenlighting a developer or publisher, there's some flexibility there.
5) I think Greenlight works better if it's seen as a "second chance", where developers who are rejected have an avenue of petition. It works better if you're a Din's Curse or an Oil Blue or a Mutant Mudds or some other prominent, well-received game that just slipped through the cracks. Valve claimed they would still be manually working with promising projects--I assume that's what happened with Thomas Was Alone. Maybe clarifying a little bit on this would help.
6) I think the idea for Greenlight going forward is that you put your game up on Greenlight, and then when RPS covers you or GAF covers you, there's also a link to your Greenlight thread. So the first cohort of games were always going to fall into this awkward middle. If you imagine that a typical high-demand Greenlight game will take 3-4 months to wind its way through the system, that's not a problem... but if you imagine that all current games are in a holding pattern for 3-4 months because the switchover wasn't done properly, that sucks.
7) An enormous number of voters are pricks. There's a lot of "lol who gives a fuck platformers suck" votes. I think it'd be valuable to weight votes. Allow peer voting of comments, and give more weight to the Greenlight votes of those who have better received comments. Want to take part in Greenlight? Sure, but let's recognize that the value of someone who is basically a professional-quality reviewer making very salient arguments and encouraging the dev to address issues is better than the value of a random customer
1) There's some really great stuff going up there. Really great stuff. I hope that really great stuff makes it onto Steam. And a lot of it is stuff that I've never heard of before despite reading lots of indie stuff, so I get the feeling that the nominal point of Greenlight--discoverability--is possible. I think people should take a few minutes to scan through Greenlight.
2) There are plenty of amateur projects that are clearly nowhere near ready to be sold commercially. Placeholder fonts, nonsensical menu UI, mostly concept art, no trailer, etc. I don't mean that they're nowhere near completion, I mean that it's clear that the submitter does not have the capabilities required to release a commercial game. That's fine, independent and amateur games are great. But more devs need to reflect on these things and realize that they don't necessarily need to charge money for the first game they make. Valve can't solve the problem of idiots submitting clearly non-tenable stuff and gumming up the works.
3) There are plenty of submissions by established commercial publishers who clearly weren't able to get on Steam before now. Stuff like Euro-style simulation games, lower tier point-and-click adventures, and low-end F2P stuff. I have no idea what the answer is here, but I'm pretty confident Greenlight is not the answer. Perhaps it'd be a good idea to allow trial Steam publishing licenses to a subset of publishers who have commercial presence, actual staff, etc. and set some sort of quality/sales criteria they need to meet in order to get unrestricted access going forward.
4) I also think it'd be good for Valve to delegate certain tastemakers to have approval. No need to say who they are, just do it in silence. Is there a reason why John Walker can't vouch something onto Steam? Edmund McMillan? Terry Cavanagh? The Humble Indie Bundle guys? Pick a few dozen people who you authorize to have provisional approvals, have them sign NDAs, and
4) Greenlight would work much better if you were Greenlighting a submitter's ability to post stuff to Steam, rather than a particular game. I am not individually interested in anything that dtp entertainment is putting up on Greenlight, but clearly the whole sum of their work put together merits them a position to add stuff to Steam. This also helps remove the feeling that Greenlight has a "finite number of slots" or that Game X being Greenlit means Game Y isn't. If you're Greenlighting a developer or publisher, there's some flexibility there.
5) I think Greenlight works better if it's seen as a "second chance", where developers who are rejected have an avenue of petition. It works better if you're a Din's Curse or an Oil Blue or a Mutant Mudds or some other prominent, well-received game that just slipped through the cracks. Valve claimed they would still be manually working with promising projects--I assume that's what happened with Thomas Was Alone. Maybe clarifying a little bit on this would help.
6) I think the idea for Greenlight going forward is that you put your game up on Greenlight, and then when RPS covers you or GAF covers you, there's also a link to your Greenlight thread. So the first cohort of games were always going to fall into this awkward middle. If you imagine that a typical high-demand Greenlight game will take 3-4 months to wind its way through the system, that's not a problem... but if you imagine that all current games are in a holding pattern for 3-4 months because the switchover wasn't done properly, that sucks.
7) An enormous number of voters are pricks. There's a lot of "lol who gives a fuck platformers suck" votes. I think it'd be valuable to weight votes. Allow peer voting of comments, and give more weight to the Greenlight votes of those who have better received comments. Want to take part in Greenlight? Sure, but let's recognize that the value of someone who is basically a professional-quality reviewer making very salient arguments and encouraging the dev to address issues is better than the value of a random customer
Starwolf_UK
Member
What I don't like about it is it is essentially book judged by cover or I feel like King Canute fighting the tide as my choices ultimately mean nothing.
Though I do want to see Bed Simulator 2013 approved just to send the whole thing into disrepute.
One thing I don't get is, was'nt this meant to replace the sluggish submission process but seems rather sluggish. 3 months and we've gotten 5 games out of it (plus essentially, 26 comin' soon)
Was it ever said if Greenlight is a one-time thing or can you resubmit (and pay $100 to charity) as things like Kickstarter show, first pitches can be plain bad or projects overambitious.
But I feel it gone wrong seeing that Greenlight is 1 game out for every 6 approved and think something is wrong here so now I've become prejudiced against anything not ready.
Though I do want to see Bed Simulator 2013 approved just to send the whole thing into disrepute.
One thing I don't get is, was'nt this meant to replace the sluggish submission process but seems rather sluggish. 3 months and we've gotten 5 games out of it (plus essentially, 26 comin' soon)
Was it ever said if Greenlight is a one-time thing or can you resubmit (and pay $100 to charity) as things like Kickstarter show, first pitches can be plain bad or projects overambitious.
I got the impression it was whoever felt looking at it.
Its difficult as it seems to be a way of lobbying to see if the game is worth even developing or giving your tired developers something to really push for "guys, if we finish, we're on Steam".
But I feel it gone wrong seeing that Greenlight is 1 game out for every 6 approved and think something is wrong here so now I've become prejudiced against anything not ready.
That is still over 5 hours.
Of course it makes PC more closed if Valve is part of the decision process whereby the content I can consume on my PC is controlled. The ideal situation would be where anyone can publish any game on Steam to be sold. Valve can use, for example, Greenlight v255 as a means to decide which services it wishes to offer to which games, and take a cut of the game revenue accordingly.
I've also said that Valve for the moment is required to be a decision maker until Greelight becomes much better than what it is now.
Warm Machine
Member
Like I said before, they should just allow devs to sell their game on Greenlight. Valve still gets their 30% but the indie dev can actually make real use the Greenlight exposure. That way the "I would buy this" button becomes a "I actually did buy this" button.
After a sales threshold they promote the game to Steam proper and get access to Steamworks.
Right now, people see our Greenlight and vote that they would buy the game, then actually buy the game from Gamersgate or Impulse or somewhere else where Valve doesn't get their money.
We have a good deal of sales data based around pre and post Greenlight exposure for our PC version. Steam carries a LOT of weight, a frightening amount actually.
After a sales threshold they promote the game to Steam proper and get access to Steamworks.
Right now, people see our Greenlight and vote that they would buy the game, then actually buy the game from Gamersgate or Impulse or somewhere else where Valve doesn't get their money.
We have a good deal of sales data based around pre and post Greenlight exposure for our PC version. Steam carries a LOT of weight, a frightening amount actually.
Delusibeta
Banned
Because Greenlight actually seems to be allowing less indie games on Steam.
AFAIK everything is editable in Greenlight, so bad pitches can be salvaged. Worse case scnerio, delete the page and try again (although that's dumb since you're sent back to square one rather than square #105934 the old page got to)
Huw_Dawson
Member
Definitely a wait and see on this - there's positives and negatives. Valve can't just publish every single game that's submitted, but their old policy evidently wasn't ideal for them. Yet this turns the submissions process into a popularity contest with a troublesome signal-to-noise ratio to boot.
I suppose it's incentive for indie devs to do some marketing when they try and get their game onto Steam. If their game is to be successful they need people to know about it anyway.
This is another aspect of it I hadn't considered. Is it actually a bad thing if you can get free advertising via Greenlight but have to jump through its hoops to actually get onto Steam?
I suppose it's incentive for indie devs to do some marketing when they try and get their game onto Steam. If their game is to be successful they need people to know about it anyway.
This is another aspect of it I hadn't considered. Is it actually a bad thing if you can get free advertising via Greenlight but have to jump through its hoops to actually get onto Steam?
This would be automated of course and on Valve's end, not the developers.
But that's the whole point of greenlight?! Crawl through a list of random games and vote up stuff that looks good.
It would encourage voting for SOMETHING at least. Games that are finished and can present better screenshots/videos than concepts will automatically be favoured.
Greenlight is a popularity contest and the people voting will always automatically favour familiarity than experimentation. Expect more of the same old, rather than new boundary-breaking game designs.
This will only lead to further creative stagnation within the gaming medium. Too bad.
This will only lead to further creative stagnation within the gaming medium. Too bad.
I just don't see how Valve making decisions in addition to consumers is more closed than just the consumers. We aren't taking away any ability for consumers to make choices by having Valve making their own choices, we are simply adding a second way for developers to get accepted into Steam.
The idea of making Steam itself fully open is really a more complex issue which I feel is a bit of a side issue of what's being discussed here.
With that said, I agree with the "Greenlight Store" idea.
This is something I agree with, a secondary market, similar to XBLIG would be a fairly decent solution.
It wouldn't be a simple solution but it could work with enough community oriented tools to filter copyright issues (perhaps have a 1~3 month period of time before the first pay to allow for detection by the community and easy refunds by Valve part in those cases), and filter malicious software (by having games needed to be peer reviewed or have a small segment of volunters go by the games).
I also feel that the buy and "Aprove" button should be different.
SteveWinwood
Member
Seems to? Or is?
Do you have data that shows that less indie games have been let on steam post greenlight?
exmachina64
Banned
How utterly fucking stupid...
This is my big problem with greenlight. Greenlighting games that aren't finished, or may never be finished, seems silly when there are excellent finished games waiting in the queue. It also makes it much less likely for niche games to make it through the greenlight process when they are competing with a never-ending stream of unfinished games in more popular genres.
Allowing only finished games would also result in more sales. People may feel invested enough in a game they upvoted to pick it up when it launches on greenlight a month later. Less-so when it launches a year or two later and they don't even remember it.
Because Valve are neither creators nor consumers. They're service providers, and should charge for their services, period. They also run a store, but that should be open because they should not have the ability to prevent or constrain what can be published on an open platform.
alexandros
Banned
So in this context the phrase "new to Steam" basically means "unproven", as in they have released a small amount of games? If devs that are already on Steam are considered new, then this is the only explanation I can think of.
In any case, I feel that it is way too soon for such a move. Newell himself admitted that the system needs a lot of work and he's right. I've been voting on Greenlight since day 1, I've voted on over 900 games and I think the exposure it gives to indie devs is great, but it really needs a couple of internal -by this I mean available to Valve and devs, not the public- additions: First, a separate "Top-50" or something for already finished games that can be sold immediately. Second, separate top-20 listings for games according to genre since some genres are much more popular than others.
Maybe this data is already available to Valve, but I would like them to be a lot more transparent about it. And increase the amount of games being accepted!
In any case, I feel that it is way too soon for such a move. Newell himself admitted that the system needs a lot of work and he's right. I've been voting on Greenlight since day 1, I've voted on over 900 games and I think the exposure it gives to indie devs is great, but it really needs a couple of internal -by this I mean available to Valve and devs, not the public- additions: First, a separate "Top-50" or something for already finished games that can be sold immediately. Second, separate top-20 listings for games according to genre since some genres are much more popular than others.
Maybe this data is already available to Valve, but I would like them to be a lot more transparent about it. And increase the amount of games being accepted!
Phife Dawg
Member
I never claimed I was important or anything, I just posted my honest opinion on this here message board. If enough people devote their time, more power to them I guess.
Post needs more caps lock for emphasis. Other than that you are amazing because I never claimed such a thing. I'm not in the business of helping valve out with their approval process and running who's hot or not.
I use steam a lot but don't really follow all the news, seems indies were overlooked before, just by valve itself, yep sucked back then too. Valve should make a set of rules everyone has to comply with and greenlight themselves according to transparent criteria. This would make things more predictable for everyone involved. As stump suggested use greenlight as a second chance and people who desperately want certain games can devote their time, drum up support.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
Design by focus group has never worked, why would Valve suddenly make it mandatory?
Having both ways alongside one another would have been favorable, imo. I mean: there is a good chance Feep's Sequence would not have been greenlit. Or AI War or Sanctum and so on.
(god help anyone who says Defense Grid. I will hurt you.)
Most of those games have at least some level of 'backing' despite never being on those people's radar before or even near release.
Although in fairness, I think the Greenlight thing is (probably) a bit of a sham, because you can't actually use a 'x people voted up = greenlit' or 'x people voted down = not greenlit' or even a combination in any reliable sense. What you do get data on, is consumer and demographic intent before and after release. And that data is quite simply unavailable in other methods (polling, focus group, survey, and so on..).
I think the focus of it is that demographic sales data, packaged inside a "we're doing for the indies!" PR message. Call me cynical if you want, but that is what businesses (and governments) do.
Having both ways alongside one another would have been favorable, imo. I mean: there is a good chance Feep's Sequence would not have been greenlit. Or AI War or Sanctum and so on.
(god help anyone who says Defense Grid. I will hurt you.)
Most of those games have at least some level of 'backing' despite never being on those people's radar before or even near release.
Although in fairness, I think the Greenlight thing is (probably) a bit of a sham, because you can't actually use a 'x people voted up = greenlit' or 'x people voted down = not greenlit' or even a combination in any reliable sense. What you do get data on, is consumer and demographic intent before and after release. And that data is quite simply unavailable in other methods (polling, focus group, survey, and so on..).
I think the focus of it is that demographic sales data, packaged inside a "we're doing for the indies!" PR message. Call me cynical if you want, but that is what businesses (and governments) do.
If this ends up applying to me...and I'm not sure, as I haven't asked...it would be a pretty significant blow. Not because I don't think my next game could make it through Greenlight...I'm pretty sure my existing fanbase and GAF (I love you, GAF) could run it at least a significant way through the process...but because I wouldn't be able to guarantee a Steam copy for backers in a Kickstarter, which I plan to put up in the relatively near future.
It may be based on past sales...if Valve sees an indie game that only sold a few thousand copies, then they might not want to give an automatic pass for future titles. Sequence sold pretty well, so I hope they take our next one. >.>
Response to above: It's extremely unlikely Sequence would have been Greenlit. = (
It may be based on past sales...if Valve sees an indie game that only sold a few thousand copies, then they might not want to give an automatic pass for future titles. Sequence sold pretty well, so I hope they take our next one. >.>
Response to above: It's extremely unlikely Sequence would have been Greenlit. = (
Delusibeta
Banned
No hard data yet, but if Steam follows through and blocks off those who are unproven and without a publisher, then you will almost certainly see a drop-off in indie games.
Right now what I'm arguing is the following, Steam is a closed platform, as such giving the community the ability to choose what games to be added into Steam is a positive thing overall, it being the only way to aprove Indie developers into Steam is not and ultimately hurts consumers and developers alike (see Feep suspicions that Sequence wouldn't be aproved via Greenlight), as such Valve being able to pick games in addition to the community would be for the benefit of both.
You are absolutely right with Valve being a service provider, but as a service provider Valve is allowed to decide who to provide a service to.
The idea that Steam is an open platform is false, it is not, the PC platform as a whole is an open enviorement and Steam is, at the moment, a closed platform within it. As such Valve acts as the gatekeeper.
It is within this context that the argument (from my part) is occuring, the arguement that Steam should be an open enviorement is unrelated to the process of Indie games acceptance as it is now, since the existance of Greenlight (or an acceptance process) would be unecesssary in such scenario.
Steam being an open enviorement would make the discussion in this thread to be moot as every and any game would be available on Steam.
Of course they have to. But the question is: Do they have to because Valve is lazy or because their game is not deemed good enough to sell a lot of copies by Valve. It sure sounds like the latter to me, there is no automated "you have one game on Steam, everything you do releases on Steam" procedure.
jim-jam bongs
Member
my umbrage was triggered by the implication contained within your post that a single person could have any effect on whether something is overlooked in a crowd sourced selection process. it's like people proudly proclaiming that they aren't on Facebook and Twitter as though their personal avoidance of the services in some way proves that they're worthless.
jaundicejuice
Member
I try to make it a habit of checking out Greenlight regularly but it's honestly something I forget about unless someone mentions a particularly cool looking game is up on Greenlight. Then I start to hammer through voting for a bunch of submissions. I try to give most games an honest chance but usually I make up my mind pretty quickly.
Valve needs to find a way to make voting for Greenlight games an event the way they made checking out the store an event with the daily, mid-week and weekend sales. Maybe Valve should add a reminder for Greenlight votes in the pop-up that alerts you about sales when you start the client up. "You've got a queue of Greenlight games to vote for, click here to do so now" or "These are the top Greenlight games the community is voting for this week/month, check them out" Something more has to be done to draw people's attention to Greenlight if it's going to the primary means for many developers to even have a chance to get on the store.
I try to vote for everything. Out of the current 954 Greenlight submissions I've voted for, I've voted yes for 195. Of those 195 I've favorited 33. Those 33 are games I would actually buy were they released on the Steam store. The remaining 162 are games I've voted yes for aren't necessarily games I would buy but they are games that deserve to be on the store.
Valve needs to find a way to make voting for Greenlight games an event the way they made checking out the store an event with the daily, mid-week and weekend sales. Maybe Valve should add a reminder for Greenlight votes in the pop-up that alerts you about sales when you start the client up. "You've got a queue of Greenlight games to vote for, click here to do so now" or "These are the top Greenlight games the community is voting for this week/month, check them out" Something more has to be done to draw people's attention to Greenlight if it's going to the primary means for many developers to even have a chance to get on the store.
I try to vote for everything. Out of the current 954 Greenlight submissions I've voted for, I've voted yes for 195. Of those 195 I've favorited 33. Those 33 are games I would actually buy were they released on the Steam store. The remaining 162 are games I've voted yes for aren't necessarily games I would buy but they are games that deserve to be on the store.
Ugh... The whole greenlight process just made me bitter. If it's one thing it achieved, it was to illuminate just how many decent games Valve has been turning down, and greenlight hasn't really made it much easier to get on Steam.
Now that they have a fee to submit a game they should just scrap greenlight and use that money to actually do a proper review of the submissions.
Now that they have a fee to submit a game they should just scrap greenlight and use that money to actually do a proper review of the submissions.
SteveWinwood
Member
The fun thing is that you can actually go to the new releases tab and just count. Or wikipedia actually has a nicer and cleaner list. I'd wager some money that average Indie games released per month (igrpm) has not gone down after greenlight has been introduced.
I would really appreciate you letting us know if you end up getting the game approved through your Valve contact(s), or whether you have to go through Greenlight, since you're pretty much one of the exact cases that seem concerning to me.
According to the Greenlight thread: "Believe me, we tried! Steam doesn't feel the game is right for them. Spread the word and help me prove them wrong!"
I don't know if "Steam doesn't feel the game is right for them" means "there was an automatic computer rejection" or because "Valve sent a rejection with no explanation" or "Valve sent a rejection saying they didn't feel the game was right for the store".
It's different because in at least one (I -thought- there were multiple but I don't have the names offhand) case, small developers with games on Steam are still having to go through Greenlight, presumably because Valve is rejecting their games. Maybe their new games are terrible quality, but it sounds like Valve may just be rejecting the idea potentially because they think it wouldn't sell well.
If there were any evidence of say, Valve cherry-picking a high quality pinball game even though it wasn't in the top 100, to cater to the lucrative pinball-game crowd, then I'd say the system could be great. Insisting that all pinball games become absolutely as popular/more popular than a continuous stream of newly created FPS or platformer games (in order to make it to the top 20 or so), seems problematic to me.
Gentleman Jack
Member
I haven't favorited anything, I probably should have now that I'm past 130 games voted for/against. I've given Valve no data on the line between 'yes I would buy this game for certain' and 'yes I think this game deserves a chance to be on Steam, even though I wouldn't likely buy it.' I'm sure the devs would like to know more information per vote than they're currently getting.
Wok
Member
I only vote yes for games I would buy and the counter is currently stuck at 13 even though I have voted for every submission. If Valve is smart, people who vote less and who actually buy the games they have voted for should have a stronger influence on the system. Or maybe just people who vote for games that sell well.
Mackenzie 92
Member
Easier and easier to completely ignore steam.
StarCreator
Member
I agree that public voting is no substitute for a decision made by a closed circle of informed individuals, but it needs to be pointed out that 100% of the submission fee to Greenlight goes to the Child's Play charity.
Phife Dawg
Member
Well it wasn't meant that way, which may be related to the fact that I'm not a native speaker.
It's actually not that easy when a lot of games require steam.
exmachina64
Banned
If anything, Greenlight has given me a more negative impression of Valve's submission process than I had before. Was there no fee in their submissions process before Greenlight? Obviously, a dedicated system for processing submissions would be ideal.
Is this simply a case of Valve not wanting to dedicate the resources to it?
Edit: So Valve does have a dedicated internal submissions team? That's a relief.
both already finished games, one published by Capcom and the other one based on an already critically acclaimed series when Steam started trying to make a push for asian stuff on Steam.
what? what budget? they need to have a game that looks interesting enough for them to send a link to Rock Paper Shotgun or something that warrants them highlighting it on the site. They need to make a good game, if the game is good it catches your eye and not only you vote it but it gets featured press-wise. This was ALWAYS this way, there was never a professional analyzing of sale potential. Steam was always much more inclined to look at a game if it had buzz around it, now they vastly simplified the way in wich a game gets buzz.
yes, and the way in wich they become succesful indie developers is by going through this process once and ensuring that they can put out quality games.
Again, none of this is new beyond Wadjeteye complaining about it and it's the way Steam has worked (to no complains) for a while now. The only problem with greenlight is that it is clunky and needs some polishing, along with the whole steam client.
GravityMan
Member
Valve has increasingly made a lot of bad decisions over the past 1-2 years (including this one), and Gabe Newell has made stupid comments about various subjects at an increasing frequency. I'm starting to believe that Steam is past its peak as a service, and Valve is past its prime as a company. This latest Greenlight development by Valve is nothing more than a company wanting to save money, not giving a damn about quality control or their customers. Valve is not that much different than the likes of Microsoft, Sony, EA, Square-Enix or Activision. Hopefully competitors step up their efforts and put some real pressure on Steam/Valve. The time has come.
another thing that people need to realize is that Steam is huge. It's bigger than any other DD market out there and it's only growing. The numbers are ridiculous and the only way to move it forward (specially if you dont wanna turn it into something with lots of limitations, publishing processes and such, like XBLA) is to do something like this. Steam as an ecosystem outgrows Valve as a company, they need to put something in motion that works itself and is altered by what players themselves want. Something like greenlight is a necessity if you want to see Steam growing.
AcceptableGhost
Member
At this rate you will need to Kickstart your game just to get enough people to Greenlight your game.
Also the fact that games that are not even close to being done can be greenlit is ridiculous.
Also the fact that games that are not even close to being done can be greenlit is ridiculous.
so true.
As if Valve didnt greenlight stuff before release??? what are you on about. It shouldnt be about what can be released right now, thats just not how things work. Its better for the dev if they can plan on being on Steam so they should be able to get greenlight early. If they know they will get on steam they can spend extra on their product as they know they will have a higher chance at making that money back on the steam market.
It really baffles me why people are so negative about this.. plus steam greenlight is still evolving and growing. It surely will get better.
SteveWinwood
Member
I'm curious what some of these other bad decisions are.