Steam Greenlight

steamcommunity.com/greenlight

nice move from valve, i hope it wont be flooded like kickstarter.

 

Oh yes it will. I bet you will also see a thousand posts on facebook "vote for my game".

Because that's what totally will happen.

They even allow "concepts" to be posted. I don't know what to think of that.

 

I don't think those things will matter. The community will sort out quickly enough what's worth voting on and what isn't, and I expect that dodgy stuff would fall off the radar pretty quickly.

Remember, even amongst good games it takes something special to get significant attention.

 

But can you trust the community though? It could turn into popularity fest like kickstarter where even if your project is good, if you aren't popular you're not getting it. People who have access to thousands of facebook friends and twitter subscribers are at an obvious advantage.
But I trust Valve on this one. Community management is something they're very good at.

 

this
popularity and good often have nothing in common

 

Seems a pretty good idea. It can help a few developers, at least

 

Wow, I am very excited for this. There has been a fair share of complaints by the Steam community about Valve's sketchy and quite unpredictable submission process, glad to hear they are listening. Whether or not this system will be flooded with shovelware or not, well, only time will tell. A problem I could see arising is a "vote ALL the games!" mindset, for the simple purpose of having more games on steam. (again, to the eyes of the gamer, why is there a reason to not upvote the starving Indie game dev?)

 

Number of max votes per day could be limited. Though that could backfire with projects you'd like but not that much to waste a vote on them.

 

Yeah, but that stuff is marketing. You can hardly fault a sales platform for favouring products which are marketed well, and are therefore more likely to sell.

 

I will watch those concepts closely
Something good may show up there... And for free... Well, ideas are worth nothing, huh

Edit: Hmm... I think KS is an better option, but lets see how Valve evolves this thing...
I mean, in KS there is everything, not only games you know. That merges audiences.

 

KickStarter is for funding, isn't GreenLight just for selection?

 

I rather think of KS as a marketing gate...
But you know what is going to be funny? When Steam's community realise that big company's games won't be part of this system (because they have $$$ power) and someday players will rage about it if they know a big one is going to release a game they don't want to happen.
If that situation ever happens I will lol a lot.

 

yea they are different, he just didnt read...
btw ks is us only which makes it "not that good option"

 

The internet being the internet, yes, it'll probably happen. But really, why get upset over a game being released that you don't like? Just don't buy it. It's not as if it'll stop other games from also getting released.

People should also realise that the indie games alone probably aren't enough for sustainable business, so Steam would have to continue it's usual distributor role anyway.

 

This is very interesting, caught it today on RockPaperShotgun. I'll definitely want to see it before getting excited... but that being said, it will definitely give everyone a "shot". It'll be harder to shine, but more accessible, and you can garner feedback as you go rather than having to iterate post release or in sequels only.

Definitely an interesting move on Valve's part.

 

I don't see where this would be compared to KS. Sure, people will start posting the "vote for my game" stuff, but these are the same submissions that Steam has always dealt with. Its just that now, you can see them too. If you don't want to... don't.

This isn't offering any kind of crowdfunding or alpha funding like Desura. Its just allowing players to make the choice as to what indie games become available on Steam.

And who cares if a AAA company's game isn't submitted for approval by the masses. So a game is available on Steam you don't like. Big deal. Don't buy it.

 

I don't see the problem here. It's not like people can really get any more annoying about this than they already are.

Before: Complain about Valve not letting game X on Steam.

Now: Vote for game on GreenLight. Complain about Valve not letting game X on Steam.

That's *still* the worst-case scenario. And if a game really is popular, then Steam will have an easy way to know to take a look, backed by numbers, instead of just people screaming about it until Valve hears them.

It's not like Valve has promised to let every popular game on, either. There's still contracts and negotiations to get through, and Valve will continue to have standards. (Even though we the public don't really know what those standards are, exactly.)

 

Maybe you will be able to donate/pre-purchase from greenlight using steam wallet?

 

Sounds good, although I've already submitted a demo of my game last week.
Hopefully it will get approved before then

 

I am not all that excited about this concept. As others have mentioned, popularity and quality don't always go together, I'd rather have my games reviewed by professionals in the business. Lets say how it plays out.

 

I think it will depends on how valve will manage it,if they block all the crap it'll be nice for serious project funding
And I hope this will work outside U.S

 

For me this is exactly the same thing of KS. You dont post projects there for money, unless you are mistaken about it, you do it to grab users for your product, to aquire fans and possibly build a new franchise. New feanchise means big chunks of money coming in for years. The majority of ppl there who use KS trying a quick buck are flatly mistaken about the system. For real, the funding aspect isnt what really matters there.

Have you ever dealt with fans of any kind? If you make a succesful product, fans will be 100% sure that it is NOT your thing, it is theirs. Doesnt matter if you are the person who created it. They own you. And once you do something to their thing that they dont like, they will hunt your head

Im sure Valve is planning on that after the system is out there for a while. They would be silly if not.

 

Just like shareholders

 

I think that would make it the opposite of KS. It been a repeating pattern on Kickstarter that, if you seek funding without already having a large fanbase, you will fail. People don't post on KS to gather fans, they post there to reach out to existing fans.

Much as I would like to think that GreenLight would be used to gain new fans, I doubt it. It will most likely end up having that in common with KS. If you don't already have the fans, eagerly awaiting the game, you most likely won't get the votes you're hoping for.

Yeah, no kidding. That was more of me speaking out against the entitled mentality of fans. Pointless, I know, but I'll keep repeating myself.

 

If valve guys are cool like that, they will most likely approve/boost less known quality projects. I think this service is to reduce the strain on approval staff, not to eliminate it entirely.

 

I don't understand this point of view. Why would you rather get approval or feedback from anyone outside of your target audience? This largely cuts out a potentially extraneous middleman, which I think can only be a boon for indie games.

 

professionals won't buy your game'-.-

 

you know it's like 3 guys right? I've heard rumors that they are so busy sometimes they don't even look at submitted games

 

Billy Bob: Hey, did you see that Zeb put up a new game on Steam Greenlight?
Billy Joe: Zeb? That douche?
Billy Ray: Yeah, I saw what that ass monkey did.
Billy Joe: Let's tell everybody what a douche Zeb is.
Billy Bob: That's what my plan is.
Billy Ray: Yeah, we'll make sure his game never gets the green light.
Billy Bob: It looks pretty cool though.
Billy Ray: Yeah, I watched the videos.
Billy Joe: But he's a total douche. He disagreed with something we said like eight years ago.
Billy Bob: Yeah, he's a total douche.
Billy Ray: Complete ass monkey.
Billy Bob: We'll make sure...
Billy Joe: ...that he never...
Billy Ray: ...gets the green light.

 

Well hopefully your game will look good enough that the opinion of the two Billy's won't be enough to thwart your plans. That's just silly.

(Unless you're counting on those two guys and the people who's opinions may be swayed by them. In which case, you don't really have a solid fanbase anyway.)

 

It's along the lines of a mental virus. You take three people - they begin to seed the doubt, misinformation, etc, etc, etc. The casual person on the internet reads it and believes it is true. They tell somebody else. It spreads.

Much like the developer hopes to spread the good word - the same mechanics exist to spread the bad word.

Then turn on the news - or - go to a news site. Is it mostly good news or bad news? Check out any entertainment news sites - good or bad? What do people crave? They crave bad news.

It's easier to spread bad information than good information. It's easier to spread a lie than the truth. Then again, that's often a reason that the good news much like the bad news - is also a lie.

Communities tend toward cliques and cliques tend to gain power. If you're part of that clique, you may be blind to it. Outside the clique, you might find yourself exiled or becoming a sheeple just to get along.

 

How will this help with funding?

 

Since you can list in-dev, you can tie it in to your KS info as well as elsewhere.

Here's a game getting positive feedback over on the Steam GreenLight site... that sounds like a better game to toss some money at than a game that's kind of out there with nothing really going on.

It's marketing.

It's a way for Steam to help themselves out on several levels. Sure, it will help the game developer - but Steam's a business, and they would not be doing this if it was not a case that it would also increase their revenue.

The developer gets more coverage - they get more funding - they put out a game...Steam gets their cut.

 

it is online... with 300 games already

 

Yes

Please can you vote for Monster Truck Racing - Extreme Offroad!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92941757

Thank you

 

And who is gonna play all those games?

 

Steam customers?

 

And they grow on trees?

 

Well there sure is a lot of them..
40 million+, which is more than all the leaves on all the trees in your average park..

 

I don't see this working out for many devs in the longrun. A steady increase of games but limited resources in gaming time.

 

Why not? The only difference is the community now decides which games get released on Steam, not the small review team they had before.
Their release schedule will stay the same as far as I know, they wouldn't change that.

 

I wasn't thinking of Steam only. I was more thinking of all the existing gaming options together and how the number of releases increase each year but without that the number of gamers/gaming time increases in a similar way. This plus the pyramid system we have in such markets.

 

Well due to the increasing popularity of indie-friendly game engines like Unity, that was bound to happen.

 

Happy comments, upvote, and Facebook share...though, the last one might cost you...I should have thought about that one first. I've been pissing some of my atheist and liberal friends off lately...ahem.

 

Looks great! I gave you my vote

 

We have our Unity title up on Steam Greenlight:

Green World - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=93016326

Shameless promote!

 

You have my vote

 

Hmm... There is no moderation in there.
I saw already 4 fake Minecrafts, 1 fake Gears of War parody, people trolling with fake projects, and many pages marketing flash games.
Give it 1+ month and it will be just like Google Play...

Also if the rate of new projects keep growing like that, in 1 month there will be more than 7000 games in that thing.
Do we earn anything for rating all those games??

 

How do you know if a project is fake? Can you point us to one?

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=93050926
Here's one
Obviously not posted by the owner of the game. Greenlight is not for posting games you want on steam, it's for developers to submit their games to.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=93053251
Another one for Battlefield 3 submitted by another Russian. I think they are misunderstanding what greenlight is for.