Steam Greenlight Holds One Year Anniversary Sale

[Andy Chalk]

Steam Greenlight Holds One Year Anniversary Sale

Steam Greenlight is one year old and you know what that means: It's time for a sale!

It's been a full year since the Steam Greenlight program went live, according to the good folks at Valve, and while it seems to be going pretty well overall, there's still a lot left to do.

"Ultimately our goal is to have no bottlenecks at all between developers and consumers," Valve Big Kahuna Gabe Newell said. "As we move closer to that, launching Greenlight and evolving our backend toolset has helped us increase our publishing throughput, pushing the number of independent titles released in the last twelve months to equal the number of titles published from all other categories combined. We expect that number to grow dramatically as we continue to iterate upon our developer service features and seek more ways to improve Steam's value to the community."

But all that backend iterating is going to take awhile, so Valve's decided to do the next-best thing in the meantime: Steam sale! It's not the biggest Steam blowout ever but there are some very solid deals in there: Kentucky Route Zero is half-price, DLC Quest is 75 cents and if you dig point-and-click adventures, you absolutely cannot go wrong with Primordia for $3.40. Also on the bargoon block are Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, Anodyne, Organ Trail Director's Cut, DLC Quest, Divekick, Papers Please, Shelter and a pile of others - 50 titles in all.

The Steam Greenlight Anniversary Sale runs until 10 am PDT on September 2. Put your money in the slot at store.steampowered.com [http://store.steampowered.com/sale/greenlightsale].


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[Hazzard]

Yay! A whole year of Indies being thrown back and forth at Valve's pleasure in a ridiculous system that is even worse than what we had before!

 

[nadesico33]

Bleed is nice little massacore platformer-shooter which is worth the non-sale price.

 

[xedobubble]

Also on the bargoon block are

Small typo! Big savings! Lots of fun titles... No time to explain intrigues me but has a low metacritic score.

 

[Albino Boo]

Yay! A whole year of Indies being thrown back and forth at Valve's pleasure in a ridiculous system that is even worse than what we had before!

You seam to be under the impression that Valve has legal duty to be nice to indies. Valve does not have to do a damn thing that it does not want to. Appearing on Greenlight gives them far more exposure to these games than they would otherwise get. The Indies are getting far more than $100 worth of free advertising. The choice is their way or the highway. Valve, like any other business, is out to make a profit and thats it.

 

[Hazzard]

Yay! A whole year of Indies being thrown back and forth at Valve's pleasure in a ridiculous system that is even worse than what we had before!

You seam to be under the impression that Valve has legal duty to be nice to indies. Valve does not have to do a damn thing that it does not want to. Appearing on Greenlight gives them far more exposure to these games than they would otherwise get. The Indies are getting far more than $100 worth of free advertising. The choice is their way or the highway. Valve, like any other business, is out to make a profit and thats it.

The problem I have is that they claim to want to help the Indies and they are essentially playing with people's lives by having a terrible system. They don't seem to be that interested in fixing it either.
I don't think a year anniversary of Greenlight is something to celebrate though.

 

[Lucane]

Of course I just so happen to buy one of those games yesterday and then this happens.

I don't know anything about the bad side of greenlight like for search I guess but it's better than just being add into the general roster of games with nothing to help make it stand out at least right?

 

[Voulan]

Oh oh, Papers, Please is for sale! But it's only down by two dollars, so I think I'll wait for a better sale. I'm not interested in any other title.

 

[Albino Boo]

Yay! A whole year of Indies being thrown back and forth at Valve's pleasure in a ridiculous system that is even worse than what we had before!

You seam to be under the impression that Valve has legal duty to be nice to indies. Valve does not have to do a damn thing that it does not want to. Appearing on Greenlight gives them far more exposure to these games than they would otherwise get. The Indies are getting far more than $100 worth of free advertising. The choice is their way or the highway. Valve, like any other business, is out to make a profit and thats it.

The problem I have is that they claim to want to help the Indies and they are essentially playing with people's lives by having a terrible system. They don't seem to be that interested in fixing it either.
I don't think a year anniversary of Greenlight is something to celebrate though.

They want help indies as far as it makes them money and thats it. They are not going to give a AAA service for game that most likely won't get over 100000 sales. Indies don't get a free ride, they are business like any other. If they don't show a profit then no one wants to buy their game. Why would any business give $1000s of free advertising if not in hope of profit? What makes indie game developers any different from the millions of small business in the world, or do they people working at the local baker are just simply not cool enough to deserve special help. Perhaps they should all wear fedoras and shout that EA is evil every 5 seconds, then you might notice they exist.

 

[CBanana]

Greenlight is still a pretty system because it's a popularity contest rather than about a game's individual quality. There are lots of games that get through greenlight despite being unreleased with no indicator of quality like for example Yogventures:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92983551

There are also smaller games that are allowed to bypass Greenlight despite being obviously inferior such as War Z/Infestation: Survivor Stories with a Metacritic score of 20:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/226700/

I've heard the argument is that it's beacause War Z/Infestation: Survivor Stories has a publisher but suprisingly, it's not linked to having a publisher. There are established publisher's games that have still been put through greenlight:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/238240
http://store.steampowered.com/search/?publisher=Reverb%20Publishing&snr=1_5_9__408

Heck, there's also Valve saying that games in the Greenlight system can't bypass Greenlight by getting a publisher and making an example out of Paraneutical Activity regarding this policy. However, then they let Fist Puncher bypass Greenlight by getting the exact same publisher despite being in the Greenlight system:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124544-Valve-to-Indie-Devs-Dont-Use-Publishers-to-Bypass-Greenlight
http://youtu.be/VZj0r1FOq6g?t=11m33s
http://steamcommunity.com/app/238630/discussions/0/864970485883975398/

So Greenlight is bad because it prioritizes popularity over quality and the system used to bypass it is obtuse as well as inconsistent.

However, I'll say there are reasons Greenlight exists as it does now. Valve has confirmed that they do not have the resources, system or staff to put every quality indie game up on Steam so they need to filter things right now with what resources they currently have:

http://indiestatik.com/2013/07/21/valve-react-to-greenlight-criticism/

The 100 games they greenlit recently and the promises to speed things up does make the system less awful in the meantime. Also, Gabe Newell has agreed that Steam Greenlight is a bad system and hints at axing it in the future.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/09/valve-gabe-newell-steam-greenlight/

 

[SSJBlastoise]

No time to explain intrigues me but has a low metacritic score.

I'd say it's a fairly decent game. I've only played a little bit because other games came out after I bought it but I definitely think it's better than the 54 it has on metacritic. I'd say at $3.40 is a pretty decent price for it.

 

[kailus13]

No time to explain intrigues me but has a low metacritic score.

If it's any help, there's the original game available as a browser game. The paid version is more fleshed out.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/i_smell/no-time-to-explain

 

[Bug MuIdoon]

I've been waiting to get Kentucky Route Zero for ages, but found the £20 price tag a little high, 50% off is cool and all, but £10 is still a lot of dosh to pay. Has anyone played it, is it worth the cash or should I wait for a day when it's <£5?

 

[Hazzard]

Yay! A whole year of Indies being thrown back and forth at Valve's pleasure in a ridiculous system that is even worse than what we had before!

You seam to be under the impression that Valve has legal duty to be nice to indies. Valve does not have to do a damn thing that it does not want to. Appearing on Greenlight gives them far more exposure to these games than they would otherwise get. The Indies are getting far more than $100 worth of free advertising. The choice is their way or the highway. Valve, like any other business, is out to make a profit and thats it.

The problem I have is that they claim to want to help the Indies and they are essentially playing with people's lives by having a terrible system. They don't seem to be that interested in fixing it either.
I don't think a year anniversary of Greenlight is something to celebrate though.

They want help indies as far as it makes them money and thats it. They are not going to give a AAA service for game that most likely won't get over 100000 sales. Indies don't get a free ride, they are business like any other. If they don't show a profit then no one wants to buy their game. Why would any business give $1000s of free advertising if not in hope of profit? What makes indie game developers any different from the millions of small business in the world, or do they people working at the local baker are just simply not cool enough to deserve special help. Perhaps they should all wear fedoras and shout that EA is evil every 5 seconds, then you might notice they exist.

But they keep telling us they love Indies, but all they seem to do is mess-up Greenlight, it's in everyone's interests apart from the AAA publishers for Indies to do well, but Valve doesn't seem to have a clue what they are doing.

 

[Albino Boo]

Yay! A whole year of Indies being thrown back and forth at Valve's pleasure in a ridiculous system that is even worse than what we had before!

You seam to be under the impression that Valve has legal duty to be nice to indies. Valve does not have to do a damn thing that it does not want to. Appearing on Greenlight gives them far more exposure to these games than they would otherwise get. The Indies are getting far more than $100 worth of free advertising. The choice is their way or the highway. Valve, like any other business, is out to make a profit and thats it.

The problem I have is that they claim to want to help the Indies and they are essentially playing with people's lives by having a terrible system. They don't seem to be that interested in fixing it either.
I don't think a year anniversary of Greenlight is something to celebrate though.

They want help indies as far as it makes them money and thats it. They are not going to give a AAA service for game that most likely won't get over 100000 sales. Indies don't get a free ride, they are business like any other. If they don't show a profit then no one wants to buy their game. Why would any business give $1000s of free advertising if not in hope of profit? What makes indie game developers any different from the millions of small business in the world, or do they people working at the local baker are just simply not cool enough to deserve special help. Perhaps they should all wear fedoras and shout that EA is evil every 5 seconds, then you might notice they exist.

But they keep telling us they love Indies, but all they seem to do is mess-up Greenlight, it's in everyone's interests apart from the AAA publishers for Indies to do well, but Valve doesn't seem to have a clue what they are doing.

Indies can't have a AAA service on an indie budget. Valve are providing a service level at which they make money. They are not now, or ever, going to get Valve to make a loss on indies. Walk into any shop its the best selling and own brand items that are by the front door, because that is where they make the most money. If you making the equivalent of soya milk you going to find you self in the isle next to the bleach. Just because something is online the rules of retail don't change, the big margin items get the most space and the most attention. Valve are in it to make money not to provide a free marketing service to small low value products.

The more the indies whine about they are not getting what they want the more likely it is that Gabe will go sod you too, you guys don't make me enough money to be worth this hassle and just close the whole idea down.