Via Gamasutra article.
I think I’m in favor of this, but I’m not positive. As much as it’s nice having a lower barrier to entry, there’s too much garbage out there. This should bring us back towards the days where only serious developers submit games again.
Thoughts?
I kinda liked the “diversity” factor that greenlight brought, as well as the opportunity for the little guys to get a chance, but I suppose at the end of the day, this means more quality and less quantity, perhaps fewer clones and knockoffs and more good games… Don’t wanna see steam looking like an app store 
It makes sense, though why not have both? Separate Indie and Greenlight categories. Leave Indie category for games made by more professional experienced teams so they can ensure a profit to cover the cost of making better games, and keep Greenlight for the diverse smaller casual games.
If its too low like $100 bucks a pop it wont mean much, but if its high like $5000 per game that will change things, on top of the 30% steam already gets.
It would definitely stop the crap from getting on steam no one is going to risk 5000 a pop on a crap game, and the games that did get through would simply do better anyway because you will have less games, and the games would be higher quality. I bet felix would have sold alot better under those circumstances
Gabe said in an interview (very shortly, like months iirc) after Greenlight was launched that it was not what they were looking for and planned to replace it with a more effective system. I thought they would have done it sooner.
I’m really curious to see what Steam Direct is going to do that Greenlight didn’t.
That doesn’t sound that bad. Imagine if you’ve invested several dozen thousand dollars in making a game . Not to mention the time. Then you have to compete for exposure in an order of arrival system. Wouldn’t you pay 5 grand more to ensure your investment? Steam exposure is actually huge, you get millions of impressions, hundred of thousands of store clicks … but at several games added every day, it’s very diluted.
Though there should still be a Greenlight category, where smaller indies can still place their games without fee.
I think $1000 would be ok.
They have all the data on what the junk games make, so set it to that number and watch them disappear.
Then set up a totally different web site called “SteamingPile”.
No entry fee, everyone knows what to expect when they go there.
After a while Steam could pull out a nice game and move it over to the regular Steam store.
No greenlight you just get on, on each store.
That’s kinda what Microsoft did on the 360 with the Indie Games program, and it seemed like it was mostly a waste of time. Since they already had a somewhat hierarchical system of On Demand > Arcade > Indie, there wasn’t much cause to even check out the lowest tier. And if you don’t have them filtered out some way, there’s no benefit to the different categories.
I love that descriptor of an amount of money. But to answer your question, I do think that the investment of paying for a smaller amount of competition is worth it, yes. $5000 is probably too rich for my blood, but $1000 would be doable, but reserved only for when I’m sure I’ve got a good game on my hands.
Yeah exactly. You could always get a crap job for a few months to help pay for the 5000 cost if it was a problem
But people do browse Greenlight games on Steam. There’s a special diversity/crazyness that they can only find in that sort of low risk budget games.
Though a $1000 fee does sound like an interesting middle ground.
I’m not sure how to feel about this yet. It’s good that Valve is finally doing something about Greenlight because the sheer amount of games that have come out in 2016 on Steam is unreal, and has rendered Greenlight itself completely useless as a tool to weed out bad games.
I guess for now all we can do is wait and see how it’s going to turn out.
That’s really soon. 
I could see spending $500 to get a small game listed. Although I could afford to I wouldn’t spend any more than that.
I’d just use the other places such as GameJolt and itch.io which will likely see an increase in gamers from this kind of change occuring on Steam. GJ is already growing quickly. Last year they saw a large increase in visits, registered gamers, game plays/downloads and the amount of time a person was staying on the site.
And depending on what Steam ends up as I expect that for people like me (as a gamer) it may not hold much interest. I want to see all of the small games and the wacky games not just AAA wannabe stuff.
EDIT: I must say I can understand that ultimately they had to go back to using money as a way to reduce the number of submissions. Of course that will also likely mean many great games may never appear on Steam until they appear elsewhere and generate enough cash to do so. And in some cases that process alone will weed out developers.
Ultimately it has to be done… as sad as it is money is the only real way to reduce the amount of the supply from the very start. Obviously the higher they set the fee the greater it reduces the supply.
In theory, absolutely. In practice, I’m not positive.
For every Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread that came out, there were literally thousands of garbage games taking up shelf space and keeping me from seeing games I might enjoy. If there are numerous occasions where great games are made and the developer just can’t find the money to get it on storefronts, I’ve not heard of them. As most of us know, money is comparatively easy to come by compared to the time and effort required to make a quality game.
I think you’re exactly right, and I also think that’s great in general. Startup indies should be using those platforms for their first games to build their portfolio up! Presently, it seems like everyone wants to whip together a skeleton of a survival game and throw it up on Early Access as their first project. I’d so much rather these other platforms – for lack of a better term – take one for the team and host all those unknown, unproven games, while Steam focuses on quality. If your game does well in the AA league, there’s nothing stopping you from moving it up to the majors, after all.
Well the cost is recoupable.
if the cost is low enough I might just update some of my old games (that are on IOS) with steam trading cards and put them on. While at the same time working on my current project.
How does that work in practice? Do they set a straight number of sales that must be achieved, and you then get all of that money back if you hit it? Or are there milestones that you get refunded partial payments at various sales figures?
Yeah, this is kinda the big unknown to me at this point. There are ways to deal with the entry fee (Credit Card, Kickstarter, itch.io, GJ, Steam Loan Sharks, etc) if I know that recouping of that whole amount will happen and when.
I also wonder how the recoup thing works or what does it mean. Personally I think everyone should always have to pay upfront and a lot larger fee (>= $500) than the current $100 or else the “noise” filter tactic wont work. You only get your “hostage” money back if your game succeeds. If you cant trust your own game enough to pay the fee then there is either something wrong with it or you are not yet committed enough (marketing, etc.). In that case there are other alternatives to get started.
It wont work without any cost and $100 is way too low as we have seen in general or people like Jim Sterling has proven to us. Thank god for him 
I think people are reading this wrong. This is not about reducing the number of games on steam. This is about fully opening the flood gates to make steam accessible to every single developer.
Under GreenLight there were still a lot of poor quality games rejected. Under the new system there is no provision for rejecting games based on quality.
Oh, gods. Then… No, I don’t think this will be very good at all. 
Edit: Wait… Ostensibly this is about opening up the gates to anyone without the curation filter in place, but isn’t the subtext that the intended side-effect is that half-ass developers who throw tons of garbage onto Greenlight with their one-time $100 fee, that get their goofy or dumb idea approved by the community through luck, bot trickery, or just waiting it out… Those developers will no longer see the value in paying a large fee, and consequently, quality in general will rise?
I feel like it’s one of those things that you say a certain way when addressing the consumer, but we all nod to each across the crowd, knowing the real intent.
It might be good if the entry fee will be a lot higher. Current Greenlight was not a high barrier to many anyways as there are organized groups for hire to vote your in, key trading upfront for votes, etc. or you just could get in for the lolz.
There will always be people buying their way in but with a bad product they wont get their money back so it will reduce the “noise” a lot.