And you can just not buy it
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Steam Greenlight: 1000 games and counting, more Greenlit every few weeks
- Thread starter MRORANGE
- Start date
And you can just not buy it
And you can just buy the non-Greenlit games elsewhere.
CambriaRising
Member
Should we really be able to say no to games?
Wouldn't it be better for us to vote yes and them as a company be the filter for offensive, or otherwise very clearly shoddy products?
Wouldn't it be better for us to vote yes and them as a company be the filter for offensive, or otherwise very clearly shoddy products?
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
I'd rather they make it an optional procedure than get rid of it altogether, and I'd most rather they try to fix it. I think there are some pretty obvious fixes they haven't implemented yet.
Thanks for this. Had some spare MSP, seems fun. Voted for it as well.
Someone just email this to Garry, Greenlight solved.
AcceptableGhost
Member
Greenlight is Valve's second Ricochet.
Zero-Crescent
Member
MANOS is in the public domain, no need to deal with licenses.
Yeah, it's a shame there's finite shelf space in a digital store
There's a pretty large middle ground between 10 games a month and 8000 fart apps a week. They could approve pretty much everything in greenlight right now and still not approach AppStore levels. There's a lot of things that's crappy about greenlight, but in the end it all comes down to too few games beeing approved, and that's really entirely up to Valve. If they want steam to be an exclusive place for just big AAA games and a handful of the most well known indie games I guess that's fine, but they really don't deserve their reputation of being an indie friendly company, and with their near monopoly on the PC market it's very bad for development on PC.
grimshawish
Banned
He could just allow people at Valve to add games as they please. Assuming its as.open as they claim and assuming they actually play games - I actually don't know why there has been an issue in the first place.
We are hearing of Indie's doing well on other platforms and quite frankly some bitterness to Valve about this whole situation. Killing it resolves nothing.
Just hire a team to properly develop the Steam Community and run the store. Its really quite obvious the Valve team are trying to do too much with launching some mystery home device, developing, running ingame stores, and running Steam.
Greenlight was a rushed through idea that I suspect was announce in a very very short time after being first discussed.
Following Gabe's vision of the Steam store as an API, a suggestion:
Clicking on the Greenlight tab in the client will direct you to a separate and functional store where all the games that are up on Greenlight and ready to be released are actually released and purchasable. 'Yes' votes are replaces with actual sales of your game. Getting X votes to get your game on Steam is replaced with getting X sales to get promoted to the main Steam store and enjoy front-page ads (and possibly be eligible to participate in Holiday sales?).
Stump's suggestions can be applied onto this form of Greenlight Store.
All games that aren't finished can use Greenlight just a community thing to spread the word about your game.
Suggestion feature 'we see you bought this Greenlight game, here's something similar coming in X time'.
And you can easily implement a low 'paid-alpha'\'pre-order' price option for all the Greenlight games that aren't yet in a final release state.
Clicking on the Greenlight tab in the client will direct you to a separate and functional store where all the games that are up on Greenlight and ready to be released are actually released and purchasable. 'Yes' votes are replaces with actual sales of your game. Getting X votes to get your game on Steam is replaced with getting X sales to get promoted to the main Steam store and enjoy front-page ads (and possibly be eligible to participate in Holiday sales?).
Stump's suggestions can be applied onto this form of Greenlight Store.
All games that aren't finished can use Greenlight just a community thing to spread the word about your game.
Suggestion feature 'we see you bought this Greenlight game, here's something similar coming in X time'.
And you can easily implement a low 'paid-alpha'\'pre-order' price option for all the Greenlight games that aren't yet in a final release state.
Wok
Member
Are you suggesting Valve should buy Desura? Because you are precisely describing Desura.
Seven out of the ten games which I want to get greenlit are already on Desura by the way:
- Marvin's Mittens (desura)
- OIO - The Game - Enlarged (standalone extension of desura)
La-Mulana (desura)Done!- The Sea Will Claim Everything (the dev's store)
- The Oil Blue (desura)
- Qasir al-Wasat: A Night in-Between (desura)
- Wooden Sen'SeY (desura)
- Cook, Serve, Delicious! (desura)
Kentucky Route Zero (the dev's store)Done!- Surgeon Simulator 2013 (the game jam)
This is the community website linked to Desura, which is called IndieDB.
There kind of is if you want every game to actually get some attention and not be completely buried.
Yeah, well I also suggested they should greenlight more games before, I was just making a point to some people who don't understand why they don't just release everything.
Chairmanchuck
Member
So why not just make Greenlight a method beside the official Valve-Approval. The idea is good, but Valve "destroyed" it themselves.
They exchanged the whole official approval-procedure for Indie-Developers with Greenlight and everyone could see that was not a really good idea. Besides that even Indie-Devs wouldnt know when they will be greenlit.
No, and you can buy much of the finished games that are on Greenlight elsewhere. The developers specifically want to have their game on Steam and use its features, so a second Greenlight store inside Steam is exactly that.
They will be getting a lot of traffic because it's just a tab click away.
Getting promoted to the main store is for increasing awareness through ads and whichever segment of Steam users that will only bother with games on the main store, and being part of Holiday sales.
That's all Greenlight should have been to begin with -- a secondary approval process. The fact that there are games on Greenlight by people/publishers with an existing presence on the Steam store is profoundly ridiculous.
Sentenza
Member
While Greenlight has its fair share of flaws, what I don't like of most complaints about it is the (implied) assumption that everything on it should be allowed into Steam.
I really don't see it as a good scenario.
Or, to use someone else's words:
Yeah, I read that article and can't remember much of it, but I think the concept of Greenlight is a good idea but to just drop it completely without having a look at the reasons why it's not working is just ridiculous. Even if it just serves as an intermediary between the public and games Valve should consider putting on their storefront (as opposed to basically being forced to with the current system) it could be a lot better. To be honest, I'm surprised it's (trying to be) used as something more than a vetting system to lighten the workload of those who get final say on what appears on Steam. The fact that anything that makes the cut is guaranteed of getting published and anything that doesn't has no way is flawed. It should always come down to a decision of someone internally rather than only having to meet certain (flawed) criteria.
I still think the idea behind it is fine. If you can't generate enough public interest or if the public doesn't care for your title enough. You're only real argument comes down to then, "But I should have a chance either way". Which everyone submitting their game could say. Stump hits on it well.
But the idea behind it is that you have a certain number of average votes. Which is stupid, because if you can't get enough votes in the first month to get approved, then you have to get a far greater number next month because otherwise you'll just get a lesser average and not get approved.
All this is while keeping in mind that people can only vote once, so it's basically impossible that anything will get approved if it's been in there more than a month because all the people who would've voted would've voted already and can't vote again.
If it was by total votes (which would make sense, because when a game is actually released it's never earning revenue based on average monthly sales) then I have no problem at all, but the fact that something like Postal 2 can get approved and Pinball Arcade (that has likely had far more votes, yet not as many votes in that one month that Postal 2 was approved) can't is beyond a joke.
I feel like a problem with Steam is that people come up with solutions to things that seem super obvious, but either
1. Unless it is a huge high profile forum rage thing, it seems nearly impossible to tell Valve anything in a fashion in which someone with power would hear it (unless you have inside contacts, or get lucky and Gabe reads your email or whatever).
2. There may be reasons why things that seem obvious aren't implemented...but because Valve is such a secretive company, it's not like the public will find out why until two years later when Gabe is giving a talk about something and mentions it in passing. In the meantime, it can probably be pretty frustrating to watch. =P
Sgt.Pepper
Banned
It doesn't help Greenlight is a pain to browse.
Sentenza
Member
Sorry if old, but this looks great:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=123488964
EDIT: Damn, mobile game. I guess it will play like crap.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=123488964
EDIT: Damn, mobile game. I guess it will play like crap.
That reminds me a good bit of 2D Mirror's Edge, which you should try if you haven't played it (http://www.ea.com/1/mirrors-edge-2d).
*edit* Performance is horrible for me with flash maxing out one CPU core, though I thought once upon a time it was really smooth. =(
I agree!
I didn't really say they should approve everything. But right there's at least a couple of hundred games on there that seem like decent products with a lot of work behind them that deserve a chance.
Of course there is a trade off between how many games they can approve and how much exposure they can give each game in the store upon release. It's up to Valve to find that balance but given their position in the PC market, having such a high entry barrier is really hurting indie development for PC overall.
The Mana Legend
Banned
Anyone know when Secret of Grindea is coming out?
Along the lines of what some of you have suggested, here's what I would do with Steam Greenlight:
1) Any game that got a full PSN or XBLA release skips the service and goes straight to the regular steam store. Steam will release any retail game on the store, no matter how shitty, so I don't see the reason for barring games that made it through the picky PSN and XBLA approval processes. This does not apply to XBLIG or PS Mini titles.
2) Open up the Steamworks code. From what I understand, it is free anyhow. Games must be Steamworks compatible before they are even eligible for Greenlight. As such, they must also be complete before they are eligible for Greenlight. No more alpha games or prototypes. If you are not ready to sell your game, wait until you are.
3) The Greenlight tab is now a store. Any game that meets the requirements in Step 2 can be sold on the Greenlight store. However, nothing in the Greenlight store will show up on the main store page. Greenlight games will also not be searchable from the main store. People who don't want to bother with Greenlight titles can skip over them completely.
4) After a title has reached a certain sales threshold, say 500-1000 copies (It would depend on the number of copies that a lower tier seller on the regular Steam store would typically sell), it gets promoted to the regular Steam store as a new release. It might be difficult to get 1000 sales from Greenlight alone, but that is what grassroots efforts are for. If the game is good, word of mouth will get it there.
Valve would need to have some loose oversight to make sure that developers aren't violating their terms of service by releasing stuff they don't want on their store (porn titles, games that infringe on copyrighted material, etc). Since every Greenlight game is actually on sale, perhaps charge a $500 listing fee that developers get back if their game obeys the terms of service and sells enough to make the payment threshold. They would also have veto rights to remove a game of course. Either way, this would let people actually purchase the games they want using Steam instead of resorting to Desura or some other client, while keeping the actual Steam store uncluttered with the fart apps mentioned above.
1) Any game that got a full PSN or XBLA release skips the service and goes straight to the regular steam store. Steam will release any retail game on the store, no matter how shitty, so I don't see the reason for barring games that made it through the picky PSN and XBLA approval processes. This does not apply to XBLIG or PS Mini titles.
2) Open up the Steamworks code. From what I understand, it is free anyhow. Games must be Steamworks compatible before they are even eligible for Greenlight. As such, they must also be complete before they are eligible for Greenlight. No more alpha games or prototypes. If you are not ready to sell your game, wait until you are.
3) The Greenlight tab is now a store. Any game that meets the requirements in Step 2 can be sold on the Greenlight store. However, nothing in the Greenlight store will show up on the main store page. Greenlight games will also not be searchable from the main store. People who don't want to bother with Greenlight titles can skip over them completely.
4) After a title has reached a certain sales threshold, say 500-1000 copies (It would depend on the number of copies that a lower tier seller on the regular Steam store would typically sell), it gets promoted to the regular Steam store as a new release. It might be difficult to get 1000 sales from Greenlight alone, but that is what grassroots efforts are for. If the game is good, word of mouth will get it there.
Valve would need to have some loose oversight to make sure that developers aren't violating their terms of service by releasing stuff they don't want on their store (porn titles, games that infringe on copyrighted material, etc). Since every Greenlight game is actually on sale, perhaps charge a $500 listing fee that developers get back if their game obeys the terms of service and sells enough to make the payment threshold. They would also have veto rights to remove a game of course. Either way, this would let people actually purchase the games they want using Steam instead of resorting to Desura or some other client, while keeping the actual Steam store uncluttered with the fart apps mentioned above.
BudokaiMR2
Member
Oh god I just had to post on our La-Mulana page that since GOG does not offer Steam keys those users are kind of out of luck....
Not looking forward to the backlash especially since it is completely out of our hands....
Not looking forward to the backlash especially since it is completely out of our hands....
Wok
Member
How many users are there?
I don't think they'd mind, if they're on gog they'll know that the two services are very much separate. Plus DRM-free>Steam any day.
I knew what I was buying; a GOG version of 'La-Maluna'. Nothing more, nothing less.
What was the deal? I bought it on GOG a while back but don't remember any mention of Steam keys. Unless that was when selling it on your own site or something.
I wouldn't stress either way. If I was "owed" a Steam key as well as a GOG one and I only got one, I wouldn't be upset.
I thought I heard that Desura does something like this already. Someone mentioned selling a game (Gunman Clive?) on the Desura store, but until a certain number of people buy it, they are literally unable to cash out any of the money and it just sits in limbo. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course.
Sentenza
Member
But "both" is even better, and i think that's where GOG should aim if they want to increase their popularity.
DRM free is nice and all, but with DD people need to feel confident about your company being around for many other years to come, which happens to be the case with Steam.
Giving a Steam key with every GoG purchase would count as a security float and it would also make people more willing to buy the game on GoG (where their purchase would count as "two in one") than on the competing service.
Why is that the case, anyway?
As far as I know if you have a game on Steam you have unlimited free keys to handle at will.
Even if CDP doesn't do it directly, couldn't you arrange something from your website to give a Steam key to everyone with a GoG copy?
Like, I don't know, sending a Steam key to every GOG email address who owns La Mulana?
Lord British
Member
Will Groupees bundle buyers receive one?
Most stores have a minimum payout threshold because it's just not worth bothering with international payments every month for smaller sums. I think it used to be 150$ on Desura, but now it's apparently 500$, which Gunman Clive will never ever reach.
thanks, downloaded it for my iPhone.
I think I got La-Mulana off of one of the indie bundles or something. Heard something about a Steam key attached but I haven't been notified of anything.
BudokaiMR2
Member
What do you mean by a GOG email address? Do users on there receive a special e-mail address? Sorry just not clear on what you mean. The only way that we could do it would be to check every single purchase receipt from GOG manually and send the keys out when we confirm the details. We are a fairly small team and that alone would have us busy for a couple of months. The game hasn't sold gangbusters on the site or anything but it would still be several thousand e-mails at least.
RedSwirl said:
You probably mean the Groupees bundle. If that is the case then yes you will receive a key! Right now the developers are still implementing Steamworks so we have no keys in hand. Once they are ready then we will start sending them out to the different services!
Some multiplayer games on GOG require a unique CD-key to be able to play online. Here's how GOG distribute those keys to legit users (taken from the support page for NWN):
So, from what I can infer as an outsider, maybe you can just give a list of Steam keys to GOG and let their support team handle the distribution of said keys?
I don't know what their policy on distributing Steam keys through GOG though, since it never happened before with other games.
Edge gave Anodyne a very positive review. Was actually completely unaware it was up on Greenlight, but I had the opportunity to play it for Student IGF and it's a peach. A very convincing Link to the Past Lite.