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Valve is blocking publishers from helping indies bypass Steam Greenlight
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
minecraft
jediyoshi
Member
Because that is how publishing works? If you like someone's music, you publish it for them. If you like someone's books, you publish them for them. If you like someone's games, you publish them for them. Liking it from the beginning isn't a part of it, it is to say that someone who can publish it, says "I don't need so many votes and ratings, because we as publishers like the product, and take on the risk it involves".
Anybody should be able to be a publisher. You don't have to give out games, even. It's just if you keep publishing bad games, you're gonna keep wasting money, and eventually go under. That's how this works, and that's how it should work. It's not unfair that anyone can offer me to publish my music. I don't have to give up my music to them, but if I trust them, maybe I'd give them a shot.
Yes, that's exactly it. If you give you game to publishers, first of, you might get some very big characters breathing down your neck. You have to give up some of your revenue, and you probably give away the IP. That's what you give up. That's why Greenlight exist.
But Greenlight shouldn't exist as a way for Steam to crowbar themselves as your publisher, and refusing you to do what you want with your game. That's what this is. That's what's wrong.
I've got mixed feeling on that. Ideally, yeah, get more competition and all that, but even beyond how nice it is to have it consolidated under one client there's a very real problem of just how many others will handle ownership, or if they're acquired by someone. Just look at D2D for how that can fuck up, or anything Digital River handles. Part of Steam's draw is that they're so firmly entrenched that there's little doubt you can rely on them at least for the foreseeable future, and GOG being the best alternative because they're becoming better entrenched and everything they sell is DRM free so backing up the data means you will absolutely lose it if some shutdown or bullshit merger/buyout happens.
Beyond GOG it may ironically enough be consoles that are the best competition to put pressure on Steam. They're stepping up on the DD game, and are about as reliable though Nintendo still needs to work out a proper account system.
jediyoshi
Member
Could you name me up some video game publishers that operate anywhere remotely close to having that mind set?
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Everyone claiming that other digital distribution channels are better: how many indie games did the channel release in April?
Barring Apple which is obvious.
Barring Apple which is obvious.
Apple.*
* I realize Apple only qualifies because they have no standards, but that's besides the point. It doesn't cost them anything and they have unlimited shelf space. This should be the digital model.
I could buy the quality argument if Steam wasn't littered with absolute trash anyways. And if it requires more trash to get all the quality games they're idiotically stiffing, then I say it's worth the tradeoff.
jediyoshi
Member
Likewise, this has nothing to do with greenlight and everything to do with how most services operate.
In any case, if you took a more tangible qualifier than just looking at the existence of bad games (which the app store offsets by a giant margin even compared to something like newgrounds) then you run into other issues.
If any video game distribution service drifted from this
to this
then something went wrong somewhere along the line.
That's not really a fair metric though. From a developer's perspective it's more interesting to see how many games are rejected. Steam is a big market, and many many indies are developing for PC, and everyone is trying to eventually get on steam. The console's takes a bit more initial investment to develop for a specific platform, but are more straightforward to release the game on.
You could argue that that warrants the higher entry barrier. They already have a full release schedule and more demand from developers, and are more likely to get flooded than something like the eShop or the Vita. But from a developers perspective the fact remains that right now if you chose another platform you can be much more certain that you'll be able to release the game. The markets might not be as big as Steam but still healthy enough to make a good profit, and much less of a gamble than greenlight.
uncleniccius
Member
Like others said, Minecraft.
I also think that it is the best selling indie title ever? Correct me if I'm wrong.
famousmortimer
Banned
April was a pretty good month for indies on the ps3 and vita... And sony went as far to have a sale event based around a great indie release each week.
But anyway, the reason I wanted to post in here is to add my voice to the chorus of people who are extremely disappointed in how green light has turned out. How can a game like Mutant Mudds not be passed in almost a year?
I love valve and green light isn't enough to make me hate them... but it is the first thing they've done that I've thought was not thought through. I hope they aren't getting dumber as a company. :/
But anyway, the reason I wanted to post in here is to add my voice to the chorus of people who are extremely disappointed in how green light has turned out. How can a game like Mutant Mudds not be passed in almost a year?
I love valve and green light isn't enough to make me hate them... but it is the first thing they've done that I've thought was not thought through. I hope they aren't getting dumber as a company. :/
balladofwindfishes
Member
I think Valve's always been terrible about accepting games, it's just now there's more games being rejected (as there are more games being submitted) and everything is public and out there, so it's more well known. Even before Greenlight, games didn't really get released at a rapid pace.
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So there are 3-4 times as many indies trying to get on Steam? Well Steam releases 3-4 or even 5 times as many indie games each month compared to XBLA, PSN, WiiU shop, GOG.
Chubigans chose GOG as his Steam alternative and he got rejected there too. Where would you recommend he try next?
What should be a rapid pace? 2+ indie specific games a day? 5+?
I NEED SCISSORS
Banned
The PC is basically a de facto walled garden when you think about it. Steam is PC gaming, so unless you are some mega viral sensation like Minecraft or some free tat, very few people are going to give a shit about your game if it's not released on the service. Valve acting like an overbearing gate keeper in such a way is not just bad for Steam, it's bad for the entire platform by proxy. I hope one day they realise their own importance.
Greenlight is to Steam as XBLIG is to XBLA. XBLIG releases several games a several times a week, limited only by the number of technically proficient submissions. So there are indeed services pumping out content at a favourable rate.
alexandros
Banned
We need some alternative though. Is there a way to always judge games fairly and objectively?
Visualante2
Member
More than anything I think Greenlight needs a spokesperson. Someone to take on board the advice and criticism, explain their intentions, liaise with developers and the community.
Right now it's just a bit of an amorphous mess with a lot of hearsay and one sided commentary from disgruntled developers.
Right now it's just a bit of an amorphous mess with a lot of hearsay and one sided commentary from disgruntled developers.
balladofwindfishes
Member
I don't know, but games are being released at the same pace they always were on Steam, it's just everything is out in the open now, which brings to light just how few games Valve actually accepts.
The way Steam's advertising works though, I'm not sure they'd want to add dozens of games a day to the store. You start adding too many games and you'll overwhelm the customer. Right now Steam is the indie haven it is because just existing on Steam is often times enough to pull a profit, something that would require a ton more work without Steam.
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No. Just look at any thread in Gaf. To judge a game is subjective.
I thought Afterfall: Insanity looked pretty cool on Greenlight. It got Greenlit so I bought it and I thought the opening was pretty neat. It then slowly turned into one of the worst games I played this year over like the next 6 hours.
Who would even want to be on a judging committee for games after an experience like that?
Beril have you tried getting your game on XBLIG?
I feel like I see far more indie games added each month than I did 2 years ago.
Your second line is right on point though. People want their Indie game to sell with little to no effort required to market it.
CrunchyFrog
Member
Greenlight and steam's continuing lackluster customer service are the sole two pock marks on an otherwise near-perfect DD service. I certainly hope the rumors of the greenlight's forthcoming replacement turn out to be true. The whole process just seems like a shambles, and Valve's frustrating lack of transparency has only made things worse.
Technically there's Desura. Gamersgate has more indies than Steam as well. Not sure if either will get you many sales though.
I think Greenlight's main problem isn't that games are being blocked from release, but that the internet being the internet is going to vote for stupid shit that is either more of a joke than a game, or looks cool but will be available for release in 12 years.
Also, no idea why mods are even eligible. Especially if they are free mods.
Yep, it was a doddle. Once I hit the tech requirements, like not crashing, it went up 48 hours later. I expedited the process by reviewing some other games in a bit of tit-for-tat and it was pretty darned simple.
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And it's a safe assumption that the sales were "still healthy enough to make a good profit"?
kurtrussell
Banned
FUCK EA!!11!!!!
no wait.............
no wait.............
Screaming_Gremlin
My QB is a Dick and my coach is a Nutt
Are you saying that you don't want there to be 12 zombie and Slenderman game releases every month?
The weird thing is wasn't there an interview with Gabe a few months ago where he acknowledged that Greenlight wasn't working like they hoped it would and that there would be changes? I hope he meant more than breaking up the acceptance announcements into smaller, more frequent groups (such as the four games recently announced including Papers, Please).
I got out more than I put in, so sure. But you didn't stipulate that, you were talking about throughput.
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I can't even find the Indie category on Origin. Or even a list of recent releases sorted by date added to the store.
Beril stipulated that while praising the other platforms. If you make enough off XBLIG, why even bother going to Steam since it's a gamble- again his stipulations not mine.
Difference being, Greenlight games aren't tucked away on their own storefront. To flood the channel with "technically proficient submissions" would turn Steam into an XBLIG-style junkyard, which is exactly what they do not want to happen. It would be detrimental to the consumer, Valve and every publisher and developer already on the service.
Likewise, this has nothing to do with greenlight and everything to do with how most services operate.
In any case, if you took a more tangible qualifier than just looking at the existence of bad games (which the app store offsets by a giant margin even compared to something like newgrounds) then you run into other issues.
If any video game distribution service drifted from this
to this
then something went wrong somewhere along the line.
I don't buy the argument one has anything to do with the other. And I'm not begging for Steam to become a casual haven, just imploring they stop appealing solely to the WoW uber nerd with their selection choices.
alexandros
Banned
So where do you set the bar? What is the cut-off point?
Delusibeta
Banned
If you've seen the shit that was stuck on Greenlight day 1, you would have bought and framed that argument. It was a shitshow. The $100 submission has helped somewhat, but if we removed the Greenlight barrier, I'd imagine that the shitshow would return and we'd wind up with Steam's new release list becoming a sub-XBIG mess.
Well, given the game that started this thread, and the last major uproar, things like pinball simulators would fit with the audience buying Peggle and Bejeweled on Steam and things like adaptations of popular nerd board games would fit well with people already buying Civilization, XCOM, and Warhammer RTS games on Steam.
I don't know, a quick glance at something with a potentially high overlap with a game that's already selling well on their platform would probably solve many of the complaints.
Wiktor
Member
I honestly don't see the problem people have with more games flowing to Steam. if you're not interested do not buy them. Does having them in store really hurts people so much? I don't see how. At most you could add filtering options that would show just Valve's/Greenlight endorsed titles
Also..Greenlight shouldn't be popularity contest. Valve should just set up a strict number..for example..once you gater 1000 votes you're in, no matter how long it took.
Also..Greenlight shouldn't be popularity contest. Valve should just set up a strict number..for example..once you gater 1000 votes you're in, no matter how long it took.
I'm not a big fan of bars. Because then judgements come into play. And given how much shit is released, it numbs the judges to games that don't suck (or they're unqualified to judge).
Do I think the Apple model is ideal? Probably not. But the Apple Top Seller list being totally different from Steam's isn't because of Apple's openness. Steam has plenty of cheap games and yet, the big releases still own the top seller's list. These are two different markets and that's the reason they differ.
I'm in favor of Greenlight not sucking. I'm also in favor of crowd sourcing what shoud be on it. So I have no problem with the concept. I think it's the way to go. It's the execution I dislike. Garbage is going to get on regardless. So I don't think this should be the basis for rejecting quality titles.
My solution: A transparent Greenlight process. Some type of transparent process that will allow a game with a sizable following to make it onto the store. Maybe it sucks, maybe it doesn't. But if a vocal minority wants it, so be it. This is the only way to ensure all worthwhile games make it onto the service.
If I, on the other hand, made a terrible game that couldn't generate any interest among established Steam users, then it wouldn't belong on the service. That's a good bar.
You mention Pinball which is a good one. But the thing really sticking in my craw at the moment is the racing sim genre. There are numerous highly acclaimed titles that desperately want on the service, but can't. They've got a shit ton of user comments on their Greenlight page. So what's the fucking point here? It's doesn't meet the hidden criteria because realistic sim games don't sell on Steam? Well maybe if the games were on Steam, and sim users started interacting with the service, this genre would suddenly start selling. It's gets to the whole chicken and egg argument. And it's irritating because there's no debate about the quality here. These are high tier games. It's just being cockblocked by some process that's all shrouded in voodoo. Meanwhile, Crappy Indie Platformer #234 and Tower Defense #532 just took up the latest Greenlight spots again.
Wiktor
Member
Nah. Retail sales still mostly spank Steam ones silly. Also...F2P games also are doing well on their own, with Steam release not being life or death.
Bassicaly, what you described applies to indie PC games only. Not whole pc gaming market.
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People are actually complaining about that as an issue with Greenlight in this thread. The community Greenlights shit from the same genre as a bunch of shit already on Steam every month.
And that approach is what lead to way too many tower defense games on every platform in existence.
Yes.
Having those kinds of games not need to go through greenlight would probably solve some issues there, since then it can be used as a tool to look if the community is interested in new directions.
I'd say the the multipliers for games submitted to Steam is way way higher than that compared to something like 3Ds eShop. Just look at greenlight. Games like Mutant Mudds, Shantae, and my own game, are among the most well known indies on 3DS but are most likely never going to get greenlit; La Mulana also took forever. But there's a bunch of much smaller less known games getting on the 3DS eShop every month.
No, since the games have to use XNA it would be way too much work to port it, and I'm not planning to port it to any more platforms at the moment regardless. I'd like to try Vita and WiiU sometime in the future.
Of course everyone wants that. Outside of a massive big budget marketing campaign the store front is one of the most effective ways for people to learn about your game. That's true as for Steam, XBLA and the eShop as it is on the appStore and Google Play. And it's the reason why most other PC stores are completely useless; since no one is browsing them you get no real benefit of selling you games there.
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Then it would be Valve's fault for okaying the same genre shit over and over. It is impossible to win in any scenario. Something will always be wrong.
Wasn't there a PAR article stating that some of the stuff that got submitted was far worse? Like, a lot of it was clearly fraudulent. Some people would submit code that was literally the latest Call of Duty game with a different title screen, and they'd have to spend time sifting through all that shit.
League of Legends was also originally an indie game, and got quite popular before being bought by Tencent.
I don't really have an issue with a lot of the same games in the same genre being on the service.
I mean they let in awful games from AAA publishers just because they're AAA publishers so it's not like they're holding an immaculate standard here.
I NEED SCISSORS
Banned
Even if this is true for retail and F2P titles, the topic is about indie games so it is still applicable.
Also re: people comparing Greenlight to XBLIG - quality aside, I thought another reason to release via XBLIG would be because the developer could not find a publisher to do it 'officially' on XBLA? Really this whole idea that Valve has of indies approaching publishers to circumvent Greenlight is laughable - that's how game publishing is supposed to work in the first place, it's not a shortcut!
As others pointed out, Minecraft torpedoed his argument, having sold more copies on Notch's website than any game has ever sold on Steam (even including valve titles). League of Legends is F2P, which I am sure some posters don't count.
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To be fair it also outsold pretty much everything besides Nintendo exclusives and the dev take-home per copy was probably higher than full priced games.
I'm not saying you should or you do. I am pointing out that people do use it as a complaint against the current selections getting greenlit.
And your suggested approach would discourage unique ideas from indies even more because why not just make a clone since it can skip Greenlight?