Thoughts on death of Steam Greenlight?

[Sleepy]

Recently, Steam made the motion to kill Greenlight and replace it with Steam Direct, so instead of players voting on which games should appear on Steam developers will have to pay a fee to get on. I was wondering, given how many VN devs rely on greenlight or make it a part of their kickstarts, what were people's thoughts on it?

On one hand, I can see why Steam wants to implement more controls. They get dozens of new games at a time and voting for an unfinished game isn't exactly a standard for quality. On the other, considering Steam's ballpark range for possible fees was listed as between $100-$5000, it's hard not a be a little bit worried, especially when you take into account things like conversion fees.

[Zelan]

I think it depends a lot on the exact amount, for one thing. $100 doesn't seem too bad (although like you said that could be killer for some other currency rates), but even that is another hurdle to overcome. $5000 is just ridiculous. If a team is running a Kickstarter, that's already $5000 that might need to be raised just to get the game on a popular platform. (At that point it'd probably be a stretch goal instead of part of the initial funding goal.)

If Steam actually goes that high, I think it's possible that people will start to shift over to other platforms like itch.io. I'm no economist and I haven't done a survey of VN devs or anything, but if developers can't afford that fee they're going to look for cheaper alternatives.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I don't think the $5000 fee will happen. It is just the upper limit of the range Valve threw out to spark discussion, and since that discussion on every gaming outlet and from every indie developer has been "$5000 dollars?! WTF Valve. Are you smoking crack?" they aren't likely to go with an amount that high.

On, the whole, I'm cautiously optimistic for the change. $100 is obliviously too low - it let a lot of creators just shovel crap onto Greenlight repeatedly. I mean, too many young kids ponied up that much repeatedly to put their first practice games on Steam. I'd like to see a little curation of their store from Valve again. I'm not looking for them to censor or act as a gatekeeper for content or genre, but there is a need for them to make sure a game works, it isn't broken, etc.

Valve is doing this because they are aware they've created a situation on Steam that could cause a marketplace crash - they did like Atari did in the early 1980s and just let anyone who would pay them release whatever trash they wanted on their platform. Quick history lesson on how that worked out for Atari - no one could trust that the video games they could buy would be good, so people stopped buying games, and everything imploded and the American video game industry died a grisly death. (An American video game industry wouldn't really return until nearly 20 years later with Microsoft releasing the Xbox.) I'm not suggesting the PC game market would die - but Steam very well could crash and burn. Nintendo put those "Nintendo Seal of Quality" stickers on their NES games for a REASON. "Hey, we've personally verified this is a quality game. It may not be great, but it is competent and works."

Valve desperately needs quality control back on Steam and to stem the tide of releases. I mean, almost HALF the games EVER released on Steam were released last year. And the service has been around for 12 years. With Greenlight, Valve transformed Steam from a high-end retail store to a flea market, where anyone could sell crap out of their trunk if they greased the gatekeeper's palm.

It might be worth it to pay MORE to get on Steam, if Steam were once again a guaranteed massive boost to sales like it once was for a title. In 2016, nearly 4 games a day were released on Steam. There are 8 slots on the New Releases front page. That means you get 48 hours for someone to notice your game now before it vanishes into the sewage ocean of Steam's thousands of other titles. You know, if you're lucky. It might just show up for a few HOURS if the releases are numerous on the day you release. Compare that to 2012, where only 1 game was released a day. All those hundreds of thousands of eyeballs logging into Steam were guaranteed to see your game, and it would sit in the New Releases section for a week or more, so even if a user only pulled Steam up on the weekends, they would see your game.

Dumping Greenlight is necessary for Steam's survival and for customers to continue to trust they can easily find quality content on it.

[Amecha]

I basically agree with every LateWhiteRabbit said. Browsing Steam is a slog of mostly unremarkable trash, barely playable alpha that almost never get finished and what feels like a bunch of kid's first attempt at a game. Its exhausting as a buyer and terrible for Steam, tightening up the requirements and forcing developers to put their money where their game is beneficial in a lot of ways. Heck, any one of us could make a VN for Nintendo, its actually surprisingly easy to become an indie developer for Nintendo, there is just the money catch that keeps most people out and that really does nothing but help the developers that do make games for Nintendo and Nintendo themselves.

[wyverngem]

Greenlight acted as a popularity contest and the fee was 100 dollars. I'm kind of glad they're doing a way with it.

[Zetsubou]

I'm curious about what this will mean for free games.
I can understand the logic behind paying a fee and earning it back through sales, but if it's just a promotional or totally free game to begin with, is that money gone for good?
Free games obviously aren't Valve's primary concern, and clearly aren't going to make them much money, but it would still be a shame to see them blocked by a big paywall.

For now I'll remain cautiously optimistic and hope that Steam Direct does kill off the trash without putting off aspiring indies. Even so, that won't stop me from trying to push out a couple of games before the change

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I'm curious about what this will mean for free games.
I can understand the logic behind paying a fee and earning it back through sales, but if it's just a promotional or totally free game to begin with, is that money gone for good?
Free games obviously aren't Valve's primary concern, and clearly aren't going to make them much money, but it would still be a shame to see them blocked by a big paywall.

Probably does mean the end of free games that don't have a monetizing element. But I'd say - just charge for your game. Doesn't have to be much. Besides, charging for your game is more effective at getting people to play it than giving it away for free. I learned during my studies for my business degree that the best way to move merchandise is not to give it away - it's to charge ANYTHING for it. (Human psychology and people are weird.)

[Imperf3kt]

In some cases, charging for your game is not an option depending on the licenses of the assets you've chosen to use.
Charging 99 cents for a game that uses content that disallows commercial use, is going to land a lot of people in hot water.

I've been slowly working on my own project and throughout the entire time, I've been tossing up between "sell it" and "don't sell it, it's free"

Because I was undecided, I haven't yet used any assets that disallow commercial use, but I did stockpile a great deal of them, which now must be disregarded if I wish to place my game on steam once it is completed.

[trooper6]

I've read (on Eurogamer maybe? Maybe RockPaperShotgun) that Steam Direct doesn't mean more curation, but less. The Valve rep says that what they need is not quality control, because quality is subjective, but better search algorithms so that you can find more games that are like the games you like.

I don't know what will happen. We'll see?

[Sleepy]

I've read (on Eurogamer maybe? Maybe RockPaperShotgun) that Steam Direct doesn't mean more curation, but less. The Valve rep says that what they need is not quality control, because quality is subjective, but better search algorithms so that you can find more games that are like the games you like.

I don't know what will happen. We'll see?

That's one thing I'd be concerned about. Since it's no secret that shovelware on Steam is a thing (as LateWhiteRabbit summed up), but it's hard to say how well Steam Direct would work towards ensuring better content than replacing a popularity contest with whoever can afford to chuck their game up. A paywall will probably snip off some of the shovelware but a lack of actual curation still doesn't stop someone from putting out an unfinished product if they really want to. However, with how many games are on steam now, it's unsurprising Valve can't try implementing an actual committee for reviewing and processing games, since that was part of why Greenlight became a thing in the first place.

[Mammon]

As someone who does browse Steam a lot for free games, this does sound bad. Most Free to play games are already crappy Pay2Win games (and those aren't going to be stopped by such a paywall) while there were some pretty interesting free indie games including VNs I never saw around here will no doubt disappear in the future. With their insuperior free games sections, I'm already forced to look through Steam's all releases for those smaller games as it is.

However, if I look at some of the games of amateur level that are being released on Steam these days, the kind that you'd expect on browser game sites or around here, I can't disagree with changing the system either. The current quality check is indeed lacking. However the paywall thing is going to do little to stop the more commercial yet crappy P2W games and the unoriginal or downright shoddy bèta's around there. A better quality check would be preferred over it. My hopes would be for one of the following:

-Steam separation sections. The new games are in one section of Steam and the better games in another. There's already a veil of 'popular releases' separating the two, but it's not that effective against bad high-production games. If Steam were to create three sections <Top-tier><Good><All> and create a system where anything wanting to go from All to Good would have to abide to three factors rather than just the paywall one; The paywall (acceptable because the costs for <All> are still affordable for us), a minimum amount of downloads, a minimum rating or amount of positive recommendations. That way crappier games can still get on Steam but the big names like CoD, Resident Evil etc. will still be on the FrontPage and the good games will be able to distinguish themselves from the crappy ones.

-Reliable reviewers. Unlikely because this will take a lot of manhours and trust from Steam rather than patching their system, but if there are people with a 'reviewer' title recommending the games rather than doing it automatically and through the masses, there could be a much better system of seeing whether the game is actually okay. The games will go into Greenlight, and won't come out until enough (3?) of these credited reviewers will deem it good enough, and shall be removed when there are too many negative reviews by these reviewers. Of course this causes the problems of how to get enough of these reviewers and how to make sure they're reliable. I'd say have a few staff ones, and have them look through the reviews of some games for reviewers that give reliable and harsh enough recommendations. Problem is checking whether these people will do as they're supposed to, how to make such freelancers reach a quota or to prevent having too many, whether these people are only reviewing specific games (like VNs) and the possible bribes. And if there are actually enough people enthusiastic enough to do this without pay. (maybe give these credited reviewers the possibility to play games in Greenlight for free, that might urge people to review more honest critique for such a title.)

-Don't do anything at all, and the indie games will go to other platforms. If only this happened a few years ago it could've saved Desura. R.I.P. Desura... Certainly the cheapest and easiest way.

[Scribbles]

Makes me nervous, I wanted to release on Steam and now I have no idea if I will be able to or not (depends on the fee) they take that couple hundred/thousand, but then also a cut of your game, and don't really advertise it or anything. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I've seen some... questionable games on steam greenlight, but I thought they always got voted down? I always saw VNs get voted through. it wouldn't be so bad if the fee came out of the cut that they make from your game, so it's sort of paid back to you as/if your game sells.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I've read (on Eurogamer maybe? Maybe RockPaperShotgun) that Steam Direct doesn't mean more curation, but less. The Valve rep says that what they need is not quality control, because quality is subjective, but better search algorithms so that you can find more games that are like the games you like.

Steam Direct IS introducing quality control - it is just the barest minimum, lazy quality control. Valve will now check to make sure a game runs, works, and actually includes an executable file before allowing it to be released on Steam. Yeah, they've released Steam games that literally DO NOT work under the old system. So ... progress?

However, with how many games are on steam now, it's unsurprising Valve can't try implementing an actual committee for reviewing and processing games, since that was part of why Greenlight became a thing in the first place.

I actually disagree that Valve can't curate all the games coming onto Steam. It isn't some impossibly huge task like Valve wants to paint it, even if they had to check every game put on Greenlight every day - which averages around 50 games per day thrown up on Greenlight. Let's say TWICE that number of games applied to be on Steam a day. So, Valve is getting 100 games thrown at them on a daily basis that they need to check - now, most of those could probably be checked for general quality in an hour or two, but let's say Valve wants to be REALLY thorough. What if they had ONE employee spend their entire work day checking ONE game? They would need to hire 100 dedicated "game checkers" - and let's say they have to pay them a respectable annual salary of $60,000 each. That's $6 million a year they'd need to spend to have GREAT quality control over EVERYTHING. Valve makes $1 BILLION dollars a year off of Steam. That means they would only need to spend ONE HALF of ONE PERCENT of the money they make off Steam to give it the best quality control in the world.

I'm not even going to go into all the ways a corporation could drive that cost even further down with interns and other practices.

Makes me nervous, I wanted to release on Steam and now I have no idea if I will be able to or not (depends on the fee) they take that couple hundred/thousand, but then also a cut of your game, and don't really advertise it or anything. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I've seen some... questionable games on steam greenlight, but I thought they always got voted down? I always saw VNs get voted through. it wouldn't be so bad if the fee came out of the cut that they make from your game, so it's sort of paid back to you as/if your game sells.

Valve has said that the fee is 'recoupable' - whatever that means.

The problem with Greenlight was that whole groups made money by charging game developers to vote their games onto Steam. They'd even harrass game developers that did NOT pay them. They could vindictively destroy a game on Greenlight, or make sure it had all the votes it needed in less than a day. OR game developers would promise free copies of games for people to vote for them, etc. The voting system, while a nice idea, forgot that the internet never uses a voting system correctly. Voting is always gamed for profit, spammed for lols, or co-opted for a joke.

[SundownKid]

However, with how many games are on steam now, it's unsurprising Valve can't try implementing an actual committee for reviewing and processing games, since that was part of why Greenlight became a thing in the first place.
I actually disagree that Valve can't curate all the games coming onto Steam. It isn't some impossibly huge task like Valve wants to paint it, even if they had to check every game put on Greenlight every day - which averages around 50 games per day thrown up on Greenlight. Let's say TWICE that number of games applied to be on Steam a day. So, Valve is getting 100 games thrown at them on a daily basis that they need to check - now, most of those could probably be checked for general quality in an hour or two, but let's say Valve wants to be REALLY thorough. What if they had ONE employee spend their entire work day checking ONE game? They would need to hire 100 dedicated "game checkers" - and let's say they have to pay them a respectable annual salary of $60,000 each. That's $6 million a year they'd need to spend to have GREAT quality control over EVERYTHING. Valve makes $1 BILLION dollars a year off of Steam. That means they would only need to spend ONE HALF of ONE PERCENT of the money they make off Steam to give it the best quality control in the world.

I'm not even going to go into all the ways a corporation could drive that cost even further down with interns and other practices.

This is pretty much all that needs to be said on the matter. Greenlight could work, Valve just wants to find a method that requires no input of their own for some weird reason. Ultimately it's still bad for indies because they need to pony up the money upfront which is if $100, pointless, if $1000, an inconvenience, and if $5000, a massive problem.

The optimal method would be keeping Greenlight and simply cracking down hard on scams. Every game needs to be vetted when it's submitted to Greenlight to make sure there are no asset swaps and other obviously poor games. It's a little something called "quality control". The "will of the people" doesnt work when someone has thousands of alt accounts to upvote something.

Honestly though I am not a fan of Greenlight, it feels like they are making indie devs jump for scraps thrown from the dinner table. Having to promote a Greenlight and not your game is utterly embarassing - it's bad enough when you also need to promote a Kickstarter, THEN Greenlight, THEN your game. They really just need to make Greenlight into a developer only "queue" where you were vetted by Steam before allowing to be released. Unfortunately that would make too much sense

[Tempus]

LateWhiteRabbit has more or less said what I was going to say, albeit with significantly less swearing. Valve sends its employees on an annual vacation to like Hawaii or wherever and everyone's families come along too. Like, cancelling that vacation alone would probably cover the costs of proper quality control. They have no idea how decadent and out-of-touch they appear to onlookers. They can't even see they're making a poor-people filter.

Also, quoting a higher range of $5,000 that I doubt they ever intend to actually implement is the type of psychological manipulation often attempted in negotiation. You quote some obscenely high number (and it's obscene if you're in a country like the US - try living somewhere like Poland where that number is just impossible) and whatever you settle on after that will seem reasonable by comparison. It's a fucking insult when it's a billion dollar corporation doing it to developers with no leverage. Steam has a captive audience who have bought games on the service and which they can't take elsewhere. Many people can't just suddenly drop Steam without a significant financial re-investment.