Valve Announces Steam Greenlight

@Brodehouse: Well Valve has a track record of not doing something until it's done right. Maybe you've never heard of valve time. And the community doesn't vote on what comes on on xbla. If the game looks like shit, it probably won't come out unless it has some ridiculous marketing campaign, but then, it wouldn't be an indie game right?

It's the same ides as you don't bet against nintendo. Some people just do things right the first time.

@Brodehouse said:

I love some of the blind enthusiasm. "Valve is doing it, it's awesome!" Way to go, supposedly critical audience.

Any time you go to XBL Indie section, the most popular games were always the most base, pandering shit. This has established pandering as a valid tactic to receiving a wide release. Get ready for Silver Dollar Games all up in your steam!

that's not what I see when I check most popular on XBLI. I see about equal parts weird junk and pretty awesome. I think that's why valve will take user input into account but it will only be part of the final selection. And they will obscure the numeric details of user input/votes so they can make final cuts relatively free of accusations of playing favorites or whatever. it could work.

Humble Bundles and the like maybe are getting big enough now for Valve to take notice.

AAAAAaaah yes. The joys of a platform with competing distribution channels.

Year of the Valve

Crowd source your mapmaking, crowd source your assets... what the hell, why not crowd source your approvals? Mark my words, one day we're going wake up and suddenly find out that we're all employees of the Valve megacorporation.

Unless... Unless we already are!

GET OUT OF MY HEAD, NEWELL!

This is pretty much a dream come true. I'm working on a commercial game myself, and other friends in the community have warned me of how hard it is to get a game on steam. Hopefully this eases the process. After all, who wouldn't want MORE games? As long as they're, y'know, good.

*Claps*

God I hope this doesnt mean the market place is over flowed with stupid flash games.

Relax guys, I'm pretty sure Valve still gets to decide things in the end; this is just a way for them to expand their "jury", so to speak. Valve gets sent hundreds of games per day and I'm pretty sure they can't play test every single one of them properly-- but this way they can see which, perhaps more obscure games, seem to interest the community the most. Also, indie developers get a bunch of play testers for free, which can only improve their final product and be a good thing for everyone in the end.
Now, of course this can all go sideways, but that only time will tell. For now, it looks promising.

@mosdl said:

Integrate it with Kickstarter...

Why there are indie games that do not use kickstarter or are you saying that only kickstarter indie games should be let on Steam?

@mosdl: Sounds great!

This is an excellent idea. An issue with indie developers is finding and contacting fans where using Twitter and your own hosted web server works but it is haphazard at best. If you put part of your beta up on Steam then a lot more people find it and can find you for feedback.

I hope is as efficient as it sounds.

I don't like this idea one bit. If anything this is going to limit what shows up in the store. Steam always seemed open to anyone who wanted to sell their game now it seems like they creating hurdles. Take Evochron Mercenary for instance, not many people care for space sims. You really think a lot of people will spend the hours needed to learn it and figure the game out? No, they won't and after 5 minutes they will turn it off and either not vote for it or down vote it (if it is possible and because people are assholes). So what happens now? Well they move on over to Terraria and play that for 2 minutes and then vote that up. So we have Terraria and possibly no Evochron.

I don't really know. This just doesn't sit right with me for some reason.

@Brodehouse: I'm not going to say that Steam is full of the connoisseurs of gaming. Not at all, but compared to the people on XBL? Pretty close. Steam users are used to (generally) pretty fair quality. XBLI is sort of a freefall shitfest and that's all it has ever been. There was never really a baseline.

I'm not gonna say you're wrong, cause you may be right, but I have a feeling it'll fair a little better at the very least.

Very cool. From Kickstarter to Greenlight to Steam, we can pretty much support the project all the way through.

@xbob42 said:

@Brodehouse: I'm not going to say that Steam is full of the connoisseurs of gaming.

What if I'm a connoisseur of really bad games? What if I just want a bunch of bad games to antagonistically gift to people on my friends list?

They really, really need to be careful with this. 
 
 I do not want to play only the most-voted-for-on-social-networks video games. 

@Bunny_Fire said:

@mosdl said:

Integrate it with Kickstarter...

Why there are indie games that do not use kickstarter or are you saying that only kickstarter indie games should be let on Steam?

I meant if game gets funded on Kickstarter, it should appear as a choice perhaps.

this is mostly for indie games. their are way to Manny for valve to look at by them self's.

Seems like a decent idea, a lot of people (myself included) know nothing about most indie games until they show up on Steam or XBLA.

I don't expect I'll spend a lot of time playing unfinished games, but I could see myself dabbling now and then and giving the occasional thumbs up. I'd have to be in a pretty vindictive mood to give a negative response, knowing it could influence whether someone's game gets released on Steam or not.

And Amber Sweet is addicted to the kni... O wait, it says Anna... Well shi. -end joke about cult classic play that probably only a handful of us have ever seen-

The only issue I see is that there will be a game that get's 'green lighted' by the community but never comes around. And there's always the issue with Steam tweaking the system in favor of one game or another. Let's be entirely honest here, Valve have been dicks both in the past and present about what gets a game on or off their store and I'm not talking about the whole EA debacle. Games from FarCry 2 to Super Meat Boy, from Eve Online to Section 8... All games that are currently on Steam but were either originally denied or were taken off for a week here or there due to problems with Steam's 'Quality Assurance Program' that classified them as 'underwhelming' or 'non-suited for the Steam service'

I do think this is a step in the right direction, but I do worry that Valve will let their egos get the best of them once again and manage to screw it all up and people will get pissed. Which they'll then easily fix by leaking releasing news of Half-Life 3 a new game again for the first time!

meh. the only thing valve could announce to heighten my interest involves crowbars and antlions

/sounding like a broken record

It's just another step in Newell's nefarious master-plan to rule the world

Well now this means La-Mulana will definitely be released on Steam too now instead of just Playism.

So where do I check the box for Half-Life 3, or some new information about Half-Life 3? I'll also settle for the vaguest hint that Half-Life 3 is still a thing that exists.

I love you, Valve, but seriously. That's the only box I want to check.

Seems like a good idea to me.

Let the pros handle it?! Yeah, I'm in!

"With great power comes great responsibility."

Hopefully the community makes this feature rather than break it.

Need to get Thomas Was Alone onto steam. Minecraft is an obvious choise, but they've probably declined a steam release at this point, for whatever reason. Also: does anyone know the name of the insurance company that currently holds the rights to System Shock 2?

I think this is a very good idea but I'd like to see how the actual voting would work. Like someone already mentioned, imagine all those 'COD boys' having a say in which games to be released and which game to deny.

@Xymox said:

Need to get Thomas Was Alone onto steam. Minecraft is an obvious choise, but they've probably declined a steam release at this point, for whatever reason. Also: does anyone know the name of the insurance company that currently holds the rights to System Shock 2?

Notch doesn't want Minecraft on Steam for some reason. And I am sure if Notch wanted it on Steam he would have no problem getting it on.

Way to go Valve. Great news for indie developers.

This sounds like it could be potentially great. I'm always down for more awesome indie games.

This why Valve are amazing. Now only if they could get Half Life 3 out

sounds great, in theory...

Sounds like a really interesting concept, I'll be interested to see how it plays out

Sounds like a pretty cool idea.

@Ace829 said:

Looks like Revelations 2012 will be the last game of it's kind now that this is a thing.

we can only hope

@Moncole: I believe the reason for no minecraft on steam is related to how the verification and update process works - Minecraft is so big that trying to migrate the current account system onto Steam would involve too much work - and Notch/Mojang would probably rather spend that time on new projects than fixing something that already works.

Such a brilliant idea, especially as both Valve and us gamers get what we want!

@BambamCZ said:

@Ace829 said:

Looks like Revelations 2012 will be the last game of it's kind now that this is a thing.

we can only hope

Possibly not- cause the theory going around is that the only reason Revelations got onto steam in the first place was that it used the Source engine/Valve was paid or something like that.

If Greenlight had already been in effect when Revelations 2012 was on the way- I have a feeling it would've been given a free pass.

Regardless- only time will tell exactly how much the Greenlight system really changes Valve's process- since Valve gets the final word on everything voted on.

@Vexxan: It looks more like it simply shows games with a big following, as opposed to a competition between games for limited release slots.

For games that are known quantities, like an AAA release, the big publishers generally have carte blanche, as they know the audience is there, and that their game will meet certain standards of quality.

What this means, is fans of a niche indie title can get behind a project and tell Valve that there are enough people willing to buy it, should it get a steam release - as Valve has said, many games don't get the attention they deserve simply because they either dont impress their small approval team (but may impress a lot of us on the internet, who might have different interests) or that they just dont have time to look at every game submitted.

Great.

While a tool like this is probably useful for any company even if only to gauge interest, with Valve having the final say, I can't help feeling that that if too much emphasis or reliance is placed on plebians to decide on releases it would be detrimental to the industry, especially for more controversial or niche titles. Look at how much of a Steam success Binding of Isaac was, and imagine if those with objections hijacked this process.

Maybe interactive mediums where the player isn't just passive and can better infer or conclude for themselves could handle rape/paedophile stories better than a book or a Jodie Foster or Kevin Bacon film, but would you (and your online ID) express a prior interest? Last time I caught Weekend confirmed, I believe Garnett Lee suggested the recent Lara Croft thing was a U-Turn due to public outcry rather than correcting a mistaken quote and I'm inclined to agree, Jeff also said something about the cliched face-licking creep seen in films but the only game I can think of with a rapist, two if you count Pyramid Head, is Silent Hill 2 (not that you could or should compare it to the above films.)

@Corvak said:

@Moncole: I believe the reason for no minecraft on steam is related to how the verification and update process works - Minecraft is so big that trying to migrate the current account system onto Steam would involve too much work - and Notch/Mojang would probably rather spend that time on new projects than fixing something that already works.

That, and he probably doesn't want to needlessly fritter away profit he can make by adhering to Steam's update policy and give them a cut of money he was going to make anyway. He's done just fine on his own and managed to not have to give Valve a chunk of the profit.

Valve is heroic!

However, people are not. This will either be amazing or terrible.. I see no grey-zone.

A thousand playtesters cried out in anguish at the loss of their jobs

*intake of breath* SPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKYSPELUNKY