Valve kills off Steam Greenlight program
Valve kills off Steam Greenlight program
Valve shuts down the wretched hive of scum and villainy known at Steam Greenlight in favor of new program
Valve shuts down the wretched hive of scum and villainy known at Steam Greenlight in favor of new program
Red Light
Steam Greenlight was a fantastic idea when it rolled out. Developers could pitch their games to the community via Green Light and earn votes. Enough of these votes would allow the game to happen and make it onto the marketplace.
This was a sort of democracy for gamers that allowed the community to decide what they wanted to see. It was intended to let games the community wanted to get through, while letting the crap float away into the digital ether. The only problem was that Greenlight didn't quite work as intended. Democracy, in this case at least, had failed.
One big problem was that indie developers began to game the system and its approval system. It turned out Steam had created a system that was easy to manipulate and one with little oversight from Valve itself. This lead to tons of crap games, some of which were unfinished, broken, outright scams or even filled with malware to get through.
Valve was pretty quiet on all of these issues as each game brought the company $100 thanks to the Greenlight submission fee that was implemented to help curb the tide of crap games being submitted. Things got so bad over the years that YouTube channels and articles popped up highlighting the utter crap that was on Steam Greenlight. Steam had quickly went from the premier online storefront to being one step above those malware filled flash game sites from back in 2005.
Geting Direct
But now Valve is addressing the issue by killing off Steam Green Light in favor of a new program --Steam Direct.
Studios will now have a few new steps and rules to deal with if they want to publish on the platform. They will be required to submit official paperwork confirming their identity in an attempt to hold developers accountable in the event of a scam or copyright issues (there is a lot of stolen content and assets on Greenlight). From there a fee will be required to submit a game.
We will ask new developers to complete a set of digital paperwork, personal or company verification, and tax documents similar to the process of applying for a bank account. Once set up, developers will pay a recoupable application fee for each new
Valve UI designer Alden Kroll
This fee has not be revealed yet, but current talks at Valve and with studios that have been consulted hint at it being somewhere between $100 and $5000. Another neat thing is that Valve will be reviewing the titles submitted, something that is impossible under the current Steam Green Light program because of the amount of game being submitted.