Steam to kill Greenlight, introduces "Steam Direct".

[m0ds]

So you'd prefer a quality control system more along the lines of GOG's, whereby only about 30% of games from this community make it, over say Steam's current Greenlight where about 95% of games from this community make it?

Similar logic in my mind to cat's previous comment about people whinging for votes - whereby that would mean about 30 of our community members. Or what, it's okay when we ask for votes but not when other people do? Silly

For the record though I will say I did have a game where you clicked "Start game" and it went into a never ending pre-game loop, which was never resolved by the developer and the game seemingly still exists. But as I said before, I actively went looking in the bottomest part of the bottom of the barrel for that kind of game, to rip the piss out of on video. Like so many others do!

[Radiant]

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.

I agree that this appears to be the case.

[CaptainD]

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.

I agree that this appears to be the case.

Before Greenlight people didn't even use Steam to find good indie games... if indies are put off trying for Steam in the future then other digital stores will start to thrive again.  It's actually been pretty bad for the indie scene in that it's taken so much trade from the traditional indie havens.  I can see Itch finally becoming a big player if indie gamers don't have a big selection of new games on Steam, which in many ways would be better for the indie market overall (although that would depend on Itch continuing to be well run and highly focused on helping indie devs).

[Blondbraid]

Before Greenlight people didn't even use Steam to find good indie games... if indies are put off trying for Steam in the future then other digital stores will start to thrive again.  It's actually been pretty bad for the indie scene in that it's taken so much trade from the traditional indie havens.  I can see Itch finally becoming a big player if indie gamers don't have a big selection of new games on Steam, which in many ways would be better for the indie market overall (although that would depend on Itch continuing to be well run and highly focused on helping indie devs).

While Steam have taken away trade from other sites, at the same time it may have led more people not usually specifically looking for indie games to try something new since they found it on Steam.
I also remembered an interesting article about the indie label, arguing on weather to stop using the term indie all together: https://killscreen.com/articles/its-time-us-stop-calling-games-indie/
Now this article is pretty old, before most of the bad games and shovelware on Steam came out, but I came to think about this passage from it:

If we continue to conflate all games made under the dubious conditions that define indie and place them in a single category, then we deny them the ability to be distinct works. Labeling cheapens the discipline by suggesting that somehow the motivations that separate Super Smash Brothers from BariBariBall, Metal Gear Solid from Superhot, Candy Crush Saga and Twodots, are somehow insurmountable. It gives those who group indie games as melodramatic platforms a convenient and approximate filtering system for ignoring anything in this massive expanse of games.

Personally, I liked that Steam had both small-scale indie games and AAA titles, and I would probably have missed out on some great games if I hadn't found them on Steam. When I look for games to play, I usually don't look for indie games specifically, but I look for themes and genres I like, therefore I wouldn't want to see indie games confined to platforms for indie games only.

[CaptainD]

Yes that's true - please don't think I'm having a dig at Seam per se, just that I don't think this news is quite as devastating to indie developers as it might at first appear (of course I could be completely wrong about this!).

Also the term "indie" has largely lost meaning, I agree.  I guess I'm thinking mainly of the one or two person teams, or very small teams (like those who tend to work on AGS games!), more than what could almost be termed now as "mainstream indies".

[WHAM]

I really, really hope they don't go too high of the price gate for entry. I've been working to re-do Gnrblex and my intention was to pay up to get it on Greenlight with the goal being to get the game on Steam as a freeware release. Now, if the price of admission goes up considerably, I might well be screwed when it comes to that little endeavour.

[Blondbraid]

Just listened through this you tube video where many of the questions regarding Steam direct were discussed,
just thought I might share it here in case anyone is interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPm4HsM-IUQ