My optimistic guess. Valve doesn't want third parties to make money off of simply bypassing, Greenlight.
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Valve is blocking publishers from helping indies bypass Steam Greenlight
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
njean777
Member
Well they are bypassing it by getting a publisher, not all indie games can go get a publisher out of the blue. So for these situations I think bypassing should be allowed.
OutToLunch
Neo Member
Nah. Microsoft is still by far the worst.
Not sure how that's related to next gen and the PS4, which is what I was mainly commenting on. Who knows though, could end up being another Playstation Mobile, things are impossible to predict. Who could ever predict that Valve would end up being a terrible company for indies?
Portugeezer
Member
Steam can account to like ~80% of total sales sometimes (some ridiculously high amount like that), serious business to get your game on Steam.
Because of the other 20% Valve is fucking people over.
Both a completely closed platform and a completely open platform have it's problems.
If Valve were to just say "any shit goes" then Steam would be flooded with crap and a lot of good devs would not get their games recognized/visible. it would also be a huge drain on their hosting infrastructure that they offer to devs for free. Greenlight obviously isn't a perfect system, but at least it is more transparent than most systems. I'm sure Microsoft and Sony have both said "no" to indie games that have a publisher for various reasons. You just don't hear about it because their entire system is closed.
That said, I am not sure I understand why Valve wants to prevent being able to bi-pass the system by finding a publisher that is already authorized to release games on Steam. I mean, if a publisher is willing to put money behind a product, that seems to be it's own sort of quality control.
My guess is that the fear is that a indie dev would just use the Greenlight process as a cheap way to advertise and fish for publishers and conversely big publishers could use it as a way to covert market the products they intend to publish themselves.
If that is the case then we are missing a really important part of this story. If you do NOT use Greenlight at all, I imagine Valve would have no problem with you finding a publisher to publish your game on Steam the traditional route. I would assume it is only once you decide to go the Greenlight route that you are "locked in" to its conditions.
If Valve were to just say "any shit goes" then Steam would be flooded with crap and a lot of good devs would not get their games recognized/visible. it would also be a huge drain on their hosting infrastructure that they offer to devs for free. Greenlight obviously isn't a perfect system, but at least it is more transparent than most systems. I'm sure Microsoft and Sony have both said "no" to indie games that have a publisher for various reasons. You just don't hear about it because their entire system is closed.
That said, I am not sure I understand why Valve wants to prevent being able to bi-pass the system by finding a publisher that is already authorized to release games on Steam. I mean, if a publisher is willing to put money behind a product, that seems to be it's own sort of quality control.
My guess is that the fear is that a indie dev would just use the Greenlight process as a cheap way to advertise and fish for publishers and conversely big publishers could use it as a way to covert market the products they intend to publish themselves.
If that is the case then we are missing a really important part of this story. If you do NOT use Greenlight at all, I imagine Valve would have no problem with you finding a publisher to publish your game on Steam the traditional route. I would assume it is only once you decide to go the Greenlight route that you are "locked in" to its conditions.
Fried Food
Banned
how would a publisher help indies get onto steam?
lets not get silly and wait till the "paying a shit ton of cash for a patch" goes away, between other things
this is indeed puzzling, and while I heard it before , what weirds me out is that its the same people that make warhammer in this case, right?
ive also think ive heqrd about devolver digital succesfully helping indies with this kinda thing before
idk, greenlight is fucking weird and valve really needs to do something about it fast.
My way of dealing with it is that as crappy as it was it was still an addition to having 10 or so valve guys looking at games. I mean ideally greenlight was something on top of that still happening, but then stuff like this happens..
My guess is Valve doesn't want publishers and devs using Greenlight as a covert backdoor way to gain advertising and publicity for games.
If you want to indie publish. Put it on Greenlight and keep it there. If you want a traditional publisher, then don't go to Greenlight. Go to publishers. Greenlight is explicitly for indies that don't want to/can't find publishers on their own.
Gabe Newell said it was a failure, but not that they were doing away with it. I actually think the way they've used it with the recent batch, as a curatorial tool for them rather than a fan vote, is most valuable to everyone. There's just a multitude of tiny things they need to work on like, say, making it inviting enough so that experienced developers don't feel the need to try and circumvent it.
Shitty stuff gets greenlit all the time. Of course, what I think is shitty probably pleases some people.
My biggest gripe is just how insular it all seems. The same shit seems to get greenlit over and over. And if you don't check certain boxes, it doesn't matter how high the quality is. Tuff nuggets.
I'm sure it's based on sales. The genre biases. But it's still a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you only appeal to the current user base, you're not going to bring in new users. New users who might expand the buying demographics and suddenly purchase similar products to the ones that just brought them there.
But why should they have to find a publisher. That's what Steam is. It's a digital publisher. That takes 30 percent. To tell people they need to go find a publisher that'll take another pound of flesh just reeks. Although this is the opposite of what the OP is talking about. So that's good. I'm glad this isn't being encouraged. Now if they could just fix the damn thing so good games (of all genres) get on.
Well I guess that's my question. Why do they have this system in place? It's not like it eliminates shit from getting onto Steam.
Because once you have been published on Steam you can publish whatever you want. It is just your first product that has to be "Greenlit." Thus these publishers would just bypass the Greenlight because they have already published games on Steam and can do so freely anytime they want.
graywolf323
Member
Greenlight is one of the worst things Steam has done of late... in theory it should be great but they managed to ruin it
the funny thing is that Greenlight, as dumb as it is, is still probably better than the previous system
Green Biker Dude
Banned
yes, it's important to get the games on steam and that's exactly why people should follow the rules
valve needs to stop shitty games from getting into steam. greenlight isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing, and it's still more lenient than any of the consoles, except maybe the wii u now that nintendo is desperate to the point they'll give away free dev kits
because valve doesn't want to pay people to do certain things. i don't agree with that mentality but what can you do about it
is there an alternative store to steam? no? will there be one in 5 years? probably not. so valve doesn't have much incentive to make a move. the closest thing to real competition steam has is origin... lol
It undoubtably limits SOME shit from getting on to Steam. That much is obvious. Just because it doesn't bat a thousand doesn't mean it isn't serving as a filter.
This may be true but the funny thing is that what they used to do is what all three big console publishers do. Curate on their own behind an invisible curtain.
ramoisdead
Member
For every "Papers, Please" and "Shovel Knight", something like this always happens. Greenlight sucks and Valve sucks for letting this travesty of a service still go on without any fixes.
Outtrigger888
Member
If Nintendo gets huge support from the indie developers it could be a deadly combo. I've grown more interested in indie games over the past year, so I'd be happy with an indie/Nintendo console.
grimshawish
Banned
I still find it utterly shocking that for a company thats 'supposedly' is an open 'no boss, do what you want' utopia (bet they didn't have a public vote on firing people mind); their staff are seemingly not identifying games that should be on the store themselves.
Surely they can identify a good/bad game and just out of their spare time be able to come into work and say 'we should have this on the store?'
So strange.
Surely they can identify a good/bad game and just out of their spare time be able to come into work and say 'we should have this on the store?'
So strange.
So would all of you guys complaining prefer indies to be able to use Greenlight as a covert fishing pond for hooking their games up with publishers? Or allow big publishers to put their "indie"games on Greenlight for free advertising before they publish them on Steam themselves?
Because if Valve didn't do this, that is exactly what would happen.
Greenlight is for studios that want to self publish. If you dont' want to self publish then don't use Greenlight. It's these guys mistake for deciding to use Greenlight then changing their minds and wanting to back out.
Because if Valve didn't do this, that is exactly what would happen.
Greenlight is for studios that want to self publish. If you dont' want to self publish then don't use Greenlight. It's these guys mistake for deciding to use Greenlight then changing their minds and wanting to back out.
No. If they wanted to put this on the Windows 8 app store they could do; with or without a publisher. Don't know where people get the idea from that Windows 8 apps are completely locked down.
I always thought GreenLight was going to be a grave yard, where good indie games go to rest. Valve proves me right yet again.
Unless you have the resources to hype up your game, and your game appeals to the mass valve audience, we'll never see your game approved in Greenlight, no matter how good it is.
Unless you have the resources to hype up your game, and your game appeals to the mass valve audience, we'll never see your game approved in Greenlight, no matter how good it is.
charlequin
Banned
Right. Niro took the question-mark out of the title of this thread but there's still not really any transparency, just like there's no obvious transparency about who does and doesn't need to use Greenlight in the first place. We know that in other cases people have bypassed Greenlight via publishers, but that in this case they weren't allowed to. In conclusion: WTF, Valve, please start sucking less.
I would rather Valve hire a real approvals team, let in most obviously deserving games themselves without any external involvement, and then leave Greenlight as a way for experimental, oddball, or rough-around-the-edges longshot games to have a chance of getting on the service.
thanks for your helpful contribution
Valve seems pretty far up their ass with the Greenlight experiment in general. They're seemingly more interested in lots of data and patterns to analyze and feed their fascination with automation than just letting good video games through. Popular opinion be damned, having well marketed trash sail through the service while known quantities rot away due to lack of exposure does no favors for an online storefront.
I think they admitted its faults, but I don't think they said they are going to get rid of it. IIRC, they said they were changing it. Don't quote me on that though,
I should probably make my position clear: Guys, I actually mostly agree with you. I was pushing it, but pushed a little too far. I don't think the distance is maybe as large as what some people think though.
Because before greenlight dev's were angry with them to, and this way at least the community gets to vote on what they want. Valve obviously doesn't want the steam store to be a dumping ground where every game with a pc version gets in, but a lot of small developers imagined exactly that when they announced greenlight and are getting pissy when reality doesn't match their expectations.
Yeah Nomad (made of former THQ devs) has a license from Games Workshop, and I wouldn't be surprised if Games Workshop was one of the people who tried to get it on the service since they stand to make money.
One possibility here is that they only let certain publishers bypass the process.
Funnily enough, Game Dev Tycoon is currently available on the Windows 8 store while it's trying to get Greenlit.
Windows 8 PC app store is like the iPhone App store -- you can submit your app and if it's approved it's on the store.
It gets complicated if you want to be a Xbox LIVE app on the Windows 8 Store, using Leaderboards and achievements and such. But it's not a requirement.
J
Jotamide
Unconfirmed Member
Wait what?! GunZ 2?!!! Brb, voting for that shit.
Syphon Filter
Member
How come?
oh lord here we go
we're turning a slightly poorly designed system into a personal insult now, are we?
I CAN'T GET MY GAME ON STEAM, STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE, VALVE!
Greenlight needs to be relaunched or the rules behind it rewritten. Depending on consumers to dictate newcomers in the vidoegame market is strangely myopic and misguided on Valve's part, consumers aren't visionaries or wise enough to say what should or shouldn't be put on Steam.
Yeah, the hyperbole in this thread is a little out of place, especially considering that Valve are hosting an event for Greenlight developers in 2 days to express their concerns.
Here's the quote from Gabe:
Either they're still gearing up to remove it completely or they've found a better way to go about it. Still waiting for this I suppose.
funkystudent
Member
I have not heard a single positive thing about Greenlight.
I dont know what Valve are trying to archive keeping this thing around.
I dont know what Valve are trying to archive keeping this thing around.
Green Biker Dude
Banned
people are acting as if valve owes anyone anything, or as if protesting in this thread will make them change their minds about a system that has been in place for months and isn't likely to change anytime soon
there isn't competition at the moment and valve will continue to do as they please. you may not like it, but that won't change a thing
grimshawish
Banned
The DOTA Company
Basically they will support big games as it brings people to Steam; but smaller titles will only be bought by Steam users. Instead they want them spending their money on Steam's high quality F2P games.
Steam get people spending more time on their free content and those people have more disposable gaming income to buy microtransaction products.
I'd hardly consider Greenlight a slightly poorly designed system.
What's worse than the concept itself is the horrendous interface. I have no overview or a decent way of sorting the games, it just spits out a random queue that you need to refresh. Horrible.
That is kind of what they are doing now. There have been games that have not recieved Greenlight approaval that have been pushed forward internally by Valve. However, they obviously no longer have a "dedicated team" doing it full time.
I agree with you that that two prong approach is the best possible solution.
Edit: Actually now that I think about it, I think the better solution would be to use Greenlight to determine what Indie products should get a spot light/daily deal and just make it an open platform.
charlequin
Banned
What's the original context this is from?
Right, that's the problem. More general-purpose ecommerce vendors are notoriously cheap and Valve seems to be interested in going the same way, but to actually do a good job of stuff like this you just need butts in seats. You could solve a lot of this with some sane upfront policies -- everything from known pubs gets pre-approved, anything from a curated set of indie bundle vendors gets pre-approved, anything that is already out and performing above X level on console or other PC marketplaces gets a free shot -- and then have a small team of people who both deal with incoming applications and scour gaming media for titles to reach out to. Charge a decent amount for developer-requested review, make sure your staff on this are knowledgeable about the state of the industry, and you could dramatically improve this process without spending too much money doing it -- then leave something like Greenlight in place to catch stragglers.