out0v0rder
Member
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Steam axes submission process, ALL new pubs/devs must go through Steam Greenlight.
- Thread starter chubigans
- Start date
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Hah, I never got that.
There's been a "back door" of sorts for most indie devs to push through to Steam (the major ones mostly). However this is the first time they've shut that out as well and completely relegated it to Greenlight.
I don't expect any major games to pop up on Greenlight like Black Ops. But it's just another avenue of getting on Steam that's being shut off, which means more competition in Greenlight, and more indie gems to be buried forever.
StarCreator
Member
Considering the indie publishers are the ones I actually care about, I have every cause to panic. Waiting for SpaceDrake to check in.
Interfectum
Member
They will still "back door" the big publishers.
Interfectum
Member
Greenlight was made to allow for more indie games to get on Steam. So why are you panicking?
Oh, I don't think anyone questions that.
Interfectum
Member
Seems like an over-exaggerated doomsday scenario based on the tweets of a few people. Any big indie darlings will go past the process as well. And you act as if stuff isn't being Greenlit.
This thread reminded me of Greenlight´s existence, so I went and voted on whatever titles were on the frontpage. There was of course some interesting titles, but it kind of felt like browsing the Google Play or iOS for games, lots of seemingly uninspired titles that got me to vote against them.
plagiarize
Banned
just wait until a game you want isn't getting through. this is already happening.
The "back door" is that you can communicate with Valve if you have an established relationship with them (i.e. another game already on Steam). But just because one of your games is on the store doesn't mean that Valve will approve anything you submit to them. In the case of the Primordia, they say that Valve declined the game. In the old days, that would be the end of it (short of drumming up a lot of buzz and asking again). Instead, they were told to take their case to Greenlight. That doesn't sound nefarious to me.
Now if there was a flat-out statement of "all games must go through Greenlight, even if we've published your other work", I could see why people would be upset. But that's not what's happened here.
jaundicejuice
Member
So you're saying Brad Wardell was right all along?
Interfectum
Member
What makes you think it would be on Steam if greenlight didn't exist?
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Feep was only able to get Sequence on Steam due to contacts.
As great as Greenlight is, you're honestly going to tell me that it is the most efficient avenue for indie devs?
Femmeworth
Banned
That seems like a really bad idea.
Because if it's a more purely vote-related system, it seems like there could be even less chance of an indie developer getting a second game on Steam, even if their first one was accepted.
I think people were literally posting today about a developer who had their second submitted game rejected because Valve didn't feel like it was a good game for their platform...even though the company already had existing game(s) on Steam. So now they have to compete their new game against a ton of existing games yet again, potentially taking months to rise up through the ranks, etc.
It's why I mentioned it seems better for augmenting: maybe it's "fairer" to do it this way, but it seems like constructing an unnecessary obstacle with a trusted publisher/developer, plus it probably comes off as MORE unfair with big publishers walking right in.
Are you being intentionally obtuse? Some excellent games may not have a crazy social networking fanbase paving the way on Greenlight. Previously, there was a chance that a Valve employee could find a diamond in the rough. This is less likely with a metrics-focused process like Greenlight.
Ideally, Greenlight would co-exist with a manual approval procedure. And I see little downside to automatically approving a developer's games provided they already have one or two on Steam (like Wadjet Eye.)
Baron_Calamity
Member
This is why I'm glad that Origin, Impulse, Uplay, GoG, and Gamefly are out there. Yes most of them aren't as good as steam and its nice to only have one place to find all your games. However having the industry tied to a single company who has no real structure or plan forward, seems like a terrible idea.
jim-jam bongs
Member
before getting all bent out of shape, maybe we should see if devs being incorrectly pushed through greenlight is an oversight as it contradicts the FAQ.
You need to have games in a genre to get that genres community on steam, if those games arent there the community wont be there, if the community isnt there the games wont be there, it's a self fulfuilling prophecy locking out genres that are currently poorly represented on steam like JRPGs
jediyoshi
Member
Weird, I don't and new games keep comin out.
out0v0rder
Member
pc gamers don't need support because they aren't lil babies. they are big mans.
Yup. This move is weird, considering Greenlight still needs to mature. Why jump the gun like this?
Joe Molotov
Member
Wading through Greenlight is a pain because most of the games look like ass. I just want Steam to pick for me, and occasionally check the forums and see which games people are saying "OMFG WHY ISN'T XXXX ON STEAM, FUCK YOU GABE!!!" to pick up the ones that fall through the cracks. *ahem*Grey Matter*ahem*
The developer(s) in question have already been explicitly rejected by Valve unless I'm misunderstanding the information...or do you mean you think that Valve may change the response, and you believe it was a message from an empoyee acting independently?
The problem with this is...
...this sort of thing. If you want to make a turn-based strategy game instead of an FPS, maybe that's great, and maybe there are X number of people who love that, and maybe it's really high quality. However, if the number of people voting for FPS games vastly outweighs the number of people voting for turn-based-strategy games, you might in theory never make it to the top (or it could take years) because of a never-ending stream of new FPS games that would get, comparatively, more votes.
If Valve opted to take high-quality games out of certain genres, rather than the absolute top-voted games in general, certain genres might still have a chance of getting games through.
SlickShoesRUCrazy
Member
you smell that? smells like there is hypocrisy in the air.
Interfectum
Member
Was the game rejected by Valve because of Greenlight or because their internal team didn't like it?
I haven't looked at Greenlight since about a week after it launched. How active is it in terms of voting? It's not something I'd browse frequently to see if there are any games I want to play and vote them up - that's just something I'm not going to remember to do, nor something that I really care to do. If this means that the chances of interesting games coming out on Steam is up to a small subset of people who are obsessively browsing Greenlight, then I'm not really happy about that.
spindoctor
Member
Why?
I'm not seeing why this is a big issue really. Valve is greenlighting a lot of games so anything that people want to play will get greenlit anyway. The only scenario in which the system breaks down is if there is if there is
a) a completely amazing game that
b) no one has ever heard of but
c) a Valve employee still deems it worthy to be on Steam and also
d) it would never get greenlit otherwise.
Now what are the odds that all 4 of those conditions will be met? And especially for devs who already have their stuff on Steam?
If there are a ton of games to wade through on Greenlight, few people are going to want to go through all of them to find the good stuff. The larger the pool is, the higher the chances are that something will be overlooked.
grimshawish
Banned
I feel this is changing.
jim-jam bongs
Member
just suggesting it might be a case of "computer says no" since the FAQ specifically says it's just for new devs and pubs. for example, the system might only check if a dev has a previously approved game in the greenlight database but not check the store database, so that dev would be mistakenly rejected.
Greenlight != released.
Zoramon089
Banned
What do they actually do at Valve? They seem to be the most hands off company ever. And aside from a couple games released in the last few years they seem to spend most of their time making tools to allow other people to actually do the work
plagiarize
Banned
not sure what that has to do with anything. Valve's previous submission process needed improvements because stuff was getting shot down that shouldn't have. Forcing every indie game into greenlight is not the answer. Why not allow anyone who wants to publish on steam, even if you stick them into an indie ghetto like on the Xbox 360.