Steam Greenlight

[† Emotional Outlet]

So, new little feature on Steam that just went live. Basically you can vote and comment on potential games to be released on Steam--they're crowdsourcing the approval process and making it more public, which a lot of developers seem to have felt was "two parts luck and one part witchcraft". It's apparently being thought of as something akin to Kickstarter, but without any money involved.

I've been looking through various articles on the project, but wanted to know what you guys think of it.

[lolrawr]

Yeah I've heard people talking about this. To be honest, I haven't looked into it that much. For the most part indie games aren't that great IMO, and really good ones come once in a blue moon like Minecraft, Super Meat Boy, etc... If I do get indie games I usually only get them when the Humble Indie Bundle comes around. I stayed away from LIMBO because I knew it would hit HIB soon, and that payed off. Honestly though, I just amass a large array of indie games I'll never play expect for maybe one or two games each bundle, but since it's for a good cause, I don't mind.

Now I am happy that Steam is allowing the community to help indie developers, but I probably won't be a part of it.

[† Emotional Outlet]

I do the same with the bundles. I'll try them for a bit but I have really specific game tastes apparently.

Anyway, I read the RPS article a bit more in-depth than my initial scan. Couple choice quotes for those who don't want to read the whole thing.

I could all too easily hold forth about the pros and cons of the Greenlight system, enthuse about the potential democracy it might mean, muse about whether it’s an attempt to prevent Kickstarter stealing Steam’s thunder, wonder why a company so boundlessly rich can’t just employ a huge team of experts to assess every game submitted to them, why the blue blazes they’d include the troll-gift that is a downvote option, and offer hope that it means a bright new age of bold games finding larger audiences.

“The submission process is super easy, but it’s hard to find what you’re looking for without a direct link, so discoverability is an issue. Nobody seems to have any idea how the games on the front page are sorted, there’re no stats on exactly how many thumbsups you’ve got, and nobody’s passed 5% of the mysterious ‘necessary positive ratings.”

... and yet we’re buried alongside flash game prototypes made by hobbyists. I’m glad hobbyists get to share their game ideas; the coolest promise of Greenlight is that it may help rising stars with awesome ideas get recognized. But at the moment, there are very few reliable means by which the higher quality material can rise to separate from the chaff.

“Games that appeal to reddit readers will get upvoted, but games appealing to the time-poor 30+ gamer (who may be more likely to buy the game, but less likely to partake in online forums and voting) do not.”

“There’s gonna be a million non-existing projects with nothing to show but ideas and a couple of models of an AK47.”

There’s a real lack of detail about what “acceptance” through Greenlight entails, or what it actually provides. I suspect that this vagueness is partly to try to avoid being obliged to carry some nonsense game that managed to get a lot of attention, but as a developer, they’re wanting me to put myself out there as part of their popularity contest, but they’re not being particularly forthcoming with why I should other than “OMGSTEAM!”

And note that the opposite side of most of the opinions above were also mentioned in the article, but I figured it'd be redundant to include the quotes. The discussions in the comments are also pretty good.

Personally, right now it's a total nightmare trying to find games to vote for. The lack of a "pass" or "skip" button means that, for now, if you don't want a game to show up as a result, you HAVE to vote for it one way or the other. The lack of a "next game" button is just a waste of time, forcing you to page back to see another game. I mean, I see games on there that I think look respectable but don't interest me personally--I'm not going to downvote it just because it's not to my personal taste. (There wouldn't be any FPS games if I had my way.)

I did see an interesting remark from the RPS article, in the comments, in response to those complaining about discoverability. Basically, Greenlight isn't meant to be used as a marketing or discovery tool--all that should be taken care of outside of Greenlight, that it's those outside marketing efforts that should lead people to the Greenlight page to vote for it.

Anyway, it's still pretty brand new, so hopefully with time it gets better.

[Babybluex]

I don't see why the marketing aspect should be pervieved as a negative aspect like that!? What's wrong with supporting underdogs who are trying to make a name for themselves, as opposed to the few names that rule over the gaming world?!

I think it's a great initiative and I hope it'd change the world of gaming, making way for more developers.

[† Emotional Outlet]

Haha, I don't think it's so much being viewed as a negative thing--I think their point was marketing is not the purpose of Greenlight, so complaining that it's difficult to discover games on it is a moot point. Like that quote about not judging a fish's intelligence based on its ability to ride a bicycle or whatever.

[† Anras Rune]

Huh, I could've sworn I'd already done a thread for this... guess not.

I'm glad they've finally got it sorted. More power to the consumer I say! Three cheers for us! Also, marketing can go to hell for all I care, trying to throttle the creative market that is the gaming industry. I mean, we can only eat so much shit before vomiting and I hope thats what is going to happen now.

[† Emotional Outlet]

So, couple updates on Greenlight. Mostly highlights pulled from the news as well as one or two things I noticed myself.

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On the 4th of September, they implemented a $100 fee to post a game to Greenlight. All proceeds go to Child's Play and is meant to cut the noise and joke submissions. Understandably, they did not apply this to games that had already been submitted. I suspect it also pushes developers to come forth with a more finished product vice an idea with a couple of character sketches.

This also came with an upgrade to the "voting" system. The thumb's down button was removed and replaced with a "No thanks/Not interested" button. Once you vote either way, you now have the option to page to the next game as opposed to paging back as you previously did. A twelve game queue was implemented so you can limit games by genre. However, because games can be filed under multiple genres, even if you don't select "shooters", those types of games will still show up in your queue because it has another genre tag attached to it.

On the 11th, they implemented a Greenlit section, to showcase games that have made it through the process and will remain there until release.

On the 18th, because of many complaints due to the limited discussion capability of the comments section, each game will now have a dedicated discussion area where feedback and questions can be addressed. For developers, they're given more data as far as voting goes and their status in Greenlight, including a graph showing the data for the past seven days and the ability to compare it against the stats of other games. They're also given information on their progress as far as being in the top 100, whether they're already there or working their way up.

Coming up on the 15th of October, Steam plans to announce at least another ten games that have been Greenlit.

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Now for some news and views from outside of Steam. Ars Technica did an article on the $100 fee, from the 6th. Here's a couple highlights for those who don't want to read the whole thing.

It starts out with the opposing view. Those against the fee felt it unnecessary and unfair for developers with low budgets or incomes, suggesting that other solutions for filtering joke submissions would have been better. Some feel that a smaller fee--closer to $30--would have been enough to filter out the joke submissions.

The rest of the article, though, seems to speak in favour of the fee. Between things like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Indie Fund, as well as the ubiquity of social media, many find it hard to believe that a developer with a solid idea and some initiative would find it difficult to raise the $100 fee. And indeed, there are those who feel the fee is too low, suggesting a much steeper $1,000 fee. Some believe that it would serve as a wake-up call to developers, that getting a game onto Steam may not be a viable goal, particularly for first-time creators.

We then segue into another issue--that Greenlight may be in opposition of Steam itself. In the eyes of many, Steam was a platform that brought gamers high quality games (of course, it is that very lengthy process of selecting only the finest games that lead to such long wait times for games to be approved before Greenlight was implemented). With Greenlight, it seems to be going the opposite direction, but not entirely towards a free-for-all. That Steam currently stands in limbo in this regard may be the source of contention, rather than simply the $100 fee itself.

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On the 5th, Gamasutra did a piece on the views of developers, if you're interested in seeing more viewpoints. A couple quotes.

The skills required to make good games are very different from the skills required to dominate a 'vote for my game' contest, so I'm worried good games will be lost in the shuffle

On the other hand, look at how many games are on Greenlight. That's how many games Valve used to get in its inbox every day. So in a choice between 'lost in the shuffle' and 'I don't have time to even open the email containing your trailer', I guess I'll take Greenlight.

Steam is the ultimate end game, not a first port of call, and there is still money to be made outside of it to get you on your feet. You're going to be disappointed if you expect 1 million Steam users to come on and upvote your game, just as you'd likely be disappointed sending the same details to Steam with the old system.

The thing to remember is that $100 doesn't get you on Steam, it just puts you at the mercy of the voting public. Like if X Factor charged.

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There's still a sizable amount of controversy over the system. What do you guys think? What has been your experience with Greenlight so far? Have you been following any creators with some insight on their dealings with Greenlight from the developer side?

[ThereShallBWing]

I will say that ive already found 3 VERY interesting games, one of which i never thought I would even get into, but now im fixated on it xD its called "running with rifles" and its going to be just oodles of fun, especially when you got like 200-600 npc units in it going at it, and your among them, total carnage and fun, the other 2 i have not heard much yet, but still need to look into them.

I think this greenlight thing is worth it.