Steam to kill Greenlight, introduces "Steam Direct".

[Retro Wolf]

Thought this would be of interest to you guys, especially people making a commercial game.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-02-10-steam-kills-greenlight

[Nixxon]

Saw that today. Bit of a worry to be honest.

[Dave Gilbert]

Valve is no longer interested in being a curator/gatekeeper. And honestly, that was never a position they wanted in the first place. Greenlight was their attempt at fixing that. The theory was sound - put your game on Greenlight for $100 and have the community vote. This was a great way for unknown developers to get on Steam without having to jump through hoops (like I had to do!). For awhile, it kind of worked. Steam would accept the top 10 rated Greenlight games per month. This later was broadened to 100 per month. Now it's expanded even further. It's around 100 per week (and sometimes per DAY)! There are too many games being made! I'm not sure why Valve opened up the floodgates like this, but since they did there's no point in keeping Greenlight at all. Might as well create Steam Direct and have devs bypass it entirely.

Course, this all depends on the fee they will charge for the service. It will NOT be $5000 as some reporters have claimed. I'm pretty sure at most, it will be $1000. At minimum, it will have to be higher than the $100 Greenlight fee to deter all the shovelware peddlers. So... a few hundred bucks probably? Just guessing.

As a developer who is already on Steam, my concern has always been the marketplace getting flooded. Back in ye olde times of 2012, finding one of our games on Steam was easy. You'd find it just by casually browsing through the store. Now, there's SO many games (and most of them are awful) that discover-ability is next to impossible. It's easy to get angry about it, but this happens in ANY industry that has proven to be popular/profitable. Indie games have shown to be good money-makers, so here we are.

I suppose it's the flip side of an old problem. Before 2012, the challenge was to GET on Steam. Now, the challenge is to get NOTICED on Steam. You actually have to do marketing and promotion these days. And that's, like, work.

[Radiant]

While I agree that Steam has a big problem with shovelware, I've found that a number of shovelware companies have an agreement with Valve that they don't need to greenlight any of their games (basically, search for games with a regular price under $2 and you'll see my point). If this agreement will also allow them to bypass Steam Direct, then I don't see how this solves anything.

[LimpingFish]

Steam is on the verge of being a total shit-show, like Apple or Google's "stores", yet they remain determined to put everything related to curating into the hands of it's user-base, who, it must be said, are hilariously (and perhaps purposefully) inept. Tags are a joke, making Steam's infuriating recommendation system an actual hindrance to browsing the store. Reviews are (most of the time) half meme, half "politics", and full stupidity. Greenlight was no different, with joke games and votes bought with keys, while the number of times I actually used it never broke double digits. And the less said about the user boards...

I own over five thousand games on Steam, so I'm there for the long haul, but this shit really needs to change.

[Blondbraid]

I've seen Jim Sterling's videos on the matter, truly baffling what some people try to charge money for. 
Did no one working on Steam think selling this kind of garbage could hurt their image?

At the same time, I'm worried that their new system might make it harder for honest indie developers who want to release their games on steam. Higher fees, like Dave Gilbert mentioned, could deter struggling indie developers but might not stop those who just want to peddle shovelware as long as their potential profit is higher than the fee. Higher fees might stop a few bad games from being released, but it won't make up for lack of quality control.

[Danvzare]

Ah, I remember when Greenlight first started. I actually took a screenshot of the first batch of games that got greenlit.
I think I took a screenshot of the second batch as well.

I even remember the first Steam Greenlight game to be released, and how it even got greenlit in the first place.
It was McPixel, and the only reason it got greenlit was because of a successful marketing campaign where the creator offered the game for free on The Pirate Bay, which said website then advertised on their front page.

Still, despite how ridiculously stupid it was, McPixel was a pretty decent game and was basically an adventure game boiled down to its most basic element. Click on everything!

Such a shame that Steam Greenlight quickly devolved into a cesspool of trash and filth. Sure there are a few gems in the rough. But there's just so much crap on it nowadays!

I honestly don't know what I think about this Steam Direct or what it will mean for indie gaming as a whole.
But hopefully it's an improvement over Greenlight (I doubt it though).
Personally, I think they should have kept Greenlight to the 10 games a month setting, and then checked out every game that was greenlit that month to see if it should even be allowed to be greenlit.

[Stupot]

I don't use Steam to 'find' new games anyway. I find out about new games on Twitter or here or elsewhere, and then if it looks good I might buy it. So the fact that Steam has got full of shit games doesn't really change anything for me. Not that I'm exactly some power-user or anything. But I think if a game is going to find an auduence, it will do so without needing to be on the front page of Steam (though of course that would be a nice boost).

[Chicky]

I liked the Greenlight concept, having a pseudo store-like page to promote your game and judge interest amongst the Steam Community was a great idea. I was also fairly confident that my game would get approved (eventually), having seen similar and lesser quality titles make it through. I wanted to wait until I had more areas of the game finished with the final artwork, so I could put together a trailer that really showed the diversity in locations etc. Seems it might be too late now.

I'm not here to nay-say their decision, but I'm gutted I waited so long to start a campaign. I had a decent understanding of how it all worked and was looking forward to seeing the Steam community's reaction to Guard Duty. I'm now considering rushing a trailer together and getting a page up before it's canned. What is everyone else doing? Do you guys think It's worth starting a Greenlight campaign before it gets pulled? If only to gain that extra attention towards the game?

[Nixxon]

I would like to echo chicky's post exactly.

Being on the cusp of having a trailer ready for steam Greenlight. Do I purchase a green light account and push it out before they change the rules?

I wonder if they will honour games submitted prior to implementing the new platform. (As in, games that have been submitted, but not yet Green-lit).

[CrashPL]

I wonder if they will honour games submitted prior to implementing the new platform. (As in, games that have been submitted, but not yet Green-lit).

Wondering about it as well. Our game passed through Greenlight a while ago, but I still haven't signed up in Steamworks and added it to the store, as it's still not quite ready. Will I have to pay again? Couldn't find any information about it.

Curious about that entry fee per game too. 1000$ for micro indie devs with no budget, like us, will be problematic, but bearable (we'll just have to save up a bit more per month ). But 5000$ is more than 20 000 PLN, which is totally out of the question, at least right now. This amount of money would net me a used car, new set of furniture and a decent notebook. So yeah, currently patiently waiting for any news how will they handle that entry fee thing.

[m0ds]

Chicky, Nixxon, Crash... see this: http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight/discussions/18446744073709551615/133256758580075301/

(I don't have much advice, things seem to work differently for us every time we use greenlight [sometimes approved quickly with minimal votes, sometimes not approved for ages] but will say that I'm rushing out a couple of Greenlight's before it gets shut down myself and yes...it's always that goddamn trailer element that slows it down )

and further info: http://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/558846854614253751

My comment... I like Greenlight. It's a free promotional tool if nothing else. I will miss that aspect. Steam Direct will mean promotional tool is gone, back to your own websites or kickstarters to raise interest and awareness, which is somewhat a shame. And I also must be in the minority... I've been using Steam for 5 years and I've never found "shit games" (on the actual Store) unless I actively go looking for them. They've never been thrust down my throat like a lot of people seem to suggest. Of course Greenlight is a plethora of varying quality, like someone said, for most of us you visit it when you're linked to it.

If you decide to sit and trawl through it of course you're going to come to the opinion there's a lot of shit on there. But my point stands -- are the bad games really thrust down your throat on the actual store side? For me, the Steam Discovery stuff has worked just fine and I've not found myself being begged by the store itself to play any crap games. Either way, if Valve's made it's mind up then it's made it's mind up (about moving to Steam Direct)...at least they intend for any fee to be recoupable, that's a relief, even if it will be harder for first timers to pay the fee (if it's above the current Greenlight fee of $100...but even that is a one-off fee).

[cat]

Greenlight seemed weird to my anyway. It didn't seem to be about quality, just about who was better at hyping it in social media.

At least, now those annoying "Please greenlight my game!" posts for games that were nowhere close to being finished will stop...

[m0ds]

And now it'll be "Please give me money to get my game on Steam!", people starting kickstarters purely to cover the Steam fee, so you know, swings and roundabouts cat.

[Galen]

Greenlight was this weird popularity contest that you couldn't really lose by the end of it. When there's already no barrier of entry to people submitting what are essentially just worse versions of Unity tutorial assets... well whatever the change is... you can't go lower than rock bottom. Hopefully a tighter registration process will dissuade kids from entering their first ever game, or people from submitting mountains of stolen content and illegal fangames.

[Radiant]

Steam is on the verge of being a total shit-show, like Apple or Google's "stores", yet they remain determined to put everything related to curating into the hands of it's user-base, who, it must be said, are hilariously (and perhaps purposefully) inept.

When there's already no barrier of entry to people submitting what are essentially just worse versions of Unity tutorial assets... well whatever the change is...

Oddly enough, these worst-of-the-worst games you mention generally didn't pass greenlight anyway. I'm not entirely sure how they end up on steam, but it wasn't greenlight (so getting rid of greenlight won't necessarily mean you get less of that).

[Chicky]

Well even if I decide against starting a Greenlight campaign this week at least I've got a pretty rad trailer together now. Amazing what a healthy dose of panic can achieve

[Blondbraid]

I think the biggest problem with Greenlight has been that they are hard-bent on trying to make a self-regulating system that doesn't require any
moderation on their part, but no entry fees or computer algorithms or paper work in the world can replace actual quality control of the content.
Seriously, just hiring a couple of interns to test-play the games an hour and bar those with missing executable, stolen assets, game-breaking bugs
and obviously copy-right infringing material would stop at least two thirds of all the garbage asset flips flooding Steam.

It's also depressing to see just how many people in the comment section of Jim Sterlings video on the matter seem to genuinely think that 5000 US dollar
would be a reasonable entry fee, that's more more than most people in my country make in a month for crying out loud!

[Radiant]

just hiring a couple of interns to test-play the games an hour and bar those with missing executable, stolen assets, game-breaking bugs and obviously copy-right infringing material would stop at least two thirds of all the garbage asset flips flooding Steam.

Can you show some examples of games on Steam that have a missing executable, game-breaking bug, or stolen assets? I've seen a lot of garbage on Steam but none of it appears to be obviously unplayable or obvious copyright infringement.

[Blondbraid]

Can you show some examples of games on Steam that have a missing executable, game-breaking bug, or stolen assets? I've seen a lot of garbage on Steam but none of it appears to be obviously unplayable or obvious copyright infringement.

I must admit that I've never bought or played games with missing executables off Steam myself, but I have seen posts and videos of people complaining about it. I have however seen games on steam which were so buggy that they prevented me from playing the game.
Anyway, the point I wanted to make was that I think Steam should have more and better quality control and that hiring people to do so might be a better idea than higher entry fees.

Some of my favorite games I've bought on Steam have been indie-games with a small budget, and I'm worried the new system might make it harder for good indie developers to get their games released on Steam while failing to stop the ones deliberately churning out bad and broken games to make a quick buck.