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Steam Greenlight: 1000 games and counting, more Greenlit every few weeks
- Thread starter MRORANGE
- Start date
Uh, I thought the publisher of La Mulana in this very same thread has said that Valve has put the normal submission process on hold.
I misworded what I meant...in regards to the fee being arbitrary, what I should have said was, the fee being arbitrary is $100. The point of the fee is to reduce the spam and noise, but why make it so high? People aren't going to spam at $20, now are they? They only spam when it's free. Some people legitimately can't afford that money, it's an economic reality that we live in these days; they're "indie" for a reason. Does that mean that their game isn't worthy of being on Steam? When Team Meat were about to release Super Meat Boy, spending $100 would have been suicide; they were broke! Same deal with Jonathan Blow and Braid, Phil Fish and Fez, etc.
You could make the argument, "Well, Misguided, if they can pay $100 to get their game into the IGF, surely they could have the money to get it onto Steam Greenlight!" In some cases, this is true, in some, not so much. Generally, when a game that's worth being approved on Greenlight is submitted, it should be pretty far along in its development; there is a very high chance that that developer of said game might be running out of money soon, but they need the $100 to get there. As well, the IGF is a competition that awards you money if you win, but even if you lose, that's a good way to get recognition for your game; just being on Greenlight does not mean that you'll get much recognition, maybe your game will get buried under Slender: Source, which is currently at 29%. Greenlight buries games that myself and many others consider worth playing, and try our best to tell others to upvote them, but a few's word of mouth can only get a product so far. It needs to be readily available to find, and this is something that the Steam guys really need to focus on; finding good games is still a mess of trudging through utter trash. They used to have that job (and got paid for it), all they've done is give it to us, without the benefit of having a demo or a portion of the game to play to measure whether or not it actually deserves to be on the service in the first place.
If there is still the tried and true method of submitting your game to Steam directly for approval, I wouldn't know, because the old method of finding the "Get your game on Steam" button on the bottom of the Store page just takes you to the Greenlight page now. Maybe I was a bit rash before, but I feel bad for developers who really just want to make it onto the service and make a living but can't because Steam have so heavily changed their system that it doesn't seem fair to a lot of deserving, hard-working developers. Yes, it's only been a few days, but things have already been looking not-so-good. What does this say about the future? That there's a lot of work to be done or it might be a lame going forward...I don't know, but I got angry because I love independent games and want them to succeed.
You could make the argument, "Well, Misguided, if they can pay $100 to get their game into the IGF, surely they could have the money to get it onto Steam Greenlight!" In some cases, this is true, in some, not so much. Generally, when a game that's worth being approved on Greenlight is submitted, it should be pretty far along in its development; there is a very high chance that that developer of said game might be running out of money soon, but they need the $100 to get there. As well, the IGF is a competition that awards you money if you win, but even if you lose, that's a good way to get recognition for your game; just being on Greenlight does not mean that you'll get much recognition, maybe your game will get buried under Slender: Source, which is currently at 29%. Greenlight buries games that myself and many others consider worth playing, and try our best to tell others to upvote them, but a few's word of mouth can only get a product so far. It needs to be readily available to find, and this is something that the Steam guys really need to focus on; finding good games is still a mess of trudging through utter trash. They used to have that job (and got paid for it), all they've done is give it to us, without the benefit of having a demo or a portion of the game to play to measure whether or not it actually deserves to be on the service in the first place.
If there is still the tried and true method of submitting your game to Steam directly for approval, I wouldn't know, because the old method of finding the "Get your game on Steam" button on the bottom of the Store page just takes you to the Greenlight page now. Maybe I was a bit rash before, but I feel bad for developers who really just want to make it onto the service and make a living but can't because Steam have so heavily changed their system that it doesn't seem fair to a lot of deserving, hard-working developers. Yes, it's only been a few days, but things have already been looking not-so-good. What does this say about the future? That there's a lot of work to be done or it might be a lame going forward...I don't know, but I got angry because I love independent games and want them to succeed.
Holy shit. That's kind of crazy. Does that mean that you'll see the next COD on Greenlight?
I really don't see Valve using Greenlight for all the submissions. I'm sure that most publishers and big players will have a direct line to the Steam store.
Hellsing321
Member
I'm sure once Valve figures out what the vote threshold should, many more games will be approved than were previously with having a small group of people at Valve having to shift threw so many submissions.
I can confirm they've been halting all indie submissions since July at the earliest. But that's just for indies; larger publishers don't need to go through the submission process.
??? You don't go to your "fans and supporters" asking for money to get your game onto a voting service which if you win will then make you proceed to ask for more money to buy your game.
As for the La Mulana thing, I wasn't completely sure if Valve had removed the old process of submitting games, but if it really is gone, that's bizarre. Hopefully they bring it back after Greenlight has simmered down a little, but really, that's kind of a bummer.
You are unaware that developers can ask Steam for game keys to hand out? "Donate to my cause, get a Steam key if the game gets accepted"
I've never heard of anyone doing it this way, but if that happens that's interesting.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
We are waiting that. BTW ive read that theres going to be now an entrance fee of 100 dollars. If thats true im all for it, i dont mind paying that amount of money as I think the game we are making is a game that can be succesful in greenlight and that for sure will take care of the general trolling and up the quality of games you see.
EDIT. Welp, seems the 100 dollars is real. Lets see if it works.
Hellsing321
Member
They can sell pre-orders with access to the alpha or beta on places like Desura. Sell more than 10 copies on there at $10 and you have the money you need to get on Greenlight. It doesn't have to be straight up begging.
Sounds like that's only for indies. It's still premature to worry, since most indies that do well on Steam will either get fast-tracked by Valve or rise through the ranks in Greenlight pretty quickly.
I believe if you already have a game on Steam getting others on is pretty easy regardless if you're a AAA publisher or indie developer. Greenlight just seems to be for first-timer indie developers.
It's not really a matter of wether or not you can afford 100$. It's still a $100 that could have been spent on more important stuff, like beer. Having to pay a bunch of arbitrary fees is never very nice, and they're really just punishing the serious applicants because others are misusing the system. A 10$ or even 1$ fee would still have dissuaded 90% of the trolls, or they could just have moderated the service better.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
So are they going to ask for the 100 dollars to the games that are already on greenlight, or are they going to leave them be. Theres still 600 games and im pretty sure some of them wouldnt have never appeared in the 100 dollars thing had been in place since day 1 (some pf them not even if they had to pay anything above 20 dollars).
Replay Game's interview on Valve removing their interactive erotica game Seduce ME from Greenlight due to 'violating' the terms:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-09-05-no-sex-please-were-gamers
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-09-05-no-sex-please-were-gamers
The games that are already there no, they will ask the developer for the $100 if they upload more games to Greenlight.
You're joking, right? Nobody's forcing you to use Greenlight, or to put your game on Steam. There are many places to sell it, so why don't you use them instead? And if you can't even spare 100 bucks to promote your game, I doubt you even give a damn about it in the first place. It's not that you have to met a deadline in order to submit it, just take your time to save the required money and do it when you're ready.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Doesnt seem very nice for any new people trying to put their games now. Theres already lots of shit in greenlight they could take out with that fee.
I also think it was not right to take that game down.
PuppetSlave
Member
Can't be the first to comment on it but just noticed the check-box for local co-op, clicked it and pressed search.
Disappointment ensued.
Disappointment ensued.
Joe Molotov
Member
I would like to violate their terms. If you know what I mean.
Yep, and at least one group mentioned earlier in this thread (Dejobaan) has offered to loan $100 for people who are really in tight situations and can't afford it, and they can pay it back later on.
Take Feep, a NeoGAF poster. If I recall correctly he gave away literally thousands of keys for his Steam game Sequence, to anyone who was a NeoGAF member and asked for one in a certain thread.
Taco_Human
Member
Black mesa Source is on greenlight. I voted for it.
Of course I could afford to spare 100$, but as I said, that's not really the point.
I just think it's a shitty move to introduce a high fee for something that used to be free and where the fee itself obviosly doesn't pay for anything (as it's given to charity). The fees only purpose is to act as a deterrent, and for that it's needlessly high. In its current state I would probably wait a while to see how the service pans out before parting with any cash, if I hadn't already submitted my game ages ago.
A major downside of Valve being an American company. Very disappointing, let's hope they change their mind.
Yeah, 10-20$ sounds like it would have the same effect, while being a lower price.
I H8 Memes
Member
This isnt surprising. Valve have always been very skittish about anything sex related. Remember when they made Kim Swift drop out of the GDC design competition?
http://www.examiner.com/article/valve-forces-dev-from-contest-with-sex-topic
Are there any other games of this type that are being sold over Steam?
Heh, the upshot is that very few games get pulled for violating ToS for blood and violence. I wonder which countries are fairly libertarian in both regards (sex and violence).
Why? I don't have a problem with it. It's their store, and if they choose not to sell pornographic games I think they have a right to it. If someone has a physical store they can presumbly also decide they're not going to sell adult magazines or something -- people can still get them at other stores or online. Otherwise, I suggest you would see the Greenlight effect where the store (or at least Greenlight) might become flooded with adult games. *shrug* I'd rather see the Steam store in its current state than the Steam store with those "One Click for a Roman Orgy" ads, lol.
Then if you were in that situation, you should wait -- it sounds like it's precisely serving its purpose in making people think twice before submitting a game, about whether it's worth it and whether they want to risk it etc.
SteveWinwood
Member
I feel like the fee could have been 25 bucks and been just as effective.
They need to add the demo feature soon, some of the submissions just put up a trailer and it is very difficult to discern the gameplay from short, heavily edited footage. Either the dev adds a demo or they put up longer let's play style videos which have in some submissions swayed my decision.
Bomber Bob
Banned
so true
Are you kidding me?
Most of the people who would easily drop $60 on the latest cod garbage would have no issues dropping $50 on trying to subtly troll steam users.
Death Road fucking owns!!
I H8 Memes
Member
Works for me through the Steam client.
Wok
Member
Thanks for the answer. It works neither within the Steam browser or my web browser.
Edit: Only English speakers can vote...
SteveWinwood
Member
Then it gets reported anyway and all they did was waste one minute of someone's time and donate money to charity. Plenty of people will just swallow the hundred fee for a joke anyway.
Delusibeta
Banned
All evidence seems to suggest that they've canned the traditional application process already which is incredibly short sighted.
Judging by the fact that Rockin Android (who got the Gundemonium Collection on Steam) got redirected to Greenlight, probably not.
morningbus
Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
I'd like to assume that Valve knows what they're doing when they set a price for something, especially given all the data they have on what people will spend on TF2 items.
1 dollar is probably too little to stop people from submitting junk. $25 is probably just within joke/spam price range for some (even though it'd cut down from the $1 bracket, obviously.)
$100, while probably not the minimum amount of money required to significantly cut down on junk, is a good round number, especially considering it's being given to charity in the end.
1 dollar is probably too little to stop people from submitting junk. $25 is probably just within joke/spam price range for some (even though it'd cut down from the $1 bracket, obviously.)
$100, while probably not the minimum amount of money required to significantly cut down on junk, is a good round number, especially considering it's being given to charity in the end.
I'm still amazed by the amount of people willing to pay $100 to be able to send an all-servers stupid message to the TF2 community that lasts all of 3 seconds or so on-screen.
I don't agree and it doesn't really make sense. How would publishers feel about posting games on greenlight, or putting games on that are not announced. If anything we would already see the pubs posting on it already and ultimately it would be pointless because people would greenlight it straight away anyway.
I think it's a wording thing, Valve said that this was to compliment their team who may miss out on good titles. I can't seriously see them turning publishers away or making them post their content on greenlight where it doesn't belong.
I highly doubt that. I don't really understand your comparison; one gets you a service while the other gets you a troll submission that would get taken down fairly quickly. The mere fact that the pay wall exists would reduce people desire to submit joke games fairly quickly.
$5 would get rid of some but not all, 10$ would probably get rid of most, I can't imagine more than a few crazy people putting down anything >$25 for a joke that has no staying power.
At worst there is a donation to charity.
I already said in another thread that I'm all for this $100 fee.
I submited my game and I'm almost certain that it will not get published. It's not that it isn't good, it's just I don't think the target are the Steam users. I'm not a Steam user so I didn't knew this when I submited the game. After seeing some of the comments I realized this.
But the visibility the game is getting is well worth the $100 (which I didn't paid because I submited it early this week! Lucky me...).
Those who have Steam accounts, please check the game and up vote it if you like it! It's called Snails.
I submited my game and I'm almost certain that it will not get published. It's not that it isn't good, it's just I don't think the target are the Steam users. I'm not a Steam user so I didn't knew this when I submited the game. After seeing some of the comments I realized this.
But the visibility the game is getting is well worth the $100 (which I didn't paid because I submited it early this week! Lucky me...).
Those who have Steam accounts, please check the game and up vote it if you like it! It's called Snails.
Someone else (a developer?) already said that since July, indie game submissions have been disabled through the normal process. If this is correct then maybe this will be the only route for indie games if a developer has not already submitted a game.
Someone also said that publishers do not have to go through the submission process. If this is the case then that would explain why publishers would not need to post on Greenlight.
Assuming that I'm correct, yeah. However, I'm not sure what happens if an indie developer is accepted for one game, and wants to make another. Like, if Feep is making another game does he have to Greenlight it, or can he now use his Superior Steam Influence to just fly right in?
I H8 Memes
Member
They should make it so any submission that gets accepted and has already paid the $100 fee shouldnt have to pay it ever again. Sure someone could submit "tits: the game" and get enough troll votes to get it accepted, but it would happen so rarely that Valve could easily manually work around those kinds of problems.