Valve Announces Steam Greenlight

I highly doubt we will see anything as polished as Half Life, and Left 4 Dead took them about 4 years to finish from a counter strike mod. All of their games take just so much polish it's ridiculous. I'd imagine the end result is a bit of a charming little indie game

Hopefully we can also help keep games region lock

@TPoppaPuff: I agree. Of all the digital storefronts, Valve's cut is probably the smallest - and worth it to developers/publishers that don't have the crazy internet following that Mojang enjoys.

@MrSpoon said:

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.)

I wouldn't count Pyramid Head as a creepy raper guy. The act in SH2 was more about showing ruthlessness of this monster. It was presented as a screwed up situation that happened regardless of the genders of the monsters involved (ie, rape less about ~punishing a woman~ or showing it as ~just something that happens to girls~ and more about instilling fear/terror into the player and oh my god is that monster raping that leg monster whaddafudge is going ooooon) (which would later factor into a bunch of undertones/meanings but you don't find that out until later). More "This monster is raping another monster what is going on oh god what do I do" than "I have to protect my main character uguu~"

But I am not 100% sure what any of this has to do this indie thing. A game featuring rape/pedophilia is probably not going to be able to be voted into Steam any more than a game featuring homophobia/racism is, no matter how much the community likes it. And I don't think the majority of the white male gamer community will appreciate them anyway, because absolutely none of those topics are comfortable to play when they are handled well.

Awesome idea. Hopefully it wont get spammed by crappy projects...

Forced and Dream looks awesome though.