Steam Green Light

shoptroll wrote:

Good changes. Isn't $100 the same fee to get into the App Store or XBLIG?

XNA and the App store developer account each cost $100/year.

So Greenlight $100 a game that goes to charity.

or XNA and App store that charge $100 a year that goes to MS or Apple. Also Apple and MS do provide a lot of support to devs so it is actually worth it, but yeah, it's an equitable cost.

The response to the $100 has been surprisingly negative. I understand that $100 isn't nothing, but I don't think it's in anyway unreasonable to expect someone to spend $100 on the the possibility of securing distribution. At this point it seems clear that the cream will rise to the top- but that's only clear now because they're so much out there that's easy to pass over.

On the other hand, it's not something for nothing. Getting on steam will likely more than compensate for that $100 pledge to show you're serious. I could see it'll be a little tough for a 'bedroom programmer', but any effort that I could call 'commercial development' that's serious about things $100 shouldn't be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

It's also not as though the $100 is set in stone, just as greenlight has been adjusted now, it can be adjusted in future. Perhaps this pledge amount could be adjusted to let different audiences in when there's 'space'. Right now I don't think having thousands or tens of thousands of non-serious submissions helps anyone.

With the new 'Queue' system (including a 'next item' button after you've voted), and clarified vote mechanics, I find myself really enjoying voting on these games. I think I'll make this a daily thing. Go through a queue per day maybe.

shoptroll wrote:

Good changes. Isn't $100 the same fee to get into the App Store or XBLIG?

Yes but there you don't get approved or rejected by a committee of the internet's worst

demonbox wrote:

The response to the $100 has been surprisingly negative. I understand that $100 isn't nothing, but I don't think it's in anyway unreasonable to expect someone to spend $100 on the the possibility of securing distribution. At this point it seems clear that the cream will rise to the top- but that's only clear now because they're so much out there that's easy to pass over.

That's my take on it. Kuchera posted another one of his unfortunately increasing "I know what's wrong with the industry and have all the answers but will not actually offer any" posts on Penny Arcade Report where he basically rips Valve, calling the fee "exclusionary and wrong". He completely ignores the fees for other "indie friendly" platforms that others have already talked about of course. He also says that if the fee was $5, it would still eliminate the trolling which I think is incredibly naive. Internet trolls have no problem spending a bit of money to get a stupid laugh at the expense of others but most won't go as far as $100. I think charging $100 and having a slim chance of your good indie game being found and recognised is far better than charging nothing and having all the good games buried by a sea of trolls.

I hope Valve can ultimately figure out a solution to this that doesn't involve charging money but I've no doubt that much discussion was had internally (including with their in-house economist) about what the fee should be. They're pioneering a new idea with Greenlight and had to do something immediately to stop ts getting ruined by Internet stupidity. It would be nice if it could be given a chance to work or not before press start calling it wrong.

One thing Valve has clarified is that the $100 fee is a one-time thing, basically upgrading your Steam account to developer status.

Valve wrote:

To get started, you'll need to pay a one-time submission fee to grant your Steam account access to post and update games within Greenlight. All proceeds from this fee (minus taxes) will be donated directly to Child's Play, a charity dedicated to improving the lives of children in over 70 hospitals worldwide.

This one-time fee will grant your Steam account access to post and update as many of your games as you like within Greenlight.

Also, Dajobaan Games is offering a $100 loan for an indie developer to get on Greenlight, and calling on other established developers to offer the same. Between one thing and another, this is not looking to be a serious problem at all.

Tannhauser wrote:

Also, Dajobaan Games is offering a $100 loan for an indie developer to get on Greenlight, and calling on other established developers to offer the same. Between one thing and another, this is not looking to be a serious problem at all.

That sounds like a good thing, because it could work as a kind of mentoring system and another filter.

Tannhauser wrote:

Also, Dajobaan Games is offering a $100 loan for an indie developer to get on Greenlight, and calling on other established developers to offer the same. Between one thing and another, this is not looking to be a serious problem at all.

Very classy. That's like a targetted version of the "Indie Fund" that a bunch of people created a couple years back.

At first blush I will say it has brought about a fairly decent change to Greenlight. The quality of the games I see there are way higher, and there are way fewer of them. When I first tried using it, it was just a mess. Overall the system makes sense. Also from what I see the 100$ is a once per studio. Really I can't see the complaints about this, steam was never gonna be an indie freeware mecca. Voted for two games so far, fun fun.

I'm arrogant because I see people who agree with me and think this is a more mature discussion. That doesn't change my thought, this does feel more mature than what I'm seeing over Twitter, but I admit that it's at least arrogance in that it feeds into how I already view this situation.

That aside, it's surprising to see how many people on my Twitter feed are arguing that this $100 is a goal that will keep indies in obscurity. Firstly, above all shouldn't indies be steadfast in Valve not being their only option? Secondly, I know there are people who don't have a lot of money- who really, really don't have a lot of money. But for the clear goal of $100 I believe it's a very small % who couldn't obtain $100. Even if it's to get a second job for 1-2 weeks and then quit, I simply don't believe this is unattainable. I'm not in that situation (not that I'm Scrooge McDuck-ing it) so it's easy for me to say what other people can do- that doesn't change my actual position though, that this is attainable. Money doesn't always feed art and it often isn't a motivation. That doesn't mean that being willing to sacrifice some scratch for what you do shouldn't be part of the expectation.

Also, if it's a real issue than start a "game company" of you and 10 other devs- $10 dollars each. You can each release your own games under the same game studio name and can always buy the individual rights for your game back for $10 at a later date if you so choose.

demonbox wrote:

Firstly, above all shouldn't indies be steadfast in Valve not being their only option?

I think this is a good point. I know valve/steam is currently the biggest PC store around, but with indie being 'independent' it would seem to me an opportunity for such developers to make use of that status and put pressure on other DD stores, or do something themselves. I know greenlight is about getting on steam, but this gripe about the $100 hurdle seems to me like they really are dependent, and aren't willing or don't care to do anything about that.

For me it comes back to how developers would complain about not getting picked, or stonewalled by valve's selection team, and also the DRM debate about steam being a big point of failure. Right now there's little effort to come up with an alternative method to steam.

Frankly its about time Steam did that. At one point I had over 400 things to sort through and 90% of them were total crap. For someone who is planning to sell something a 100 dollar one time fee is not high. Even if you are just one guy who built this game at home on the cheep you should be able to scrape together 100 bucks to sell your product.

I argue its just as good for me (the guy who will approve \ disprove your game) as it is for the developer. With a small serious list your game will get more attention and I can spend more time looking at your project. I am a much more likely to give your project the time of day if I only have say 20-50 games to look at rather than say 600. If I just spent the last hour reporting 100 games for violating rules by the time I get to your one serious project I am NOT going to be in the right mood.

I know some folks feel Valve should be uber giving here but I disagree. It really is better for everyone if the only projects we can review are serious and those that are submitting have cash invested already. They are more likely to spend more time prepairing the presentation and give me the best possible view of their product. It really is a win\win

Didn't realize Black Mesa Source was up there.

And didn't realize I was double posting.

I know mods can be big things to host, but I think valve really needs something like workshop for mods, but separate from greenlight.

Scratched wrote:

I know mods can be big things to host, but I think valve really needs something like workshop for mods, but separate from greenlight.

I thought that Valve did have a system in place to distribute popular full mods like Black Mesa before.

I know that many of the major HL1 mods were distributed through the steam for free. I'm actually surprised that they haven't extended the Workshop for HL2 yet.

Just to bring in the other side of the argument here:

I wrote a thing yesterday about why I think the $100 fee is bad for Steam.

Jonas Kyratzes wrote a much longer, better, more personal thing today from the point of view of a Greek dev who actually has a stake in getting on the store.

There's some HL2 mods (those with 'free' in the price category), but I think those ones have set an expectation that any mod should be able to get on steam. Workshop seems to be a way to say "through steam" for 3rd party content that modifies an existing game, but without valve blessing it in the same way that a game that progresses through greenlight to the store.

edit: Actually Valve used to have a service like this, for the pre-steam WON version of HL1, you would send them a zip of the mod and they would host it, and then if someone wanted it would download within HL.

As a counterpoint to your argument:

Switchbreak wrote:

If you build a system where the only type of game that can get through is the type of game that is so confident of being received well by Steam’s perceived audience that gambling away $100 on that isn’t a risk, then you’re building a self-perpetuating echo chamber. If you build a system that only cares about people for whom $100 is a trivial amount of money, then don’t be surprised when you look around and only see one type of person submitting one type of game with one point of view.

If you've built a game that can't develop a mass of supporters [em]outside[/em] of Steam sufficient to make the $100 bet a non-issue, you shouldn't be making the bet at all. If you haven't built a game yet, you shouldn't be making the bet at all. Greenlight isn't an appropriate place for "I've got this idea, see", it's a place for "I have a game, and it's either done or it's close enough that I've been showing it to people and they're really excited about it. I'm going to be selling it soon (or I'm already selling it), and the place I would like to be selling it is Steam."

This does raise the question of "Why do I need to get people interested in my game before I submit it to Greenlight—which is what I was planning to do to get people interested in my game?" And the answer to that is: That's not what Greenlight is for.

Kyratzes's points are better. It's true that $100 is a monumental amount of money for a lot of people in the world. But if you can't get 10 people from the Internet to pitch in $10 in support of getting up on Greenlight, are you really in a position to expect your game to be voted for by a ton of people on Greenlight to raise it to Valve's attention, and then actually accepted by Valve?

Does it suck to be dependent on the patronage of strangers to promote your game? Sure, maybe. Does it suck that unlike you, J. Random Richguy can throw his crap up on Greenlight without having that stress? Yeah. But if you build something cool, you will find that patronage, and people will vote for your stuff on Greenlight. And J. Random's sh*tty game won't get votes no matter how much money he throws at the problem.

(Also: What's stopping folks from forming a collective to submit a bunch of games together? That entry barrier only needs to be passed once. Heck, if the collective is careful about what they submit, they might even develop a reputation of "I should take a serious look at anything submitted by AwesomeIndieFolks, because the stuff they submit is always pretty great.")

Oh weird, Hypatian made another post that's much better than anything I would write.

While I know steam has a lot of eyeballs, something else I'd wonder about is if the only way you can get enough eyeballs to be viable is through steam, then something is probably wrong. If you absolutely couldn't make your project work on another service or selling direct, then you've placed a critical part of the success of your project outside your control, have crap planning skills or like gambling.

This seems like a mirror to the other end of the games industry where the big AAA publishers are distancing themselves from steam partially because they don't want to build that single point of failure, that they're in dire straits if steam doesn't accept them.

Solution: a kickstarter to raise the $100 fee.

Joking aside, I tend to agree that, while Valve obviously needs a method for preventing trolls/spam/ideas from showing up on Greenlight, the $100 fee is not the wisest way to go about it. Either drastically reduce the fee or ditch the fee entirely and find an alternate solution.

I have to say I really like the "generate 12 games" to rate option. Far less overwhelming (and vaguely addictive).

Now if only they could add a button to let me automatically thumbs-down all Tower Defence games...

Hypatian wrote:

Greenlight isn't an appropriate place for "I've got this idea, see", it's a place for "I have a game, and it's either done or it's close enough that I've been showing it to people and they're really excited about it. I'm going to be selling it soon (or I'm already selling it), and the place I would like to be selling it is Steam."

That's not what I'm advocating, though. I'd like it if Greenlight required a playable demo to post at all. The game I brought up in that post is in fact already released to critical acclaim. I've played it and it's a great game. It absolutely should be on Steam, and a system that makes that sort of game harder to approve makes Steam worse for missing out.

Hypatian wrote:

And the answer to that is: That's not what Greenlight is for.

Valve would disagree with that.

Hypatian wrote:

Kyratzes's points are better. It's true that $100 is a monumental amount of money for a lot of people in the world. But if you can't get 10 people from the Internet to pitch in $10 in support of getting up on Greenlight, are you really in a position to expect your game to be voted for by a ton of people on Greenlight to raise it to Valve's attention, and then actually accepted by Valve?

I think he would rather spend the money the internet is willing to pitch in for him on living than on something as monumentally unsure as Greenlight has turned out to be.

Hypatian wrote:

(Also: What's stopping folks from forming a collective to submit a bunch of games together? That entry barrier only needs to be passed once. Heck, if the collective is careful about what they submit, they might even develop a reputation of "I should take a serious look at anything submitted by AwesomeIndieFolks, because the stuff they submit is always pretty great.")

I have actually seen some people planning this. I think the fact that they need to is a failure on Valve's part.

stevenmack wrote:

Now if only they could add a button to let me automatically thumbs-down all Tower Defence games...

+1,000,000!

Every time I think I found one that will make me like the genre, it just makes it grow less and less appealing before the end.

OK, I think this looks cool. It's called Recruits and looks like Alien Swarm but with marines in jungle environment. I'd play it. I sank 40 hours into alien swarm and this looks better.

The problem I'm having is remaining impartial when voting. I see a game called ZED - Absolution that is a top down zombie shooter that looks super generic and my first thought is: "Pffthhhhht, thumbs down". But then I look down and the author is well spoken, engaging with the community and generally being a wonderful human being, and I can't make myself hit the thumbs down button.

Take solace in the fact that your thumbs down doesn't directly hurt him, you've just squandered the opportunity to help.

Switch, really enjoyed reading your post (as well as the article you linked). I was hungering for a reasoned difference of opinion so I appreciate you sharing both.
Before I write anything further I should be clear- I’m arrogant. I try not to be and sometimes I’m not, but sometimes I’m arrogant. As such I’m going to attempt to talk to you about what I think your post completely misses- the main problem I have is that your post doesn’t address my direct concern. There it is, as mentioned, I’m arrogant.

I don’t see the $100 as overly exclusionary because I view this as a reasonable business cost. We are talking about people who have ware, both hard and soft, that cost more than a $100 combined. This isn’t to suggest that this means they are loaded or that $100 isn’t substantial- it can be and for many will be, we agree on this. However, $100 is not an unreasonable investment for current and future distribution potential.

You write:

Switchbreak wrote:

The worst thing about this whole controversy is the army of people it has brought out of the woodwork to spout this nonsense. If you honestly cannot imagine a life where you can’t throw away $100 on a chance, or can imagine that but cannot imagine that person ever making something worthwhile, then you need to know that you sound like an a.....e.

There’s two fundamental errors in this way of thinking, I believe. Firstly, if an indie designer is gambling on Greenlight in order to continue doing what they want to- there are some critical issues. Seeking distribution and appealing to an audience should not be a “gamble,” instead it should be a consideration throughout the process. It doesn’t even have to be a driving force- but you shouldn’t be making this move as a gamble. Secondly, who has said that it is entitled to view a $100 gamble as untenable? Last time I gamble I lost $12- I still mourn that loss. I know I haven’t suggested it is ok to gamble $100, and I haven’t seen other say this either. The arguments have ranged from it being a reasonable gatekeeper fee to it being a reasonable expected business expense for seeking distribution (which is my stance). I’m not sure if A) I’m so arrogant that I’ve missed others dismissing concerns actually considering this to be a reasonable “gamble” B) you’re minimizing the actually held concerns in order to reduce it to a feckless argument or C) you simply disagree that there is a difference between business expense and gambling.

Just my thoughts- hope I didn’t state them in a way unbefitting an intellectual disagreement.

Hypatian wrote:

(Also: What's stopping folks from forming a collective to submit a bunch of games together? That entry barrier only needs to be passed once. Heck, if the collective is careful about what they submit, they might even develop a reputation of "I should take a serious look at anything submitted by AwesomeIndieFolks, because the stuff they submit is always pretty great.")

I'm not upset that you stole my idea. I'm upset that you stole an idea less than 10 posts ahead of yours. Your skim is filthy.