Steam Greenlight to shut down in spring, replaced by Steam Direct

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Evolution of Metal said:
What about people who are actually interested in exploring upcoming games but don't want to dig through a load of asset flips and generally shit games?

What about aspiring developers who worked their asses off to build something good, but instead they get thrown in the same platform as garbage iOS ports and asset-flips. It is much harder for them to get discovered.
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Why do you think "good" aspiring developers would pay the fee but asset flippers wouldn't?

If anything I'd expect this to favor business oriented shops rather than small, independent small teams.
 
I really don't understand how people use steam for them to see the release of bad games on it as a problem worth putting that king of financial barrier to every small dev out there. I wouldn't know about 'shit games' without actively looking for them.
 
Garrett Hawke said:
I still think the solution to the "problem" of bloat ware isn't to shut the gates, its better curation.

I just don't understand how anyone is inconvenienced by shitty games existing. Don't buy them, and they sure as hell are not going to be pushed on you by a rec system unless people are trolling and rating it higher.
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That is a fine idea. But in practice, curation isn't going to get better and as a customer of Steam, my enjoyment of Steam is lessened because I'm having to filter through a thousand mobile ports to find what I'm looking for.

I call bullshit to those of you who balk at a 5k fee. Indie developers who have spent their lives building something they believe in wouldn't hesitate at a 5k fee to realize their dreams. Do you think Team Meat spent less than 5k to get Super Meat Boy on Xbox Live? What about Phil Fish or Jonothon Blow? You think they didn't spend at least 5k to make their games?

For indie developers with an actual gameplan, business model, and vision it only helps them, because now they don't have to fight for space and attention from a billion little projects. It helps the consumers actually find quality indie games without having to filter out all that noise that comes with the wild west that Steam Greenlight is now.
 
Ionic said:
I understand you're one of the people most familiar with how cards work on this whole forum (and that's an understatement). But trading cards are ultimately such a miniscule feature for consumers. People should be buying games for games. The reason a lot of these straight garbage games go anywhere is because people buy them for cards. Get rid of that immediate incentive and the garbage doesn't get purchased, but eventually the good games get cards.
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I agree with this. If you aren't going to curate then you need to take things away until the good stuff rises to the top.
 
astrogamer said:
This doesn't really solve the big problem with greenlight which was that no names devs are flooded out by asset flips and unfinished games.
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That doesn't appear to be a problem that Valve is even trying to solve. At least with Steam Direct, sincere indie efforts can be sold alongside the asset flip garbage, whereas in Greenlight, many sincere indie games never even make it to the store, while asset flip garbage does. So it is an improvement, and probably the best improvement we'll get considering Valve apparently sees no problem with people selling asset flips.

Knurek said:
I still think $1000 if not more is the best idea.
If you have a good game on your hand and don't have the money for Steam, get a publisher. I'm sure guys like Devolver or Adult Swim will be happy to get a deal with you.
If you don't have a good game, why are you trying to release it on Steam?
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Wow, who knew it was so easy to get a publisher? Hell, let's just get rid of Steam Direct. Adult Swim and Devolver will publish every single good game, everyone.
 
Eh... using money as a barrier and gate keeper for quality isn't going to work out as well as some people think. There are plenty of publishers who will be able to pay the fee and submit piles of shit.
 
Nanashrew said:
I feel like actual curation is needed. An entry fee will not ensure more quality games make it and keeping the bad seeds out. It could very well keep the good games out too, and sometimes it's the bad seeds that actually have the money to burn.

The fee could hurt indies a great deal depending on the price. And worst case scenario is a resurgence in requiring game publishers just to make it on to Steam.
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They have curation, what do you think the discovery 1.0 and 2.0 were for?
Or do you want them to manually approve games they think are good so that stuff like stardew valley wouldn't get in (Because according to them they wouldn't have approved it as they didn't think it had an audience).
 
Stumpokapow said:
I think th issue with $1000 is not so much that people should be releasing games where they expect the lifetime revenue won't recoup the fee, but rather the issue of how to come up with $1,000 upfront.
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Exactly, people forget that many indie devs are from third world counries and coming up with that much money can be difficult.
I think that if the fee is too high, it will only encourage smaller indie devs to stick to itch.io for their small projects. In many ways itch.io is a lot more flexible for developers than Steam. Humble is also a good option, specially because they are going to become a game publisher soon.
 
Garrett Hawke said:
It'll be infinitely harder to discover their games if they're not on steam at all.
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That doesn't answer the question. You are ignoring the obvious fact that many titles on Steam Greenlight are just shit clones, asset-flips or iOS ports.

Massa said:
Why do you think "good" aspiring developers would pay the fee but asset flippers wouldn't?

If anything I'd expect this to favor business oriented shops rather than small, independent small teams.
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Because most good indie developers work for a long time and polish their product. They don't rely on quantity but quality to make money. Asset flips and similar "bad" games rely on quantity to push cards.

Perhaps the fee is not the best solution, but Steam platform should not accept everyone wishing to submit random quality games. Either it needs to have a heavy curation or the barrier of entry.
 
jred250 said:
That is a fine idea. But in practice, curation isn't going to get better and as a customer of Steam, my enjoyment of Steam is lessened because I'm having to filter through a thousand mobile ports to find what I'm looking for.

I call bullshit to those of you who balk at a 5k fee. Indie developers who have spent their lives building something they believe in wouldn't hesitate at a 5k fee to realize their dreams. Do you think Team Meat spent less than 5k to get Super Meat Boy on Xbox Live? What about Phil Fish or Jonothon Blow? You think they didn't spend at least 5k to make their games?

For indie developers with an actual gameplan, business model, and vision it only helps them, because now they don't have to fight for space and attention from a billion little projects. It helps the consumers actually find quality indie games without having to filter out all that noise that comes with the wild west that Steam Greenlight is now.
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Why are you pretending that indie developers are weirdly all or nothing and willing to gamble $5k on a chance of success?

Indie developers are students. Indie developers are people who work 9-5 and come home in the evening to make games. Indie developers are normal people, they're not all 1) financially stable 2) willing to sacrifice that much money for something tiny.

$5k is a lot of money to some people.
 
the fee should be "regionally priced" too because i cannot imagine the currency exchange for some countries. how will valve do that? finally they have at least a speck of a human touch in approving these games?
 
RyanPierre said:
Wow, who knew it was so easy to get a publisher? Hell, let's just get rid of Steam Direct. Adult Swim and Devolver will publish every single good game, everyone.
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Why do you think a game bad enough to not get a publisher (and there are some shit publishers on Steam already) should get a pass and be released on Steam?

If your tomatoes are rotten, you shouldn't whine that Wallmart doesn't want to sell them.
 
jred250 said:
That is a fine idea. But in practice, curation isn't going to get better and as a customer of Steam, my enjoyment of Steam is lessened because I'm having to filter through a thousand mobile ports to find what I'm looking for.

I call bullshit to those of you who balk at a 5k fee. Indie developers who have spent their lives building something they believe in wouldn't hesitate at a 5k fee to realize their dreams. Do you think Team Meat spent less than 5k to get Super Meat Boy on Xbox Live? What about Phil Fish or Jonothon Blow? You think they didn't spend at least 5k to make their games?

For indie developers with an actual gameplan, business model, and vision it only helps them, because now they don't have to fight for space and attention from a billion little projects. It helps the consumers actually find quality indie games without having to filter out all that noise that comes with the wild west that Steam Greenlight is now.
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You're right, loved those examples from Canadians and Americans from middle class that have a car, a house and ways to easily get 5k. Only devs that are at least at that economic situation are "true" devs and should have the opportunity to follow their dreams. Those of you wanting a lower entry should be ashamed of yourselves!
 
I mean, this sounds similar to the appstore in some ways and asset flippers and trash make it on there all the time. I have no idea why some would think they'd suddenly disappear. Slight reduction in noise maybe, but they'll find a way back.
 
Knurek said:
Why do you think a game bad enough to not get a publisher (and there are some shit publishers on Steam already) should get a pass and be released on Steam?

If your tomatoes are rotten, you shouldn't whine that Wallmart doesn't want to sell them.
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LMAO if you think that all it takes to get a publisher is having a good game.

J e s u s.
Evolution of Metal said:
That doesn't answer the question. You are ignoring the obvious fact that many titles on Steam Greenlight are just shit clones, asset-flips or iOS ports.
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You asked me "what about the people who get drowned in the noise" and my answer was "get people to curate the noise", not "stop those people from climbing into the noise to drown in the first place".
 
I can see some scumbag setting up a vulture publishing company that treats these indie devs like young Mowtown singers.
This is going to be abused.
 
Ionic said:
I understand you're one of the people most familiar with how cards work on this whole forum (and that's an understatement). But trading cards are ultimately such a miniscule feature for consumers. People should be buying games for games. The reason a lot of these straight garbage games go anywhere is because people buy them for cards. Get rid of that immediate incentive and the garbage doesn't get purchased, but eventually the good games get cards.
Click to expand...

I agree that Valve should do something about developers abusing Steam for trading card revenue. But there are a ton of small niche indie games on Steam that aren't scams where their fanbase legitimately wants to have those game's characters displayed on their Steam profile. What you're proposing would not only cut off or curtail a potential revenue stream for developers (and Valve), but would also deny those customers the ability to "show off" their new favorite game on their profile until it reaches some arbitrary sales number that it might never reach.

Instead, Valve should be attempting to police these sorts of actions (scams) on the part of developers and prevent them from publishing further titles - similar to what they've done recently with review scams.
 
I don't know much about how Greenlight works as I'm not a PC gamer, but I think a set fee is wrong. If anything it should be an amount depending on the circumstances and decided on a case by case basis (location, team size, income/savings, how much the game will cost, microtransactions, etc). I think charging a team of 20 selling their game $30 each $5k to publish the same amount as a 1 man team selling their game for $5 is a bit ridiculous.
 
jred250 said:
That is a fine idea. But in practice, curation isn't going to get better and as a customer of Steam, my enjoyment of Steam is lessened because I'm having to filter through a thousand mobile ports to find what I'm looking for.

I call bullshit to those of you who balk at a 5k fee. Indie developers who have spent their lives building something they believe in wouldn't hesitate at a 5k fee to realize their dreams. Do you think Team Meat spent less than 5k to get Super Meat Boy on Xbox Live? What about Phil Fish or Jonothon Blow? You think they didn't spend at least 5k to make their games?

For indie developers with an actual gameplan, business model, and vision it only helps them, because now they don't have to fight for space and attention from a billion little projects. It helps the consumers actually find quality indie games without having to filter out all that noise that comes with the wild west that Steam Greenlight is now.
Click to expand...

Maybe don't speak for those indie devs and think that they would be okay with it.
 
Garrett Hawke said:
LMAO if you think that all it takes to get a publisher is having a good game.

J e s u s.
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Is somebody standing behind you with a gun and saying if you don't get on Steam in the next few weeks, you will get shot?
Having your game on Steam isn't a human right. Never was, and it bloody well shouldn't be.
 
Garrett Hawke said:
LMAO if you think that all it takes to get a publisher is having a good game.

J e s u s.
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steam's a true meritocracy baby~

lol

Really though, can you imagine a dev like Artdink or something not making it onto Steam despite sitting on PC ports of their games?
 
Chris1 said:
I don't know much about how Greenlight works as I'm not a PC gamer, but I think a set fee is wrong. If anything it should be an amount depending on the circumstances and decided on a case by case basis (location, team size, income/savings, how much the game will cost, microtransactions, etc). I think charging a team of 20 selling their game $30 each $5k to publish the same amount as a 1 man team selling their game for $5 is a bit ridiculous.
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If I know Valve, they are going to look for a balance that seeks to compromise with everyone without the need for them to have someone making decisions. So while it would be great if this were considered on a case-by-case basis, the implementation of your suggestion would, in reality, lead to larger studios in the US claiming to be a 1 man team from Africa in order to get around paying such a large entry fee.
 
Knurek said:
Is somebody standing behind you with a gun and saying if you don't get on Steam in the next few weeks, you will get shot?
Having your game on Steam isn't a human right. Never was, and it bloody well shouldn't be.
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Why even have Steam Direct? Games with publishers aren't going to go through it anyhow and only games with publishers are worth anything.
 
$500-300 sounds like a good entry fee to me

Chris1 said:
I don't know much about how Greenlight works as I'm not a PC gamer, but I think a set fee is wrong. If anything it should be an amount depending on the circumstances and decided on a case by case basis (location, team size, income/savings, how much the game will cost, microtransactions, etc). I think charging a team of 20 selling their game $30 each $5k to publish the same amount as a 1 man team selling their game for $5 is a bit ridiculous.
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Valve wants to make the whole thing automatic, case by case basis is not gonna happen.
 
If your game is good quality and you have a good pitch you can easily kickstart/go fund me/etc to get whatever cost is needed to get your game on steam, especially if you have a finished game that people can demo the first level/15 minutes before backing on kickstarter.
 
People over Groupees chat are starting to mourn the death of the Greenlight bundles. Actually, many indie bundles sites featured games on Steam Greenlight since its creation. I guess that's over now.
 
Garrett Hawke said:
You asked me "what about the people who get drowned in the noise" and my answer was "get people to curate the noise", not "stop those people from climbing into the noise to drown in the first place".
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Valve is hands-off as far as curation goes. Leaving the curation to a community is going to lead to the same thing which we have now: popularity contests and even shameful promotions like giving away game keys or other initiatives for votes. Also, someone has to voluntarily play "bad" games to evaluate them.

I am not aware of who should curate greenlight in order for it to work as a platform for filtering bad content from good.
 
Hmm...

I say that if you're going to have a fee, keep it low. $100-250.

Then again, I'm one of those guys who doesn't think it is too big of an issue on the platform and that people should use their damn brains to sort out what is trash and what isn't. Not to mention the safety net refund system.

I don't think a big barrier for smaller developers leads to anything positive here. They have enough on their hands attempting to get eyes on their offering.
 
Nzyme32 said:
In what way?
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The ultimate complain Tim has on Ms is that he feels Ms is using uwp to lock developers to pay them to use their tools and to publish Windows apps and games.

Valve is just a store here and not the os, but this is essentially using their almost monopoly to close the walls of an at the moment open platform to the devs they select and under a fee.
 
OmegaX said:
People over Groupees chat are starting to mourn the death of the Greenlight bundles. Actually, many indie bundles sites featured games on Steam Greenlight since its creation. I guess that's over now.
Click to expand...

I see no reason to believe this is anything other than great for customers and developers in the "build a greenlight" type Groupees bundles. As a customer, you get a Steam key for your game right away (because it's already on Steam) and as a developer you get the funding you need to make sure you can pay the amount Valve is asking. Seems like a win/win.

Evolution of Metal said:
I am not aware of who should curate greenlight in order for it to work as a platform for filtering bad content from good.
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Now that refunds and Steam reviews are a thing, Valve is expecting the customers to be in charge of that.
 
sbkodama said:
A fee for each game as low as $100 to as high as $5,000 ?
You already take 30% on everything, no thank.
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The fee is recoverable, so presumably it would be returned as a credit to Valve's 30% cut until the entire amount is reimbursed.
 
I feel these are important posts from Andrew Dice

https://twitter.com/SpaceDrakeCF/status/830134635015217153
So.

A $5,000 fee would have made it very difficult for us to put Recettear on Steam w/o significant debt risk back in the day.
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https://twitter.com/SpaceDrakeCF/status/830135011525341184
$200, however, is going to see Steam flooded with so much copytight-infringing shovelware that it will make Valve's heads spin.
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https://twitter.com/SpaceDrakeCF/status/830135737056006144
The fee is a bad idea for any number of reasons - disproportionately burdening small, new/young, resource-strapped devs being the biggest.
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https://twitter.com/SpaceDrakeCF/status/830136891156504576
It will, meanwhile, be no deterrent to shovelware developers & IP infringers - even at 5K they'll happily flood Valve's submission process.
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https://twitter.com/SpaceDrakeCF/status/830137502027522048
And they'll flood it in such volume that Valve's won't be able to catch everything.
Click to expand...
 
LukasTaves said:
The ultimate complain Tim has on Ms is that he feels Ms is using uwp to lock developers to pay them to use their tools and to publish Windows apps and games.

Valve is just a store here and not the os, but this is essentially using their almost monopoly to close the walls of an at the moment open platform to the devs they select and under a fee.
Click to expand...

1566.gif
 
LukasTaves said:
The ultimate complain Tim has on Ms is that he feels Ms is using uwp to lock developers to pay them to use their tools and to publish Windows apps and games.

Valve is just a store here and not the os, but this is essentially using their almost monopoly to close the walls of an at the moment open platform to the devs they select and under a fee.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how you can make that kind equivalence.

For a start, being on Steam does not force you to use steam features, steamworks or even restrict you to a single store or platform. A fee to gain entry for store is not something new and is commonplace. Valve's old Greenlight fee of $100 was one that went straight to charity (Child's Play if I recall correctly), and this fee is recoupable instead.

On the topic of Sweeney, I'm not sure if you've followed the scope of his comments. UWP is a problem for reducing interoperability and a framework that is opposed to Win32 "openness" or having a more well defined mandate for openness and not being locked down in future (something he still claims MS CEO hasn't done to give certainty). The myriad of reasons he goes through do not relate to singles stores in open competition with each other, but rather a singular platform defined store for which OS features are put behind favouring them alone.
 
Polioliolio said:
Why does it need to be pay to play (application fee)
Why can't they just judge the games by briefly playing them and knowing they're not asset flip pieces of shit, and then proudly host them on their floundering marketplace?
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Floundering? You sure?

Anyway, they tried that and it didn't work. Also, Valve wants the Steam store mostly automated, meaning they don't want to hire a bunch of people to decide what the customers want to play.

I really don't know how you stop people from buying shit games. I mean, I'm not that smart, but i've managed to avoid regretful purchases over the 12 years I've used Steam. All the info is right there in front of your face. Most of the games Jim Sterling talks about, I have NEVER even seen. Like ever.

A modest fee to get on the Steam store is there to weed out the bullshit entries that are only there for the yucks. Its proven to work, but needs to be a bit higher than $100.
 
jred250 said:
If you don't believe that your game can generate a meager 5k in profits then you need to stay off of steam and release it independently.
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Are you an indie developer yourself or are you just talking out of your ass? It's amazing how easy people think stuff is when they will never have to do it themselves.
 
jshackles said:
I see no reason to believe this is anything other than great for customers and developers in the "build a greenlight" type Groupees bundles. As a customer, you get a Steam key for your game right away (because it's already on Steam) and as a developer you get the funding you need to make sure you can pay the amount Valve is asking. Seems like a win/win.
Click to expand...

Sure, if your game actually gets on Steam with your own money. The point of the Greenlight bundles was more to get votes than to get sales because they sold for so low that I imagine each dev got pennies from each sale.
IMO, the fee should be as low as $100 if you are an independent developer and as high as $5000 if you are a publisher. Also, the sale price of the game should be taken into account.
 
jred250 said:
That is a fine idea. But in practice, curation isn't going to get better and as a customer of Steam, my enjoyment of Steam is lessened because I'm having to filter through a thousand mobile ports to find what I'm looking for.

I call bullshit to those of you who balk at a 5k fee. Indie developers who have spent their lives building something they believe in wouldn't hesitate at a 5k fee to realize their dreams. Do you think Team Meat spent less than 5k to get Super Meat Boy on Xbox Live? What about Phil Fish or Jonothon Blow? You think they didn't spend at least 5k to make their games?

For indie developers with an actual gameplan, business model, and vision it only helps them, because now they don't have to fight for space and attention from a billion little projects. It helps the consumers actually find quality indie games without having to filter out all that noise that comes with the wild west that Steam Greenlight is now.
Click to expand...
Why are you filtering through thousands of games? I probably follow indie games closer than most and I have never had to do that. Steam curates your personal page very well, and 99% of quality games rise to the Popular New Releases.

And yeah, that 5K fee is high. For example, the dev costs of Gunpoints was $30. 5K is like half of Sethian's crowdfunded budget.
 
LukasTaves said:
The ultimate complain Tim has on Ms is that he feels Ms is using uwp to lock developers to pay them to use their tools and to publish Windows apps and games.

Valve is just a store here and not the os, but this is essentially using their almost monopoly to close the walls of an at the moment open platform to the devs they select and under a fee.
Click to expand...

First of all, that's not Tim's argument. Tim's argument is that MS is using UWP to create a tier outside the existing Win32 ecosystem that everyone else in PC digital is using, to both drive Win10 usage and to coerce app development towards a more locked down format that directly benefits various Microsoft businesses (Win10 store, Xbox, Surface, phone) at the expense of the current marketplace.

Secondly, by any objective measure Steam Direct is more open than Greenlight. Greenlight already required a fee alongside a counter-intuitive popularity contest that had unintended side effects (e.g. developers promising keys for upvotes that could be reneged upon). Removing a clause that was inherently beneficial to those with enough financial backing to either give away keys in exchange for votes, or with enough marketing to coast through Greenlight, opens the platform more.
 
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