Steam Greenlight: 1000 games and counting, more Greenlit every few weeks
- Thread starter MRORANGE
- Start date
Baron_Calamity
Member
I don't get how games that are years from being finished are green lite, some with weak polling number, and yet finished games from major developers with decent upvotes just languish.
The fact that there are face melting level awesome games like Escape Goat and La Mulana struggling in the lists means the system is a failure for the purpose of greenlighting the right games, meaning that I think lots of the games that missed the last selection deserved to be selected instead (sometimes letting popular opinion win alone is not enough when the vocal minority dominates)
2/30 current greenlight games have been released. Just shows you badly planned it is.
It would be a failure if they were a tool to make indie games more known ... but they are searching for more marketeable games and games that will likely sell more.
If you can't do the market for your game and people look at your game and don't want to buy ... than don't matter if you game is the best thing since Super Mario Bros.
I mean that I think 5,000 rabid fans from a single forum can skew the results of voting if those are the only people who are bothering to vote (or else why would a game like Slender get so many votes, same for some other PC style games) The console style games are at a disadvantage, as are anything that remotely looks like a mobile game. What is interesting is that Valve is releasing both anyway, even though those have poor performance in Greenlight you see games like Giana Sisters (platformer) or 7 Wonders (match-3) coming straight from traditional approval process.
Nabs
Member
We don't know that development of a PC port has even started. They could be using it as a way to see if it's even worth putting time into.
Sentenza
Member
I still think they should allow submissions just for titles ready to ship.
It would be better for everyone involved: developers who actually need to ship now wouldn't compete with hundreds of (potentially) very appealing but extremely incomplete concept products, people willing to dedicate their time to voting stuff on GL wouldn't be forced to browse through hundreds of new entries every week (sometime very hard to judge as very early in development) and so on.
They should definitely made some extra effort to promote the idea, then.
They are on Greenlight with just an iOS trailer and I can't say I noticed any attempt to talk about their game on dedicated PC gaming sites like RPS/Eurogamer/PC gamer or Youtube shows like Total Biscuit's one.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
I don't think you understand the process of releasing a game. Afterfall: Insanity is a completed game that has been released in retail. After being greenlit they are going through and adding in all the relevant Steamworks features for a singleplayer game. This process is taking them a little over a month.
Makes sense. I've seen a couple of games are releasing this month.
Fare Godmace
Member
Drakensang - The River of Time is now on Steam Greenlight.
The game is already available in the US store, so I guess dtp is trying to publish it in the rest of the world. But what is going on here? Why does it need to go through Greenlight if the game is already available for some people? Did Valve block the release in other markets?
The game is already available in the US store, so I guess dtp is trying to publish it in the rest of the world. But what is going on here? Why does it need to go through Greenlight if the game is already available for some people? Did Valve block the release in other markets?
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
They might be trying to gauge interest to see if they should bother localizing it.
Being on greenlight is also already cheap advertising in itself.
Wok
Member
BudokaiMR2
Member
I see a lot of comments about this, but I really think this is the absolute worst way to go about things in my opinion.
I am against the idea that devs need to drive outside traffic to their greenlight page. Yes of course that is important but there are a lot of pitfalls that people are missing when they say this.
For one you need to drive traffic of already registered Steam users in order for it to make any sort of a difference. They have a closed system in which only their paying customers can vote so it doesn't really follow logically that driving outside traffic will have a big effect. There are of course exceptions such as maybe advertising on a PC centric site like Rock Paper Shotgun or using synergy with a Kickstarter project as I believe there is overlap there.
I have personally handled a bunch of e-mails from La-Mulana fans who bought on WiiWare and want to help support the game getting on Steam. But they aren't Steam users so they have no say(people forget that yes Steam is big but it is still just a tiny fraction of the overall game market.) This could provide a nice large influx of votes for La-Mulana, but the system is closed so it isn't possible to make use of these interested gamers. Now I understand why the put the voting criteria in place and I don't think they should make it a free-for-all, but I do think that if they created a closed system based around voting then there is a responsibility to provide incentives and reasons for their users to participate.
I just see a large disconnect between making a completely closed system where only Steam customers can vote but then expecting the developers to provide outside traffic.
There is also the fact that no one can keep marketing at full capacity forever. It just is not possible unless you have bundles of cash as interest will fall off and consumers will forget. In my opinion that could be money better spent on marketing the product when it is actually available. I know it isn't a really popular position and most people will just reply with the likes of "damn indie amateurs expect to get rich overnight with no work" etc. but I think Steam needs to do something to drive interest in their own service.
Wok
Member
Another greenlit game released: Towns.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/221020/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/221020/
famousmortimer
Banned
Someone buy it and tell us all about it!
Before I do. :/
Before I do. :/
There's a demo on their website. Looks like it might be a beta/pre-release version.
http://www.townsgame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=5
Played the first two tutorials. Seems like it could be a huge time sink, but maybe a little too tedious.
http://www.townsgame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=5
Played the first two tutorials. Seems like it could be a huge time sink, but maybe a little too tedious.
I bought Towns on Desura ages ago and was playing it for a while, but have been distracted from it for the past few updates. It was a fun game when I played it, lots of options for building, sometimes difficult to get started and occasionally easy to die to invasions, but most maps are easy to start on, provided you manage your citizens correctly. Needed some work with animation when I played it as well, not sure if that's been fixed. Fun game nonetheless, especially if you like town simulations and micro-management with a pause button for when you're giving out commands.
Waiting to see if I get a Steam key for the game from my Desura purchase, otherwise I'll probably re-purchase the game for Steam.
Wok
Member
Even if they had finished it, presumably it would have been terrible, but thinking about losing everything on a project is a horrible thought. I'm always paranoid about making lots of backups of code, but I don't back up to external media as often I should.
I remembered what happened to a game I made (which was luckily already released at the time). My laptop died, AND my backup harddrive failed, so I had to pay hundreds of dollars to a recovery lab to salvage what they could and reverse-engineer what they couldn't.
From that point on, I signed up for a private git repo! Lesson learned: being a one-man band is no excuse for not having version control.
I Stalk Alone
Member
anyone checked out this game yet?
Mak pronounced "make"
The game has a mario galaxy look about it with the planetoids but the gameplay is very different the puzzles look very interesting. Graphically very cohesive and looks very well thought out. I think it needs to have more than three letters in its name which is th eonly thing bad about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsaJXGOI0BU&feature=plcp
Mak pronounced "make"
The game has a mario galaxy look about it with the planetoids but the gameplay is very different the puzzles look very interesting. Graphically very cohesive and looks very well thought out. I think it needs to have more than three letters in its name which is th eonly thing bad about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsaJXGOI0BU&feature=plcp
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Well, that's one way of how not to respond to criticism.
good on them for attempting to tackle the negative criticism, though.
I'm really hoping a few get approved, but sadly I think they'll be ignored again.
Go Shantae, Soulbinder, and Cloudbuilt.
While I won't be sad to see things like NeoTokyo get accepted, it just feels like a few titles mentioned were obvious shoe ins anyway.
Kingdom Rush is in the top 25 right now. If it doesn't make the November cut, it should make the next one (which is fine since the game isn't coming out anyway until next year)
Dawn of Fantasy is apparently at #2 right now. Nice to see something other than zombie games, shooters, or games in alpha get a shot.
And someone submitted Dragon's Lair, of all things. No idea if that's legit or not, seems like it might be. I don't how to feel about that. I remember playing that on a demo machine in a store when I was a kid, and I don't think I even managed to figure out the first QTE scene.
And someone submitted Dragon's Lair, of all things. No idea if that's legit or not, seems like it might be. I don't how to feel about that. I remember playing that on a demo machine in a store when I was a kid, and I don't think I even managed to figure out the first QTE scene.
HadesGigas
Member
Dragon's Lair is legit, Digital Leisure is the company that has ported it to every device in the last 5-10 years that connects to/has a screen.
This. I think it's been ported to about as many different machines as Doom.
Still a classic though. Wouldn't mind seeing that and their other stuff (Dragon's Lair II /Space Ace etc.) on Steam.
Wok
Member
When the BaB4 bundle is released, I highly suggest Quasir so that you can enjoy the game and upvote it on Greenlight.
Dog Problems
Banned
I really hope you're right about The Sea Will Claim Everything, Wok. It's become my personal game of the year and I think it deserves more exposure.
Wok
Member
I am not a native English-speaker. By "I expect", I mean "I would like to see" because the game deserves it. If not in the next batch, one of the following batches.
Alex Connolly
Member
Smugglers 5 is up on Greenlight. Well worth giving it the thumbs up.
microtubule
Member
I voted 150 times so far in Greenlight.
Anyone know if these two Pinball titles are going to get the green light anytime soon:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=93991209
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=95907686
Anyone know if these two Pinball titles are going to get the green light anytime soon:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=93991209
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=95907686
MrTroubleMaker
Member
I hope so. I voted for them too.
Valve really needs to take EVERYTHING that gets a good amount of votes. Far too many games are forced to go through Greenlight for any sort of top X approach to work, the number of GL games that should hit Steam rises faster than they are picked up. This is reaching NES/XBLA levels of insanity with the limited slots. As this goes on there will be tons of already outdated games coming to Steam because they've spent months after the release just waiting for approval.
Greenlight was supposed to detect games that have fallen through the cracks (after the whole Mutant Mudds thing where the game got rejected despite being fully worthy of being on Steam) but instead it has widened the cracks. It's getting harder to publish a game on Steam than at retail! This isn't healthy. When it's easier to get discs pressed, boxed, shipped and convince retailers with actual limited physical space to carry a game than to put it on a purely digital storefront something is seriously wrong.
Greenlight was supposed to detect games that have fallen through the cracks (after the whole Mutant Mudds thing where the game got rejected despite being fully worthy of being on Steam) but instead it has widened the cracks. It's getting harder to publish a game on Steam than at retail! This isn't healthy. When it's easier to get discs pressed, boxed, shipped and convince retailers with actual limited physical space to carry a game than to put it on a purely digital storefront something is seriously wrong.
Haunted
Member
It looks like they're trying to make the process completely automated - rank top 100 by votes, greenlight top 10 of those every month - almost no screening required.
I disagree with that approach. I think Greenlight needs more human eyes to approve games more rapidly based on a mixture of both the old process and user votes. Nothing's worse than seeing deserving, fully finished titles miss the cross-promotion opportunities of their launch window because they're stuck in Greenlight submission hell.
I disagree with that approach. I think Greenlight needs more human eyes to approve games more rapidly based on a mixture of both the old process and user votes. Nothing's worse than seeing deserving, fully finished titles miss the cross-promotion opportunities of their launch window because they're stuck in Greenlight submission hell.
Fare Godmace
Member
So GAF, Holy Avatar vs Maidens of the Dead is on Greenlight. It's a spin-off of the terrible mildly interesting Fire Emblem-like Grotesque Tactics.
I don't know exactly why, but I loved that game. This one looks way better visually and aims to be a more traditional RPG.
This is sad, but I really think this is now my most anticipated game of all Greenlight :/ What's wrong with me, lol.
EDIT: Was looking through my favorites, and it looks like No Time to Explain is in the top 10 atm.
I don't know exactly why, but I loved that game. This one looks way better visually and aims to be a more traditional RPG.
This is sad, but I really think this is now my most anticipated game of all Greenlight :/ What's wrong with me, lol.
EDIT: Was looking through my favorites, and it looks like No Time to Explain is in the top 10 atm.