Steam Greenlight is Going Away

The Long Tail made it into that discussion too, FWIW...

 

Replying to my own post, like a boss!

His game just got Greenlit, in about 2 weeks.

Stats for the stat god: http://www.gridsagegames.com/forums/index.php?topic=745.0

 

http://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1265921510652460726

So the Steam Direct per-game fee has been decided at $100 and it looks like we're going to get info on Greenlight's sun-setting soon.

 

I am definitely not surprised that the new per game fee will be only $100.

 

time to bring out the shovel boys! Excellent! BACK CATALOG

 

I am sort of surprised. I was hoping that the fee would be much larger, like $1k+. It's a personal, selfish wish though. I feel that those of us working hard to complete our games would be more than willing to drop a grand (or more, even per game) to get onto a store, especially Steam, to raise the barrier a little bit further. I've wanted to release a retail game for years, when back then, the barrier to entry was just outrageous with the cost of a compiler being $500+, Photoshop $600+, max or Maya $3500+, and not to mention the cost of getting onto physical retail shelves. Nowadays, all the software is free, so there is no barrier. $100 per game is like throwing a $25k fine to a pro athlete for an infraction. Just a drop in the bucket. I really shouldn't be complaining, but if this was supposed to improve the quality of indie games on Steam, I don't see it.

 

Well, the purpose of the fee was not about improving the quality of Steam indie games. The purpose of the fee was to establish the absolute bare minimum barrier of entry while completely removing the uncertainty of the Greenlight process. Valve is counting on their improved algorithms to do a better job of recommending good games while effectively burying the bad games.

Previously, Steam had an area that tried to showcase every new game. That ensured at least some awareness, even for bad games. Valve has largely hidden that section and moved their recommendations system into the spotlight. It is a sensible move. It is how online stores like Amazon already operate. Amazon does not dedicated the top of their homepage to showing each new, unrelated item that gets added to the store. Amazon uses the top of their homepage to recommend stuff you are most likely to buy based on everything Amazon knows about you.

 

LOL! It seems like a good choice for Steam instead of $100 per account now they get it per game. It might filter out or at least delay some very tiny percentage of game submissions but important thing is this should generate much more money for Steam. Maybe they will invest some of it to improve the site.

 

Here's the tl;dr version:

• The fee is $100 and recoupable. Basically risk free.
• We acknowledge valid arguments from the suggestion range of $100 to $5000.
• We think we can make Curators and better Algorithms to sort through stuff you consider shovelware.
• Some people like playing stuff you consider shovelware, and we don't want to ignore those users.
• You won't see shovelware in your feed if you don't want to.
• If you make shovelware, we'll make sure people see it.

 

Well I sure am. And the cost is even recoupable...

Personally I was hoping at least $300-500. Now it's pretty much a zero risk to put any type of stuff there and let it hang there for few months or years to get the money back multiplied as not everyone will refund and like they said there is audience for anything

 

They definitely could do a better job with their recommendations... like my front page shows these...



Those are only 3 out of the 10 games in that section that I have any interest in checking out. The Tekken 7 at the top I have no interest in at all but maybe that is a sponsored section or something. They show a lot of AAA games to me across the time and I have almost no interest in those at all ever.

So I definitely think there is a huge amount of room for improvement. When I log into Steam it should basically be like I am looking at an 80s/90s videogame magazine of C64, Spectrum, Intellivision, NES, SMS, TG16, Genesis, SNES, Amiga and DOS games. Well their modern day equivalents. Then Steam would make more money from me and the devs would make 1 more sale. Well probably anyway.

And then show me a few games outside of those including maybe one AAA game.

 

I'd argue they're doing a great job.

Aside from Tekken7 which is a sponsored big release...

You like retro style and pixel art? So they offer you retro style and pixel art. I don't see any of those games on my recommendation page.

 

I'm talking about the wasted space of Tekken 7 at the top and the 7 other recommended & featured games. Out of 11 spots only 3 are for games targeted to me and the other 8 are not. I see it as sure it could be worse but I think it has much more room to improve. How about 7 to 8 games out 11 targeted to me.

I don't remember what the other games all were but do remember one was a Star Trek game, another some soccer game and another Conan Exile.

I actually wouldn't mind seeing the Star Trek game and Conan Exile off to the side as two "other" games to check out. So they are not absolutely terrible picks just that others would have been better choices.

Again I am not saying they are doing a terrible job. I have a good experience there overall but focusing purely on the front page yes I think they can do a better job there.

 

If they charge over $1000 to submit a game, there will be a gap in the market for a new game distribution system for indie games. Maybe I will make it and become a billionaire. Every cloud has a silver lining.

 

Actually, there are already platforms competing with Steam that would quickly capitalize on that gap if Valve had set the game submission price too high. And Valve knew that, so they set the price low.

 

The $100 fee recoupable is not a barrier to entry but a sieve to entry. This change in thinking is merely one small part of a complex machine designed to feed their analytics. There are also other changes to their card system, curators, and adding some human eyes at key points in the machine - staff picks for want of a better word.

What this means is that we can expect pretty much the same situation as now but indies will get maybe 10-20% more profits for a decent game? I mean it's not going to be world-shaking, but it's a good start.

It's going to be more about feeling the profits than seeing magical exposure.

 

Valve will show popular AAA titles regardless of your interests, because those titles sell well and command a high price. My Steam page also shows Tekken7, but everything else is different. For example, Steam's top recommendation for me today is "Star Trek Bridge Crew". Since I am really into 3D space games, it is a very good recommendation for me. It is not a perfect recommendation, because I am actually more interested in action than VR sims, but I'd say it was a decent recommendation.

 

That's the one I got too. I wondered if maybe some of these common games like STBC might be some kind of purchased display thing.

 

Looks like it's time to get Pond Wars ready for steam release! Yay!

 

They keep suggesting me those porny visual novel games because I have a lot of playtime in Witcher 3. I'd say they've still got a ways to go.

 

Yeah the algorithm just needs to get better becuse on the front page only one game interested me. But it's was not a game I would ever clicked if not for steam suggesting it.

When on games like this I get games that are nothing like the game I just was playing. I want my sub genre to be catered to

 

Yeah, $100 is not going to make much of a difference.

Although I'd love the App Store and Google Play to implement a $100 per title fee as well to reduce the crapware coming onto the stores.

Everybody wins! (Except the crapware developers)

 

So is it definitely $100? Oh, that's nothing. I mean if you don't think your game will make more than $100 why are you even bothering?

It reminds me of an idea I had ages ago to prevent email spam. Which was that every email you sent you had to donate 1p to charity. Pity none uses email anymore. Cause its still a good idea!

 

It's probably maybe most likely $100. The cost isn't set in stone yet. But the announcement makes it pretty clear that Valve is almost set on the price.

 

As a Steam user and developer, I was hoping for something at least at the $1,000 level on a per game basis. As a gamer, I would absolutely love it if there were fewer poorer quality games getting on Steam. As a developer, I think it would keep me from wasting my time putting anything there where $1,000 was an issue. Maybe that is everything I every create going forward, maybe not, but I would be okay with it.

 

Why? If Steam had a $1000 fee per game, a lot of games would be released on one of Steam's competitors. That would only hurt Steam, which would result in fewer people buying games on Steam. The main reason a lot of people buy games through Steam is because that is the only platform they buy games from on PC. If Steam's competitors could convince a lot of gamers to install their platforms, Steam would lose its hold on PC gaming.

A $1000 fee per game will not make your game easier to find. Only better algorithms can do that, and Valve has been actively improving them.

 

As I gamer, any fee that gets applied to devs will hit game prices eventually. So low fees don't bother me.

Discoverability doesn't bother me either. I tend to select my games through other marketing and then buy them on Steam.

Honestly as a gamer I'm fairly meh about the whole change. It will effect me about as much as early access or green light. Which is to say not at all.

As far as I can tell the 'flood of poor games' that is ruining steam only exists in the minds of developers and reviewers. I see very little noise in this from players.

 

To me it's not so much quality of individual offerings as it's quality of the overall offering. At some point there's a diminishing return on increasing the rate at which new items are added to the store, and I strongly suspect that we're far past that point. I'd rather less things that were better vetted than the opposite.

With the rate at which content is being created these days, though, I don't know if that's a practical desire.

 

Ah, so a new system people can learn to exploit. I will feel bad for the mediocre games that get buried on the bad side of the algorithm & the bad games that had developers who knew how to manipulate themselves higher up.

i.e. I do not trust Valve's "algorithm" to actually solve the problem.

They have the money to hire quality assurance testers or to have some sort of scientific criteria for ranking games. Instead, they choose the cheapest, laziest way out. This monopoly is truly good at coming up with ways to feign improvement on their biggest problems while soaking in billions of dollars with absolutely no effort or job expansion on their part. Simply amazing stuff, really. Sit back & let your already established fame promote automated systems which leech billions of dollars away from actually hard working developers.

But I'm sure the enormous number of Valve fanboys & gamedev sycophants who gleefully desire Valve to take a third of their revenue will be more than satisfied with this... barely-change / non-change.

In effect what they're doing is next to nothing. The barrier of entry was already $100.
edit: Now it is just $100 per game, which will only help to prevent singular developers from spamming multiple titles. Maybe this will be effective, or maybe the noise will still be too intense as people still see it as worth it. (The idea is typical for small games: Spam enough (crappy) games, and eventually one may randomly pay you back for the ones which never break even.)

They are just removing the voting process, and little else changing. It is literally just opening up the floodgates even more, which is good for a market that is already flooded if they have absolutely no intention of quality control outside their "algorithm". I'm sure getting the votes was annoying to everyone (both legitimate gamedev & crap game pushers). So cheers for that removal, I guess.

As a programmer, I am really skeptical that this algorithm will be anything impressive; hence the quotation. As a gamer I doubt it will even be any different than what they already have.

TLDR: So almost nothing has changed. Typical for Valve. Fanboys will eat it up though I'm sure.

edit CORRECTION: Greenlight is $100 entry fee for your account (infinite games). Direct is $100 per game. Edited some of the post to reflect this.

 

First off, that simply isn't true. $1000 barrier entry would probably do very little but to keep the most amateurish of crap from being released. Which would be nice. Everyone else would simply invest it, as you get the money back later under most conditions.

Second, even if they didn't get the money back & it restricted a lot of people, it really isn't a bad thing. Steam could become a higher quality store, but also help balance the market. Steam is a private corporation & a near monopoly on PC gaming. It would be quite wonderful if they split themselves apart or helped competition to bring more balance to the industry.

Unless a company is willing to go the moral route (use your monopoly power to force AAA developers to stop their ridiculously S***ty anti-gamer practices), then at the very least they could let go of their monopoly & help make a healthier economy.

Unfortunately, GoG is the only one even attempting this (GoG Galaxy app) & it's almost as if they are barely even trying.

Every other major & even minor vendors just sell Steam Keys. You'd think that is nice of Steam, to not accept any money but handle bandwidth costs & allow a few free things for gamers & developers, right? But rest assured, they only do this for profit. Selfish reasons. It is pretty powerful to help maintain their monopoly. Give incentives like very loose restrictions like allowing devs to generate infinite free keys without charging them for bandwidth, and you're just tightening your grip over the industry. Increasing profits.

Competitors would need to win over developers. That is pretty difficult when Valve not only owns the market, but literally seems to own the developers themselves. I've had gamedevs rage at me about how much Valve deserves 30% to 60% of every sale of their product. Developers who refuse to even consider the idea of selling on their own website in addition to Steam. Developers who praise Steam DRM as if it actually protects them. Developers who have a Steam-only philosophy & end up giving the finger to places like GoG. I've seen some highly emotional responses in defense of Valve. Like some gamedevs experience euphoria every time Valve gets money instead of themselves. It's really weird, but the fandom is alive & thriving. At least it was a two or three years ago. I know Valve has lost a lot of PR since then, with its failures & scams (Paid Mods, War Z, SteamBox, SteamOS, etc.)

Developers really have a lot of sway. In fact, all the sway. It is because of Developers (the lack of) that game consoles fail. (ex. Wii U & Linux). It will be because of Developers that VR succeeds or fails. It is because of the Developers that Steam, Origin, & GoG even exist. It is because of Developers putting games on their platforms that they become more/less powerful. It is because of Developers that the industry has seen a lot of microtransactions, cash shops, F2P, freemium play, & pay-2-win shenanigans. It is because of Developers that we seen stagnation or innovation in each genre.

 

Same, and with that video (I believe it was with TotalBiscuit) where they explained how the curation system works I'm no longer concerned about this as a gamer. From a developer perspective I'll worry about whether it's a good change once I have an actual title worth publishing.

 

Well, its still a lot cheaper and easier then trying to put your game on DVD and get it into a shop like HMV. I don't know how people used to do that. It seems like some kind of magic.

 

Amazon's recommendation algorithm works really well. Valve is not quite there yet, but I think they are moving in the right direction. As a programmer, I understand both the limits and opportunities of algorithms.

Dedicated quality assurance testers is not a reliable and scalable solution. Minecraft was not released on Steam, and it was a massive missed opportunity for Valve. After missing out on Minecraft, I bet Valve is doing everything they can to avoid repeating that mistake.

The console platforms still offer huge barriers to entry and teams of quality assurance testers. If you want to release a game to a platform that blocks most games, you should develop for consoles. Personally, I see a lot more opportunity for Valve if they become more like Amazon and less like Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo.

 

itch.io is also trying.

I hear comments that Steam is the only avenue on PC, but there are others. The problem (as I see it) everyone defaults to steam because of the population, rather than standing by morals and only offering there content through other store fronts like itch.io, gamejolt - or GOG if your lucky enough to be allowed to host there.
Don't get me wrong - I like steam because it's just plain simple and for me, the curration algo's seem to work just fine. I don't mind seeing games that fall outside my common likes, 3 out of 4 of the games steam presents to me seem to be relevant to games I like - so no issues for me. And yeah - show me some limited games that might fall outside my normal profiel. I might like it. If not I can always click "not interested".

But there are others offering a very similar experience for the gamer and for developers.

Second point - I think a redeemable $100 / game is a good price point. This will definitely reduce the slough of junk games that get uploaded to steam. It won't completely eliminate it but will surely reduce it, either by the actual upfront fee, or it will have a residual effect on developers who push low quality offerings. Because if they do not recoup the total amount - which will be difficult for low quality games with low price points and keeping the return policy in place - most people who develop low quality games can't afford loosing money on every title they upload to steam.
They are pushing that crap content onto steam to make a quick buck to begin with. That quick buck is not available at low price points, $100/game recoup fee, and the return policy.

Just my opinion.

 

Here's the thing and please correct me if I'm wrong, the mobile market is so saturated most are writing it off completely. So using that as a baseline is a recommendation / discovery algorithm really going to protect against the flood gates? Lets say you do release a decent game, how much really is it going to matter?

Like when Steam originally allowed indie's on the scene it was profitable, but I'm struggling to find a reason why in years to come it's going to get any better.

 

Because the indie makes it profitable. From everything I have read, the days where Steam was a "fire and forget; get your game listed and money pours in" type platform have been over for quite some time. Yes, Steam can and hopefully will drive traffic to the game, but doing your own marketing, getting written reviews and articles, getting Youtube reviews and lets-plays are going to be necessary to get real sales. Some people will still get incredibly lucky or hit just the right combination of whatever, but it's been a long time since Steam == "income that pays for the game production".

There will definitely be some advantages to getting on to a curated and smaller platform such as GoG, but the total number of games being created now means that even that won't be a magic bullet to getting your game noticed and sold.

 

Valve can try to get more like Amazon. If they can pull it off, then Steam will be able to open the flood gates while showing gamers the games they are actually interested in. Valve has taken some steps in the right direction. They are admittedly not quite there yet, though.

Mobile has one huge difference that we often take for granted. Because mobile hardware was not very powerful initially, mobile was flooded with relatively simple games. That was the exact kind of game that indies could rapidly create, so there was a massive supply of those relatively simple games. Most PC users expect a more elaborate game on PC than mobile.
As mobile hardware specs continue to improve, it is possible that mobile users will eventually expect more powerful games on mobile as well. If that happens, then new opportunities could someday form for the mobile market.

 

So between @Socrates and @ShilohGames, all I'm really getting from this is nothings changed and essentially we're driving gamers back into the arms of AAA. We're back we started a decade and a half ago..

Unless you fluke it AAA have the biggest marketing hammer, if we're expecting elaborate then AAA win there.. If they make too many recommendations for shovelware, gamers will get miffed and only go AAA (or at least large budget AA).

Not really seeing any pro's here, again could be missing something but it seems Orange were wrong.. The future's not that bright.!

 

How will it do this, when Greenlight already cost $100?

 

Yep, not possible to sell copies if you're not AAA....
Unless you're "7 Days to Die" who sold over a million copies...
Unless you're "Thomas Was Alone" that also sold over a million copies...
Unless you're "Stardew Valley" which PC Gamers says made more money that "Call of Duty" that year...

Or there was that one GDC video about a game developer where they didn't have a single hit game in ten years, yet still made enough money to pay the rent and salaries and such.

So, my impression still is that a solid indie can make a living as long as they realize no one platform like Steam is going to do all the work, and that some of the indies can still manage to make the AAA folks jealous.

 

Greenlight has a one time fee.
Steam Direct is $100 per game. So people will think twice before they upload a ton of mobile junk games.

 

Thanks for clarifying this for me. I am glad I am wrong that there wasn't any change.

From the Greenlight page

 

Good points.

What is truly sad (IMO, pathetic) is that many gamedevs I've talked to or read on /r/gamedev were still convinced Steam is a free golden ticket that does all the work for you.

No matter how many links I could give or how strong an argument to the contrary, the majority of commentators in that subreddit seemed insistent on believing that Steam is an effortless win for them. To the point where a few of them even raged me in PM's, as if I was some kindof satanic criminal villain for saying something as obvious as "You can sell on multiple platforms, not JUST Steam." and "Steam isn't a golden ticket for indies like it was in the beginning. Quite the opposite actually." One guy who had confirmed releases even had some mental meltdown at me in PM.

Then came the article "Good isn't good enough" & Indiepocalypse controversy surrounding it.

I stated the exact same thing, rubbing it in with an "I told you so months prior to this imaginary "Indiepocalypse". I got a lot of respect for that, but even after that happened? Some were still insistent that Steam was an effortless win & the only intelligent choice is to be Steam-exclusive because "Steam is so awesome & gives you tons of free features!"

It amazes me how horrible some game developers are at simple Math. Especially considering many are programmers, but seem totally blind to empirical evidence like reported sales numbers, SteamSpy data, etc.
Even if I replied to PM's with gentleness & simple equations, they would still not grasp it.

Revenue * 0.97 > Revenue * 0.7
(Billing 3% vs Steam 30%)
​

What doesn't amaze me is that the community flip-flopped on their logic based on a youtube celebrity's video, despite multiple people saying the same thing long before. I have little respect for that community. I wasn't the only one; plenty of people talked about a flooded market or "Steam Brownlight" long before the "indiepocalypse" (didn't) happen.

 

Valve does what is most profitable for Valve. Since they hold a monopoly, it will only get worse. Then one day, someone will finally be successful in growing a big enough market share to threaten Steam. Valve will respond by fixing the problems. That will be the only time they fix things: when they are threatened with lost revenue if they don't. That, or changes in government law, such as we saw with refunds & consumer protection laws in EU/Australia (and what I highly speculate was also a dip in their revenue because US consumers were beginning to feel unsafe to make purchases due to draconian refund policy).

I have never seen a move by Valve that was not in the best interest of Valve. Nearly every "good" thing they do is to either tighten their stranglehold on the PC market (incredible profits) or because they were literally forced to (refund policy lawsuits).

Hopefully Valve will do what most monopoly-powered corporations do: Get too greedy one day & have a competitor take advantage of their momentary hubris to permanently steal a large chunk of the market before they can respond effectively.

 

One of the challenges here is digital distribution on PCs tends to lend itself to a natural monopoly. Like operating systems, social networks or roads, consumers tend to get more convenience from a single system then they would gain advantages from increased competition. Plus Steam is still objectively better then its competition.

It's possible. It's also possible they simply continue to serve players needs well enough that there is no room in the market for a serious competitor.

I mean, none of these changes really affect the customers, who are the ones paying Steam money. As long as Steam keeps customers happy, devs will simply have to live with the changes.

 

Show me where I said not one single indie will earn a dime? Also the flood gates haven't opened yet, Greenlight was just the trickle.. Wait a year and then we'll see how things stack up, lets see if we're in fluke territory (which means for every successful games there are at least ten or even a hundred (good) games that failed to earn an ROI)..

The odd success story doesn't matter to me, I want reports on tangible mean values with their new system. Ultimately I see it this way, do it because you love it and damn everything else. You never know something might come of it and money is the main concern you could be better off playing the lottery.

Can't say the fiscal bit was ever that important to me anyway, all it means is if my game flops hard I won't be able to do a follow up along the same lines.. Then I'd just go down a much smaller more elegant path..

Although I wouldn't like the games biz to end up like the music industry, due to technology a lot of well know recording facilities / engineers etc. got put out of business. A lot of people lost their jobs really, which sucks.. I can't really see it, but lets hope it doesn't affect the big developers too much as they employ a lot of hard working passionate staff.

Creative mediums can be fickle even at the best of times.

 

Well getting into the VR space with a good vr game now while there are very few people with VR headsets might be a good idea.

Just look at the steamspy front page you have a good mix of indie and AAA
http://steamspy.com/

 

That's not exactly how it works though. The problems with monopolies is that their decisions are the end-all. Consumers are powerless, because where else will they go? There are no competitors just waiting for that Exodus.

The problem is that Valve doesn't have any competition. GoG exists, but they don't seem to want to compete with Steam - they seem to want to do their own thing instead. And when it comes down to it? A lot of corporations stick together to hurt consumers. GoG is saint-like in its anti-DRM stance. What an enormous fluke for a corporation to embrace a fantastic refund policy & DRM-free requirement long before that is even a thing.

 

This doesn't sound like a good plan. Maybe you could elaborate? Jumping to a somewhat 'new' platform while the install base is still small (I don't know many/any people who are VR gamers - other than developers) doesn't sound like it would result in any worthy ROI?
Maybe to become established in that sub-section of game development prior to it taking off, but that is a risk that needs up front funding and I really don't see VR development as a profitable avenue, either now, nor in the near future, maybe even never.

I might be wrong - my conclusions are based on zero research.

 

Yes the goal isnt simply to get a ROI but establish yourself as a credible developer before
it (VR) explodes ( or if not at least to position yourself as in the niche before it becomes over-saturated). Instead of looking at things as a simple one off game you need to play the long game (I learned a few things from working with business guys for a few months so we will see if that rubs off on me, since I have a bigger strategy now).

Even if the game fails but the quality was good you could always use it as a portfolio piece to get a high paying job. I saw a VR job that paid 100k+ a year for example.