Valve to kill Steam Greenlight, replacing it with Steam Direct

[Jos]

Valve has announced it is ending the Steam Greenlight program, which let users vote on which games they thought should be sold on the popular digital distribution service. In its place the company is launching a new system called Steam Direct, which will give developers more straightforward access to the platform.

According to the announcement, Valve will ask new developers to complete a set of digital paperwork, personal or company verification, and tax documents similar to the process of applying for a bank account. Once set up, developers will pay a recoupable application fee for each new title they wish to distribute, which is intended to decrease the noise in the submission pipeline.

Valve still isn’t sure how much they’ll charge for Steam Direct, noting that developers they’ve spoken to have advocated for fees as low as $100 to as high as $5,000. The goal is to find a balance between allowing struggling but talented creators to launch great new games, while discouraging multiple launches of questionable quality.

Under the new system, games will be admitted directly onto the store, rather than requiring them to win upvotes from the community first as a sign that they’d sell well. The latter was the whole basis for Greenlight, but it proved troublesome in practice as developers could game the system by offering rewards for votes, resulting in a flood of crapware, shovelware and vaporware.

Valve will do a simple check to ensure that the game runs on the operating systems it says it does and that it is actually a game, but beyond that anyone that pays up the fee and fills up the paperwork would be able to get onto Steam. The company is still talking to independent developers to figure out all the details.

Steam Direct will launch sometime this spring.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/68125-valve-kill-steam-greenlight-replacing-steam-direct.html

 

[hahahanoobs]

Make it closer to $5000 PLEASE! Gamers are stupid and will buy anything, so the harder it is to keep the crap off of Steam, the better.

 

[oldikes]

Make it closer to $5000 PLEASE! Gamers are stupid and will buy anything, so the harder it is to keep the crap off of Steam, the better.

while this does slice off all the noise, it also slices off a very large amount of good indie devs....

 

[Cycloid Torus]

Does Steam do in depth review to keep malware out? I can see a game with a hidden trap - 'just part of the fun, boys'.

 

[Phr3d]

Agreed about $5000-ish, as the crapware made it near-impossible to find an Indie that -did- have a complete product.
Like nearly all things with rewards, ya' gotta pay-to-play, and Presuming that Steam uses the money to support your offering, that users can now Find your game, that it IS good, it will be a small investment against a -ahem- pleasant return
(spoken like a first-world HS drop-out, no doubt)

 

[Theinsanegamer]

"Under the new system, games will be admitted directly onto the store, rather than requiring them to win upvotes from the community first as a sign that they’d sell well. "

So, if valve sets a value low enough, this will deter absolutely nobody from spamming crap on steam. You know what would work a lot better? Manually vet each game before it gets on the platform. Even with massive upticks in game releases, this would be very doable.

As is typical, valve is half-assing their efforts. They dont want the shovel-ware to leave, because they make good money on it.

 

[Puiu]

"Under the new system, games will be admitted directly onto the store, rather than requiring them to win upvotes from the community first as a sign that they’d sell well. "

So, if valve sets a value low enough, this will deter absolutely nobody from spamming crap on steam. You know what would work a lot better? Manually vet each game before it gets on the platform. Even with massive upticks in game releases, this would be very doable.

As is typical, valve is half-assing their efforts. They dont want the shovel-ware to leave, because they make good money on it.

can it get any lower than it already is? people are just buying votes anyway or use fake accounts.

 

[Nero7]

This change is quite the disaster. The amount of crappy games on steam has never been a problem because crappy games get crappy reviews so the community sorts out the trash and if you just buy anything that has a neat looking concept art well then thats your issue.

For small games and greenlight was for small games this is a desaster. I can see how someone in the west can bring up 5000$ to brign his game to steam but south america or africa or parts of europe or parts of asia?

In today's age it is very easy for almost everyone to make a game and a good one at that. This paywall and lets face it its a Wall like you know to keep out "bad hombres", is gonna leave a lot of people out of steam.

Heck even I am thinking about making an interactive visual novel or something and put it on steam for a buck someday. But with a 5000$ entry fee forget it. But without steam you're even more irrelevant and you don't get any trafic at all.

 

[herpaderp]

^ Well then, good thing they didn't announce a $5000 entry fee huh.

 

[rcast]

I think this is a cop out by Valve, they don't want to put in any work to vet the games first. A move to become more profitable; following Google play and apple app store, perhaps?

 

[Odium]

5,000$ fee? This would be a disaster. And why do people complain about crap games? Don't you see the reviews? And even then you can always return your money, don't you?

 

[Someone8MyPosts]

It wasn't the quality of games that bothered me, but the actual onslaught of soft-porn and "daddy plays with kids" games that should never have been let onto Steam. Valve should be sued for that mess, even if they want to place the blame onto those who made the stuff.

 

[Nero7]

It wasn't the quality of games that bothered me, but the actual onslaught of soft-porn and "daddy plays with kids" games that should never have been let onto Steam. Valve should be sued for that mess, even if they want to place the blame onto those who made the stuff.

yeah the lack of moderation is disturbing. Sure there was the whole HATRED incident and I respect Valve for keeping the game, freedom and all. But things like you describe which are a serious crime world wide should get removed quickly and dealt with.

 

[Zeromus]

Please add RPGMaker tax, lmao