Valve Announces Steam Greenlight: Steam Workshop for Indie Games to be sold on Steam

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balladofwindfishes

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VALVE ANNOUNCES STEAM GREENLIGHT
Enlisting Community to Help in Selecting New Titles

July 9, 2012 -- Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Steam Greenlight, a new platform feature that enlists the community's help in selecting some of the next games to be released on Steam.

Steam Greenlight will allow developers and publishers to post information and media about their game in an effort to convince the Community that their game should be released on Steam. Greenlight piggybacks on Steam Workshop's flexible system that organizes content and lets customers rate and leave feedback.

As well as serving as a clearing house for game submissions, Greenlight will provide an incredible level of added exposure for new games and an opportunity to connect directly with potential customers and fans.

"Making the call to publish or not publish a title isn't fun," said Anna Sweet, at Valve. "Many times opinions vary and our internal jury is hung on a decision. But with the introduction of the Steam Workshop we realized an opportunity to enlist the community's help as we review certain titles and, hopefully, increase the volume and quality of creative submissions."

Steam Greenlight will be released August 30.
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Link to the teaser site

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Good. Their original submission process drove me absolutely insane. This is an awesome way of doing things. Woo!
 
Seems like this should nicely solve some of the issues they have with approving games at least.
chubigans said:
Good. Their original submission process drove me absolutely insane. This is an awesome way of doing things. Woo!
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I imagine it's best to keep like before, except for cases that aren't blatant plagiarism they go here rather than just being fully rejected: see if the community actually considers it good enough to put up.
 
This is brilliant. Solving one of Steam's biggest failings in a democratic way.
I'll bet a lot of GAF's indie devs are happy.
 
About time. It's a shame that stuff like Pinball Arcade, Mutant Mudds, and Gunman Clive got rejected by Steam for no discernible reason. Hopefully Steam Greenlight can change that.
 
Should prevent indie games getting snubbed by Valve's previously quite fussy curators.

Only concern I see is the following
Are there any restrictions on what can be posted?
Your game must not contain offensive material or violate copyright or intellectual property rights.
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Offensive can be kinda vague. Hopefully it just boils down to things that incite hatred.
 
it better make sure that developers provide demo's otherwise games are just going to be fuelled by hype/PR with no proper indication of actual gameplay.
 
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.

Thank god. Steam opening up.
 
Potentially, the game has changed.

Fair play to Valve, they've taken on criticism most people had (their selection process is a bit suspect) and said "right then, YOU do it".
 
LastWindow said:
Yep, same with Oil Blue and Gunman Clive. So many games now have a much better chance and don't have to wait for good reviews and a lot of attention elsewhere.
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Wasn't Oil Blue made in Game Maker? I thought that was the reason Valve rejected the game. I doubt that they will change their policy regarding games made with that program.
 
wrowa said:
Wasn't Oil Blue made in Game Maker? I thought that was the reason Valve rejected the game. I doubt that they will change their policy regarding games made with that program.
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There are several games on Steam that have been created with Game Maker actually.
 
wrowa said:
Wasn't Oil Blue made in Game Maker? I thought that was the reason Valve rejected the game. I doubt that they will change their policy regarding games made with that program.
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Noitu Love 2 was made in Multimedia Fusion so I doubt that would make too much of an impact.

LumpOfCole said:
I wonder if free projects can be posted this way, like MLP Fighting is Magic?
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Out of the question. Copyright minefield.
 
So it's kind of like kickstarter but instead of giving money you give votes so they can be allowed to make money. Well this won't do much for me since I'm not a big indie game guy but I can see the potential of this.
 
This is great news. I really need to get back to work on my game. It sounds like a mix of Minecraft, Kickstarter, etc., but with free demos rather than financial backing. Though who knows, maybe they would add that too eventually. I just feel like it's better without it, as a platform to get votes for a game to be added to Steam.

I'm also hoping people don't upload malware to it and screw over a small segment of the population before they get caught.
 
Pai Pai Master said:
Cool, gonna vote for Half Life 3.
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And Battlefield 3
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Gonna be a haven for protesters now the L4D2 boycott group is old hat.

e. It'll be interesting to see if this is just for indies, and if it affects their royalty contract. Steam to my understanding has offered indies a greater royalty compared to major publishers. But if a THQ or someone wants to put their game on here maybe they can qualify for the indie distribution cut.
 
I don't trust the collective taste of Steam users, but I wasn't crazy about the small games that made it through the original submission process in the first place, so maybe this can be a step up.
 
End of August eh? I'll be looking forward to that. Hopefully en masse voting doesn't push terrible games to the forefront when they don't deserve it, much like all other online voting systems.
 
So between this and the Kickstarter campaigns, the shift in power away from the mega-publishers appears to be gaining speed!
 
Within 5 years we'll be able to make happy wishes upon shooting stars, and Steam will automatically pick up on them and make them come true.
 
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