old manatee
Banned
There has been such a flood of mediocre games hitting steam since greenlight started.
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Valve is blocking publishers from helping indies bypass Steam Greenlight
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
As one indie dev put it: You can't base a business model around praying that Valve will let you in.
This is the ugly side of the "No Steam, no sale" attitude. If gamers were more willing to buy direct or buy from other services (I don't mean Steam keys from Amazon, I'm talking games that aren't on and don't use Steam at all), then this wouldn't even be an issue. But with the market domination Steam currently enjoys you either need to get your game on Steam or be happy with obscurity and poor sales.
Sentenza
Member
Yeah, and you shouldn't, in fact. You should base the business model about building quality products that people want.
And yet some Valve fans would claim is an excellent idea... Power to the people! I guess.. right?
How do you determine whether what you are making is a quality product, and whether people will want it?
Even if a game is a high-quality product that some subset of people would want, if it's not on Steam and you are a 2-person team then you are pretty unlikely to succeed, I would suggest.
Pureauthor
Member
But if we let all those people onto Steam at once, the likeliness of them succeeding is pretty much about as low thanks to market saturation.
We are not asking for Valve to let everyone onto Steam. We want a fair system that makes sense. Stonewalling indies from seeking big publisher support to bypass Greenlight is not fair and doesn't make sense. Forcing indies who are established and sometimes even highly successful on other platforms to use Greenlight is not fair and doesn't make sense.
ThatsMytrunks
Member
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to do this, but here's a full screenshot of my stats page for my game on Greenlight, Love+.
Link: http://i6.minus.com/ibh1kxaJ5Mv00H.jpg
The average game in the top 50 has at least 46,000 votes. How the hell is a small game with no advertising budget supposed to attain that? It's really depressing and disheartening, because as it stands, I don't think my game will ever get published, despite positive reviews from influential people. It's a shame.
One thing that I feel would make Steam Greenlight a better platform would be a better showcasing system, meaning better layouts for screenshots, videos, and things like that. Also it'd be great if Steam had some sort of "download a demo" system. Even if it was something you had to apply for, get approved for, and have your game be rigorously tested.
Link: http://i6.minus.com/ibh1kxaJ5Mv00H.jpg
The average game in the top 50 has at least 46,000 votes. How the hell is a small game with no advertising budget supposed to attain that? It's really depressing and disheartening, because as it stands, I don't think my game will ever get published, despite positive reviews from influential people. It's a shame.
One thing that I feel would make Steam Greenlight a better platform would be a better showcasing system, meaning better layouts for screenshots, videos, and things like that. Also it'd be great if Steam had some sort of "download a demo" system. Even if it was something you had to apply for, get approved for, and have your game be rigorously tested.
I don't know about all of those games- but OOTP has been successful as a franchise for years, the Rockin' Android folks do marketing, The Soldak folks do marketing, and I know the Soldak/OOTP/Dominions folks make good money. I'll give you Shantae. No idea on the Japanese localization or the dating sims, though I suspect the Dating Sim folks make a living on quantity as much as quality.
Most of the folks I mentioned have been doing indy games for years- I'm sure they know how to market their games properly and make a profit- their business models don't rely on Steam. Steven Peeler (the Soldak guy) posts on many forums when he patches, and he does it quite frequently.
(Din's Curse is on Steam, making Drox being in Greenlight hell perplexing- though it's possible that the folks who like his stuff got his stuff before it went on Steam, and didn't double dip)
THat said, those games unlike much of the dreck that gets through Greenlight, are good games, at least to some folks. Some games on Greenlight are put on there by outright scammers.
Yeah, getting on a Steam isn't a right. There does need to be standards. The criticism I have is of Valve's standards where dreck gets on and a number of great games get left in the cold, and the emphasis on social media BS over quality.
I'm going to seriously pimp Drox again, because it's a damn interesting game. Best way to describe it is a cross between Diablo and GalCiv.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Sounds like an accurate sample of the indie market as a whole.
yeah... do you really believe that PR nonsense? Word in the street is no one but Gabe wanted to make DOTA 2.
I don't know man they have given a ton of indie games a great platform through which to launch their games.
CheesecakeRecipe
Stormy Grey
And do you have an actual, bonafide source on this? Even if it is true, the idea behind the Valve workforce is that if someone does want to get something done, they can put together the team for it. It's not like Gabe has the entirety of Valve working on DOTA2, he probably introduced people to it and that got the ball rolling. DOTA is an extremely addicting game.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Not even icefrog wanted to work on it a source told me.
I've heard a couple of times that is just pure PR nonsense, and at the end everyone is working in what Gabe wants... Which I don't fin hard to believe.
Heee.. who knows anyway.. Fact remains Greenlight still broken.
The Dutch Slayer
Member
lol so not true, and I interviewed the man himself about dota 2
I highly doubt he has any source seeing as how vague he's being. The story given in interviews is that several of the higher ups at Valve, including Robin Walker, enjoyed the original game and reached out to Icefrog to see if he would be interested in making a moba with Valve.
It stifles the market, developers can't be sure if they will actually be able to reach their audience since only a small percentage can get onto Steam which leads to them reconsidering development for PC in the first place. I'd say it does blow into everyone's face since it results in a much less interesting and competitive market.
not gona bring up names in a internet forum meant to be anonymous.. kinda defeats the purpose...
This is a store policy we're talking about. I don't want the wisdom of the crowds running it. The transparency needs to be in the developer/steam relationship. I don't want to know how the sausage was made, I don't want to decide among thousands of sausages which are deserving of being on store, I don't want to rely on the vote of the masses to decide what sausage merits the store exposure and publishing. Don't take this as a vitriolic rant against Greenlight, ultimately I'm fine with it as I already have several titles on my Steam library because of it. I just think it's not the best option to manage a DD store of the magnitude of Steam.
I highly doubt the man himself would ever say otherwise...
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Its a pretty serious rumor to be spreading
Lupin the Third
Member
While I sympathize with your plight, I'm curious why you appropriated the name of Konami's [in]famous dating sim series, Love Plus, for your game. Hoping to beat them to the trademark?
not really, that's why its a rumor.. I cant even confirm it myself. People choose to believe or not.
also what is this? Valve's Gestapo? jeezzz
ThatsMytrunks
Member
The first release of Love+ came out before LovePlus started development.
Wouldnt part of the problem be the definition of Indie?
To me the definition of Indie deserving to be found would be one or two guys in a garage. Maybe one is good at programming and the other good at art. They manage to come up with a really good game. And then... thats as far as it goes.
What if they arent good at publicizing or marketing or politicking but can make a good game?
What if their outreach is based on a niche fanbase only?
(Dominions 3?)
If the Steam Greenlight project is an effort to pull good games out of the dark WITHOUT tactics or special interests giving them a boost, then what changes should be made?
To me the definition of Indie deserving to be found would be one or two guys in a garage. Maybe one is good at programming and the other good at art. They manage to come up with a really good game. And then... thats as far as it goes.
What if they arent good at publicizing or marketing or politicking but can make a good game?
What if their outreach is based on a niche fanbase only?
(Dominions 3?)
If the Steam Greenlight project is an effort to pull good games out of the dark WITHOUT tactics or special interests giving them a boost, then what changes should be made?
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
No I believe its generally frowned upon to start rumors without any real source to confirm.
The only thing Greenlight is supposed to achieve is to save Valve money.
spindoctor
Member
Why does this guarantee need to exist? So by your suggestion... if I were to code a version of Pong with Steamworks support, Valve should be obligated to host the game for me on their distribution network and take care of the entire payment backend just because? It'll never sell a single copy but Valve must host the game on their infrastructure in perpetuity because I need my guarantee that any game I make with Steamworks should find hosting on Steam.
There is no perfect way to solve this problem. Even if Valve hired 500 people to playtest all submissions, one of them would reject a game that someone thought was special and it would lead right back to these hyperbolic arguments of how Valve is evil and they are killing indie gaming and what not. Why do all indies believe that their game deserves to be on Steam anyway?
balladofwindfishes
Member
haha
Robin Walker left Team Fortress 2, a game he founded, to work on Dota 2 because it interested him. He said it was a nice change of pace after working on TF2 and FPSs for so long. Along with a bunch of other people in the company who were dying to make Dota stuff
oops, maybe this should have been its own thread
So, I haven't seen this brought up at all
but...
Well, once again, it seems like we've got a clear-cut example of where Valve's free-to-work system falls apart.
Now, hey, when I was younger, I was a Boy Scout. Our organizational structure is best described as a democratic military structure--that is, we voted in leaders, who were then given the responsibility to lead and make sure things happened. This is pretty important for an efficient unit, and my training in that is an invaluable tool I've used in many situations elsewhere. The result is that whenever I've been in a leadership position on a team, that team has excelled beyond all expectations. That's pretty cool, I think.
Valve's structure, as best we know, works by empowering individuals to do whatever they feel like. Somehow, it ends up working, and teams manage to stay together long enough to release something good. It sounds like a dream--no bosses, no managers, just you doing what interests you until something awesome comes out of it.
But... it has problems, and they seem to be kind of severe.
Valve likes talking about curation and services and stuff, but let's look at Valve's customer service: it sucks. Like... kinda universally. Last time I contacted them for help, it took so long for them to respond, I literally forgot that I'd put in a support request to them. Another time, I accidentally screwed up an item redemption, and Valve's response was essentially "okay, we'll help you, but only this one time, because we're so nice."
Spend a minimal amount of time looking for customer support problems with Valve, and you'll stumble across a host of complaints. I can't speak for others, but I've had better support with ATT and Origin before. Nobody, but nobody, lives up to Amazon's golden standard, unfortunately.
And, y'know, the problem here is that there appears to be no organized customer support system. I've only ever received tech talk from one guy, afaik--maybe two, but I'm pretty sure 'Ronald' is just an anagram for 'Roland,' or vice versa. They've got millions of customers, but with a decentralized "everyone is their own boss" system, things don't necessarily work for the better, particularly things that need to be organized, like customer support...
...or Greenlight. Well, no, not Greenlight, but the approvals process. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was implemented because of the never-ending flood of crappy submissions Valve gets. The people who normally handle that wanted to go do their own thing, or maybe do less of it, or maybe Valve just didn't want to hire more people as their userbase/gamebase expanded, knowing that nobody wants to be hired (I would, because this amuses me!) to wade through and approve/de-approve games.
I'd also argue that it's the reason their games take so long to develop, the reason that their sequels tend to be watered down in comparison to previous games, and, yeah, I'd argue it's the reason Half-Life 2 has such a terrible story/plot and why they really have no fucking clue what to do with Half-Life 2: Episode 3.
Their work methodology works great when you're a small team--look at Valve's amazing output around 2007/2008--but when you start growing (which Kim Swift, the Portalcreatorperson, cited as the reason she left), things start to fall apart. If you've got, say, fifty or so people, and you're only making games, there's no problem. But when you've got customer service duties and stuff, when you've got two hundred employees or so, things really start to fall apart.
That's why Valve hasn't released anything good since 2008, why their customer service is awful, and why Greenlight probably won't be going anywhere any time soon.
--
Oh, and to all the people rightfully pointing out the awful stuff that gets greenlit and how it all feels the same, there's a reason for that. See, PC gamers come in two basic flavors: which I'm going to refer to as 'old' and 'new,' even though these are not entirely accurate.
Basically, the 'new' PC gamers are the people whose choice of PC games tend to be Valve games, Blizzard games, Minecraft, or Skyrim. They're big into multiplayer, though they tend to focus almost exclusively on team deathmatch play when it comes to first person shooters. They're the kids who hang out on places like Facepunch (not that there's anything inherently wrong with it, just that its audience has a pretty solid identity). Sometimes, they'll try other games, but their bread and butter's what I've mentioned above. Oh, and they really, REALLY, REALLY love Amnesia/Slender, for some reason. In other words, they're going to go on Greenlight and vote for a bunch of shit nobody else cares about, because they're a social crowd, and that's what they do.
In short, they're people who play games because their friends are playing them. That's why they tend to play multiplayer-heavy games or titles you can make a lot of Youtube videos on. They also tend to play games with low system requirements. Generally, they don't follow developers--they play what other people are talking about.
I could go into a big long thing about how targeting them--as they're a huge audience that spends money and seem awesome--is actually unwise, but, screw it, I was at a funeral this weekend, and I am an emotional wreck, and I would really like to distract myself and it's not working particularly well right now.
The 'old' PC gamers are the ones who try, well... pretty much everything. They're the guys who will play whatever looks interesting, whatever's on sale, that kind of thing. They're also more likely to play single-player games, generally tend to skew a bit older than the other crowd, and have probably built their own computers. They're also the ones who tend not to give a shit about something like Greenlight, because, for better or worse, they've formed their gaming habits, and they've welcomed Steam in part because it's centralized their gaming experience, from library to online play. They're also the ones who are less likely to get into F2P gaming. I count myself amongst them, and I'd say that, by and large, NeoGAF's PC gaming crowd tends to skew this way.
Pureauthor
Member
Look, you can say a lot about the disadvantages that comes with the oragnizational structure of a system like Valve, and I agree with a fair bit of them, but stuff like this just makes it difficult to take you seriously.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
Yeah no
*shrug*
If that makes my entire argument fall apart for you, then it does. Personally, I'm not really wild about Left 4 Dead 2 'cause of the serious design flaws (ex: implementing melee, which reduces player efficiency, then implementing crescendo events to make melee worthwhile, but crescendo events suck), Portal 2's level design and pacing wasn't as strong as the first (Portal was good because it was about flow, and Portal 2's level design tends to work against flow, resulting in a lot of stop-start play that's better suited to a controller--the game was seriously gimped for mouse use; the puzzles are also less intuitive), and I can't comment on Dota 2.
Was really looking forward to SoB. Too bad they canceled it. Still curious as to what Doug Church is working on, though.
spindoctor
Member
The millions of people who enjoy(ed) Portal 2 (GAF GOTY of it's year) and Dota 2 might disagree
Was there a point you were trying to make with this elitist distinction of gamers that you just provided or did you just slip it in for the heck of it?
They are more than welcome to do so, but I was under the impression that a forum was a place for expressing opinions, among other things, and Portal 2 being kinda bad is mine. Most people enjoyed Portal 2 for its humor; it's been interesting watching discussions of the gameplay and how they have been almost nonexistent compared to the talk about the original's.
I don't think it was elitist. Just explaining that there are two different kinds of PC gamers, and the former group is more likely to use Greenlight than the latter. That the former group tends to limit its selection of games is where the "it's all the same shit" sentiment comes from.
balladofwindfishes
Member
But you mention this divide between "new" and "old" PC Gamers and how Valve caters to the new ones, and then ignore the 1:1 perfect remake of a Warcraft Mod, unless Dota somehow doesn't fit into your caste system. And Counter Strike (which had a new game last year) which was basically the defining multiplayer PC game of the turn of the century.
Unless everything released after Quake is considered "new" ?
I also said that I felt it wasn't an adequate name. Look, I just buried my grandmother this weekend, so can you blame me if I can't come up with a great term to name two different playerbases? Geez.
I did my best to try to explain their behavior, and anyone can easily look back and see that these distinct groups have always existed. They're not really 'old' and 'new,' it's more like 'older' and 'younger,' and even that's not entirely accurate. I tried 'social' and 'antisocial,' but obviously that's not accurate, and the 'social' term would have just added confusion, since 'social' tends to refer to Facebook games, not games that encourage social behavior. But even then, it's not entirely accurate, because people in both groups play multiplayer games. Maybe 'casual' would suffice, but then you'll have people whining that someone who spends a long time playing a game like Team Fortress 2 certainly isn't a casual player. The split is somewhat evident between Call of Duty and Battlefield players--you'll have the people who prefer jumping in and just having a deathmatch or team deathmatch game for Call of Duty, and you'll have the people who prefer to jump in and focus more on teamwork, objective-based play and resurrecting teammates and stuff in Battlefield. When the former group shows up in Battlefield, they tend to ignore the objectives and focus on kills (in other words, they tend to be snipers or medics just so they can use the LMGs).
So I went with 'old' and 'new,' even though that's an inaccurate term.
Counterstrike was developed by Hidden Path, so I didn't really think it counted.
Ihateyouchris
Member
Nothing NEEDS to exist. Valve could decide tomorrow to only sell games from EA and they would be within their rights to do so.
The goal of my suggestion is for it to be mutually beneficial for devs, customers, and for Valve.
Valve would not only get a cut of the sales, but they would also get valuable usage data to help them decide what to include on the main store. For example, this could help them identify a game that may not have sold a ton of copies yet, but had great retention stats and customer satisfaction. Actual diamonds in the rough that could do great if pushed in the right direction.
A $100 yearly fee like the App Store should be more than enough to cover the cost of hosting a game that doesn't sell. Also, consider this: If a system like the one I suggested was in place while Minecraft was being developed, odds are it would be on Steam instead of only sold direct. That's hundreds of millions of dollars that Valve won't be getting.
It's not about *deserving* to be on Steam, it's the fact that Steam has become the de facto standard for PC games. They did this the right way, by providing an awesome service, but the downside is that many people, myself included, are very hesitant to buy a game that doesn't include a Steam key.
i don't think the games they've released have been bad. they just haven't been all that great
it's disappointing that 5 years ago they released portal, left 4 dead, team fortress 2, and episode 2 in quick succession, and what have they done since then? mediocre portal and left 4 dead sequels, a copy of a warcraft 3 mod, and counter-strike with better graphics
i appreciate what they've done with steam, but i'd hesitate to call them a great game developer anymore, though i'd like them to prove me wrong
How many of them were actually greenlit? Releasing 32 greenlight titles in 8 months is not exactly flooding the market. Also, half of those titles were acclaimed, and received above average reviews.
That's not what I am hearing from within valve.
Greenlight is a great idea, but it's currently horribly useless. It's filled with unfinished games, games with no demos, games with some concept art, etc. Why would I vote on a game I haven't even played? I wouldn't. A requirement to get onto Greenlight should at the very least, obviously, be a semi-lengthy demo depending on the game. I don't understand why this wasn't implemented to begin with. Greenlight asks you if you would buy this game by voting for it, but you're often voting for nothing more than concept art and fancy ideas, which might not even make it into the game -- so, the customers who voted for it might not even buy it.
It's not about promoting your game, it's about selling the game to customers. There are already sites and various avenues where you can promote your game. Regardless, greenlight should simply be a place where gamers can help people get their finished, or soon to be finished (With a demo.) game onto steam. I would be much more inclined towards surfing Greenlight if the games had a demo -- and the titles would most likely get a lot of added traffic from sites.
Once in awhile I've come across some articles that talk about a game that has a demo, and is on Greenlight, which made me try to surf Greenlight for more demos, but then I'm reminded by the spam-wall of games with nothing more than concept art or ideas that there aren't many demos there, and I just forget about it.
What about a DRM-Free game? People say that people only do the "No Steam, no buy" thing for DRMed games, but I hear people say crap like that for games on GOG. While I might support Steam, I also support GOG and Desura because they have DRM-Free games and generally can fill the holes in my library that Steam generally has unlike other services. I particularly don't like DRM and that includes Steam, but if I must use DRM for a game I like, I will use Steam and Steam alone since I feel it is the best DRM.
balladofwindfishes
Member
what's different from now than before Greenlight? That it's more public?
This isn't "too much power" this is a case of "too few resources" to sort through them all. This is a problem because Steam is so big, not a result of Steam being so big. There's too many games that want in.