Steam to abolish Greenlight in favor of a new developer approval system: Steam Direct

[aozgolo]

As per this article on RPS: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/02/10/valve-to-abolish-steam-greenlight-open-up-with-steam-direct/

It seems that Steam is doing away with it's often controversial Greenlight system, and going with one where developers pay a recoupable fee to Valve to submit a game for review, which if approved will be admitted to the platform's store. Depending on the standards set in place by Valve for this review process it's possible this could be a solution to the deluge of shovelware titles that has been plaguing Steam for awhile.

Your thoughts?

 

[Pyrian]

Sooo... What makes them think that NOW they can do single-handedly on a much larger scale, what they could not do before on a smaller scale? (Maybe they'll *gasp* hire some people? Hahahaha yeah right.)

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

it's possible this could be a solution to the deluge of shovelware titles that has been plaguing Steam for awhile.

Ahahahaha.

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAA.

I doubt that very, very VERY fucking much.

If they can't handle the flood from greenlight, I doubt they'll be able to review and vet the crap when it's no longer gated by greenlight and is a complete and utter avalanche of shit.

It's probably only going to get worse than it already is.

Hopefully they have something built in that will segregate the shovelware shitfest away from the devs that actually TRY, but I won't hold my breath.

 

[CaitSeith]

Seeing how bad the situation has become, it's still better than doing nothing.

Sooo... What makes them think that NOW they can do single-handedly on a much larger scale, what they could not do before on a smaller scale? (Maybe they'll *gasp* hire some people? Hahahaha yeah right.)

They aren't going to approve games, they are going to approve developers like if they were opening a bank account with them. Verified developers will be able to release games as they please.

 

[TrulyBritish]

Well, it's a start.
Hopefully this leads to some improvements on the Store.

 

[aozgolo]

it's possible this could be a solution to the deluge of shovelware titles that has been plaguing Steam for awhile.

Ahahahaha.

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAA.

I doubt that very, very VERY fucking much.

If they can't handle the flood from greenlight, I doubt they'll be able to review and vet the crap when it's no longer gated by greenlight and is a complete and utter avalanche of shit.

It's probably only going to get worse than it already is.

Hopefully they have something built in that will segregate the shovelware shitfest away from the devs that actually TRY, but I won't hold my breath.

It's simply too early to tell really, I mean we can all make predictions about whether this will turn out good or bad but without more info from Valve we are wandering in the dark a bit here. It could go either way though, a solution or it could just be opening the flood gates wider for more crap. It sounds like the motive though is to improve quality of games though by introducing a vetting process controlled by Valve.

 

[Bad Jim]

If they can't handle the flood from greenlight, I doubt they'll be able to review and vet the crap when it's no longer gated by greenlight and is a complete and utter avalanche of shit.

They can do it. For every game they review they'll either get a fee or a cut of it's sales, either way they'll have enough money to pay for the review process. Catch is that the review process will probably be about twenty minutes long, not long enough, for instance, to realize how shallow No Man's Sky is.

 

[Pyrian]

Frankly, I'll miss Greenlight. It didn't really make for much of a gate, ushering in joke game ideas right away, and the way Valve ran it almost everything got Greenlit sooner or later. But as a developer, just getting those ~1000 views, maybe 1% of whom would comment, for $100, was actually a really good value.

They aren't going to approve games, they are going to approve developers like if they were opening a bank account with them.

Hmm, the Escapist article speaks of reviewing games, but I see their sources do not. Speaking as a Greenlit developer, the developer verification process sounds suspiciously like what currently occurs after you've been Greenlit but before you can release the game. (And store pages have to be submitted for Valve's internal review as-is.)

My first interpretation of this news is basically "everybody counts as Greenlit, but there's a fee to release a game". And what does "recoupable" mean in this context? Is it 1-for-1? I.e., if you pay a (say) $1,000 fee, and then make $1,000 in sales, do you get your $1,000 back in addition to your cut of the $1,000 in sales?

They can do it.

Of course they can do it, but they can make games numbered 3. The question with Valve is frequently not one of "can they" but of "will they" given their internal structure?

 

[Bad Jim]

They can do it.

Of course they can do it, but they can make games numbered 3. The question with Valve is frequently not one of "can they" but of "will they" given their internal structure?

Well they did announce they would do it, and they said they wouldn't do Half Life 3. So that's a clue.

 

[Pyrian]

Well they did announce they would do it...

"It" in this case is, and I quote, "review and vet the crap", and they have announced nothing of the kind (the only thing they've announced is the sort of bank-account can-we-do-business-with-you verification that they already do). Indeed, the tone of the announcement is very much that they consider the problem with Greenlight to be that it doesn't allow enough in.

 

[Bad Jim]

Indeed, the tone of the announcement is very much that they consider the problem with Greenlight to be that it doesn't allow enough in.

Or they may actually want to keep the crap out but don't want to scare away small developers by making that intention clear. Or they may not want to openly admit that there is a ton of shit on Steam.

 

[Pyrian]

Or they may want to make Half-Life 3! =D This discussion has become circular in just three posts. I'm done with it.

 

[Laughing Man]

Well, it's a start.
Hopefully this leads to some improvements on the Store.

What makes you think that?

The old system has a crap form of quality control but at the very least it was a form of quality control. The developer stuck the game on Greenlight and then the public voted for it to get accepted on to Steam or not. The premise being that if it was shite the community would vote it down. Of course unscrupulous developers found a way to get round this and get shite games through the process anyway.

The new system removes the pathetic and meagre amount of QC given by the Greenlight voting system and pretty much stream lines the process. In effect pay Valve now and get your shit on Steam no questions asked. At no point has Valve said they will implement their own QC of games and if the cost of the new system is around the same as Greenlight then how is removing the only level of QC going to improve things at all?

The process should be the developer pays $5,000 (the max that Valve have suggested) and for this money the game gets vetted by Valve to ensure at least a passing level of original content, quality control and functional gameplay if it passes it gets stuck on the Steam store and the developer can then recoup the cost via sales. If it fails then Valve give the developer a report that allows them to work on improving the game which they can then resubmit free of charge.

Right from the word go you cut away the con artist asset flippers because none of them are going to pay the $5,000 because they know fine well that it will never get through. If they are stupid enough to try they get a report back and are then forced to work on improving the game, which then shows who is willing to support their title over the long term and once they get on to the store front they and we know that the game is of a decent enough quality that Valve have given it the rubber stamp and finally Valve's image improves because it final shows that they actually care about their customers, that they aren't just a bunch of money grubbing c*nts (and I am sorry that IS what valve has become) and the Steam Store page starts to look like a respectable store front rather than a portable toilet at a chilli eating rock festival.

Of course Valve could come round a lot of folks houses, kick their dog to death, fuck the house owners grandmother and then take a giant shit on the kitchen table and folk would still be out in the streets shouting about how amazing the company is so really why should Valve try and make things better?

 

[Jerast]

Or they may want to make Half-Life 3! =D This discussion has become circular in just three posts. I'm done with it.

K, I'm gonna have some lunch. Since you kept us in the loop I thought I'd keep you in the loop.


OT: As good of a thing as it was for sincere developers too many shitbags ruined a good thing for them. It wasn't just a minority, there was just way too much trash going up as opposed to actual games.

I want this walking simulator garbage to die.

 

[hermes]

We will have to wait and see how this new program ends up.

Getting rid of greenlight is a step in the right direction.

 

[veloper]

I like the principle of Greenlight, where if customers want the product displayed, it becomes available. In practice it doesn't work out, but I wonder if Greenlight couldn't be fixed somehow, instead of just scrapping it entirely.

I don't see how a less democratic gatekeeper is going to be a guarantee that the decent indie stuff gets through and the crap nobody wants doesn't.

 

[Zaltys]

Considering their past track record of approving trash and denying quality games because of 'outdated' graphics, this fills me with trepidation. I doubt that their standards have changed much since then.

 

[Nazulu]

All they need is human moderators, but they just refuse to do it unfortunately. I heard that's it's tricky to manage it and I wish I could find out why.

I don't believe this isn't going to stop many shit devs, even if the price is high, I'm sure most will find a way through. Greenlight isn't that bad when all things are considered, it's just there is no automated model that can stop every shit kicker.