So Greenlight is finally ending and everybody is waiting for the new system. In the meantime I almost forgot about a failed project I put on greenlight half a year ago. Surprise mothafucka, you are greenlit.
What now? I have a mostly functional game made by one man army called me, but not in a state for publishing. Too big scope and too little content, programmer visuals and music. On top of that I kinda gave up on it because of bad responses, I think less than 30% approval ratio.
The game isn’t written really well, at least not by my current standards, but mostly I don’t want to work on that dirty code again. Realistically nothing in my game is good enough to use in a serious product.
I have a few options now. First, polish and add what I can, publish it and never look back. The better alternative, as I am still into this type of game, is to rewrite it from scratch, make or buy art and everything and then publish it. Of course the premise and overall direction would be similar, but it would still be new and hopefully much better than the current game. Is it even allowed and not frowned upon to publish another game in place of the greenlit one? What would you do in this situation?
So this means you basically bypassed the fee, right?
I don’t see why you couldn’t start over the code … it doesn’t even have to be the same type of game. Nothing that you submitted in Greenlight matters anymore.
From a pure cash flow point of view, Steam wins. The GreenLight fee would have been refunded if it hadn’t passed. I could then use it to pay the recoupable fee for Steam Direct, which I might have got back. I also could have chosen not to go with Steam at all.
It’s so little money as to be irrelevant to the discussion. But it’s something that certain folk could easily use as fuel for their anti steam campaign.
Technically, Valve only half-wins because the greenlight fee was actually a charitable donation to Child’s Play (to the point that you can actually write it off on your taxes). I say half-win because they still, you know, get a cut of your sales.
@Kiwasi Congrats! Based on the snippet @Ryiah provided Pond Wars passed a manual review. That is inspiring, right? Seems they see potential in the game.
I’m inclined to treat their statement about potential restrictions in the same manner that I would treat a clause in a legal document that leaves a company with a way to protect themselves in the event that something doesn’t quite go their way.
While it may sound like they have some standards in reality I’m betting they’ll allow just about anything through. About the only entries I could see them denying are the ones that are blatant copyright infringement or other legal landmines.
Yes but that might be because outside of obvious copyright infringement and so forth every game has potential to appeal to some group of people.
IIRC the comments @Kiwasi had received were basically for the graphics. He could probably just use a different palette, continue updating and release it. Like just converting to monochrome would help the scene to look more cohesive. Plus he can then easily get a night battle scene as well.
Something like this where the 2nd image is the new monochrome look (for day) and the 3rd is the night battles.
In both cases to have some more color there could be some bright red explosions.
The game concept is not flawed. And it doesn’t need to be elite graphics. Just easier on the eyes as far as being cohesive IMO.
That’s correct. I’m currently deciding on my options. It is going to go up on Steam. The only question now is how much work I want to spend on polishing and art before I put it up.
I’d definitely read it, just send me a message if you do do it in case I don’t see it when you do it. I find reading stuff written by normal relatable developers more interesting than the one in a million
