Steam Greenlight

[Gringor]

His! Thanks man/woman. <3

Man!

[I_smell]

These developers had a game on Steam Greenlight, until Adult Swim contacted them saying "Sign with us, and we'll get you on Steam".

So they tied the knot with em, and then Valve's response was "No, there is no secret password, get back on Greenlight".

Oops.

 

 

The front couple minutes of this video explain it, and the back 15 minutes is a blind fit of white hot rage.

[Justin Leego]

Woah, that was a verbal blast and a half. Though they did say that they hadn't committed to the Adult Swim deal that they couldn't back out of, and are now directing people to thumb-up the Greenlight page.

 

The IndieStatik write-up isn't supportive of the Greenlight process at all. It even finishes by revealing something posted by a Steam representative on the private Greenlight forum. It reads as if its inclusion in the piece is some sort of revenge move for the way Paranautical Activity was handled. That can't be right, can it?

[Twig]

Yeah shit's fuckin' weird. The straight-up polar opposite of Gabe expressing wishes for a more open Steam platform followed by all these bizarre stories...

 

What the fuck are you doing, Valve?

 

When Greenlight started, with its flaws, I was like, "I'm optimistic, Valve usually fixes these sort of things as time goes on, and it's still pretty early." Welp.

[Joewintergreen]

Yeah, seriously. Also this LP'er guy, Northernlion, tweeted this: 

Anonymous dev just told me he was set to be in new HIB but the deal fell through when Valve wouldn't let it skip Greenlight to get on Steam

 

Like what the fuck, guys? 

 

Also, it turns out bitching about Greenlight on Twitter is a good way to get Greenlight votes. Who knew.

[TheLastBaron]

I decided to do some voting since I haven't done any in a really long time.  In my first 10 games I think 6 or 7 of them were Horror games.  I'm not really sure how I feel about it, but I voted them all down because I don't like horror games and I wouldn't buy them, but not because I thought they were bad games (some were, some seemed decent, some I didn't watch the whole video for).  If Amnesia was on Greenlight I would most likely down-vote it and that makes me feel kind of weird (I own Amnesia and am super glad it exists, but I will never play it.  The same is true for the Penumbra games.)  Do you guys vote strictly on whether you personally would buy/play the particular game, or do you more just vote based on if you think it should be a thing that's on Steam?

[Twig]

I upvote almost all simulation games because even though I won't play them I love the fact that they exist. I'm talking like the weird stuff beyond farming simulator. Like, say, if rickshaw simulator existed, I'd upvote that in a heartbeat. Also those weird things were you can disassemble an entire car or gun or whatever into all their component parts.

 

Basically, if it looks quality, and I want it to exist, I will vote yes, even if I won't actually end up playing it.

 

That said, there really are just a TON of horror games on Greenlight. It's absurd. Calm down guys. Your game probably isn't unique. Think of the horror children.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I upvote basically anything that 1) doesn't look sexist or 2) doesn't have an exploitative F2P business model based around sucking money from 'whales' and ruining their lives, so I end up upvoting basically everything.

[Twig]

I instantly downvote anything with awful art.

 

And I don't mean like, WIP art. I mean awful art.

[osmosisch]

I instantly downvote anything with awful art.

 

And I don't mean like, WIP art. I mean awful art.

i.e. no giant witch tits or amazon butts

[Joewintergreen]

I actually wrote a pog bloast recently that's partly about my experience with Greenlight so far. Nothing has changed since I wrote it, things are still stagnant. The game's #69 at the moment.

[Twig]

i.e. no giant witch tits or amazon butts

Instant upvote!

[Tanukitsune]

Deadly Premonition is on Steam Greenlight, if this doesn't get voted, I'll be a very sad man. 

[Dewar]

Goodbye Greenlight, Hello something that can't possibly be worse (but probably will find a way to be)

 

http://www.polygon.com/2017/2/10/14571438/steam-direct-greenlight-dumped

[Tanukitsune]

Everybody seems to be convinced it's going to be $5000 fee and freaking out, either way, I guess the 100$ Greenlight fee I payed is wasted since I doubt I can get it on Steam in time?

 

Imagine everything KS having to $5000 for Steam fees.... Ouch!

[sclpls]

I think the big question (besides the size of the fee) is what Valve means when they say it is a "recoupable fee". How and when that fee gets recovered matter a lot (and presumably there are conditions where the fee is non-recoverable?) in terms of whether this move is helpful or harmful for devs of modest means.

[Cbirdsong]

The most logical way seems like Valve not taking their cut of sales until the fee is repaid, but I can also see pitfalls in that approach.

[Dewar]

1 hour ago, Tanukitsune said:

Everybody seems to be convinced it's going to be $5000 fee and freaking out, either way, I guess the 100$ Greenlight fee I payed is wasted since I doubt I can get it on Steam in time?

 

Imagine everything KS having to $5000 for Steam fees.... Ouch!

 

I think Valve said it could be as high as $5000, so panic, but who knows how high it might be. My gut says that they're announcing something crazy to make the (still high) $1000 seem more palatable. 

 

They say it's going away in spring, so I guess you have a month or two?

[Problem Machine]

This seems very bad? Like I don't see any mechanism here at all to address free games, no new mechanisms for discovery/curation, just a bland assurance that charging people money will somehow help, even when it didn't with Greenlight. This just seems like a way to scam money out of small devs to me. For all the problems with Greenlight, the relationship between people saying "yes this game looks fun" and putting it on steam at least made sense: This is just going to turn the store into an exploitative clusterfuck.

 

Plus I don't even understand what's THAT bad about Greenlight. It feels like "Greenlight sucks" is an idea that has more memetic currency than real-world relevance at this point -- it's a clearly suboptimal solution, but it seems like one that should be improved upon rather than discarded.

[mikemariano]

8 hours ago, Problem Machine said:

For all the problems with Greenlight, the relationship between people saying "yes this game looks fun" and putting it on steam at least made sense: This is just going to turn the store into an exploitative clusterfuck.

 

Yes.

 

There was also a good series of tweets asking why Valve is forcing their indie crowd onto a business model that requires them to know they'll be financially successful up front when they aren't willing to do that anymore with their own products.  You take the risk, we take the money!

[Gormongous]

11 hours ago, Problem Machine said:

Plus I don't even understand what's THAT bad about Greenlight. It feels like "Greenlight sucks" is an idea that has more memetic currency than real-world relevance at this point -- it's a clearly suboptimal solution, but it seems like one that should be improved upon rather than discarded.

 

I mean, the reasons that Greenlight sucked were that it was hard to find and advocate for games, especially smaller games from relative unknowns. Removing the voting system and just making Steam a pay-to-play storefront is going to fix exactly zero things there. Steam needs active curation, executed by real people, or at least robust and thoroughly implemented tools to allow users to provide that curation to each other, but Valve is seemingly willing to move heaven and earth to vacate themselves of that responsibility.