Distribution Steam Greenlight no more! your thoughts?

RangerX

Member
Cool, I would have been surprised at Steam completely changing the way they open their store to beginning devs.
Great news.
 
M

MishMash

Guest
I'm pretty mad about that publisher fee :/ Why would they only make it $100... that's ridiculous. Realistically, any developer who is in a position to charge money for a game should also be in a position where spending $1000 to get their game on a platform is completely within the realm of possibility. $100 is like 20 sales of even a super low-priced game, this is going to be a disaster.



The store is going to be more cluttered than ever. We were already on the tide of a potential indie game crash (from market saturation), valve was in a great position to stem the flow, but no, instead they decide to make the crash come faster.. (perhaps this is their master plan?).
 

Rivo

7014
TBH I was worried that a high fee would shut off all the 'simulation' games that everyone knows and loves. I can't wait for a new toilet simulator :) Seriously though i'm just intrigued as to what the overall plan is with direct and why they are replacing greenlight. Just seemed like the low fee was the main problem for the complete 💩💩💩💩 wave of crappy games. idk maybe they have a good plan?
 

Micah_DS

Member
I also think $100 is too low. I'd rather have it between $500 to $1000. If an indie is serious about getting their game on Steam, yet they have no money for it, they could get a job and make the money, and/or they could begin a kickstarter or something to raise funds to get it on there.
I'm saying this as one of those "beginning indies". I plan to get a game on Steam, and it'll be my first game sold. I don't mind working a bit to make it happen.

On the bright side, I don't expect it'll be much worse than it is right now (maybe?), and perhaps they'll bump up the fee a bit later during one of their "iterations":
Like all the work in the Steam Store, Steam Direct will take some iteration to get the kinks out
 
W

Widget

Guest
It's $100 per game, so it'll cut down the spam at least a little. Still wish it was a but higher though.
 

JackTurbo

Member
Its a hundred dollars per game, but it's also redeemable. Ie steam either don't take a cut of sales or take a smaller than usual cut until that fee is made back.

I'm hoping at the least this May discourage the trading card exploit that some devs where engaging in
 
J

J_C

Guest
Its a hundred dollars per game, but it's also redeemable. Ie steam either don't take a cut of sales or take a smaller than usual cut until that fee is made back.

I'm hoping at the least this May discourage the trading card exploit that some devs where engaging in
According to Ars Technica and a Steam representative, the 100 dollar fee will be redeemed after the game reaches 1000 dollars in sales. Also, Trading cards won't drop until a game reaches a certain confidence metric, which will prove that the game is actually bought and played by people, and not bots.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
M

Multimagyar

Guest
I for one happy it's not a ridiculous price in American money 1000 dollars is not much but here it is a minimum vague just above that... And that assuming the programmer or what so ever has a full time job. Saying that it should be normalized would exclude certain countries with potential hidden gems not to mention you are assuming getting onto steam is a deal maker. They do want to make the curation system better along with steam explorers system to explore games and show games that are actually hidden but great games by themselves, but I don't assume it's a fast and safe project. You practically could be left without food for a month because your game that is potentially good nor noticed nor payed for. Not to mention paying 500-1000$ extra after you made a game probably hiring at least an artist as an indie can kick up on the price quite a bit so it could be x + steam direct fee.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
"100$ per game" as a paywall is objectively better than the old system's "100$ once ever, and you can release games faster if you use illegitimate methods to boost the number of ratings you receive". A lot of devs that made great games only released one game so far (Axiom Verge, Fran Bow, Dead Cells, Binding of Isaac, The Darkest Dungeon, Spooky's House of Jumpscares.... the list goes on) so for those guys there practically won't be a difference. For people like Digital Homicide that released reskins of the same game with less than a week of average development time, however...
 

RangerX

Member
They will simply filter the game differently apparently. And the end user will also be able to filter games even better than now.
I don't think you guys will "suffer" through the junk. Certainly less than on Greenlight that's for sure!
 
M

Multimagyar

Guest
Forgot to mention before but might as well add it. Money is usually NOT a barrier Yal mentioned Digital Homicide and if you follow certain youtubers that used to try to clean greenlight, you would notice a pattern of people buying and selling assets as full fledged games, or even just straight up broken and released like that... Sometimes trying to sell the same game 5-9 times. Money is a barrier yes. But money is a barrier for the poor and not for the crap. One can be serious about making games with no much money. What steam needs is a system to police games that try to get through and not a rich gets richer system. And I'm sure valve is aware of that, but not aware of the fact it might not be able to handle these things with a few fancy algorithm.
On the other note I'm interested to see what valve will do to improve the system.
 

onjai_x3

Member
This new system is a step in the right direction... and that's it. It'll probably slow down the crap and asset flippers for awhile, but that's the most I expect it'll do until Steam gets real quality control.
 

RangerX

Member
This new system is a step in the right direction... and that's it. It'll probably slow down the crap and asset flippers for awhile, but that's the most I expect it'll do until Steam gets real quality control.
that's indeed the real solution. There should be a content approval and technical approval to pass before being on Steam. On the flipside, this would cost MUCH MUCH more than 100$ per game. ;)
 

sylvain_l

Member
@Multimagyar
Was going to write that you should be able to get much more than $100 in a kickstarter campaign (surely if you have a good near finished game). But a hint of doubt get me checking kickstarter rules. oops. for now only available for campaign creators from E.U. countries, USA, Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong,... But not South America, Africa, and Asia -_-'
You should look if there is not an alternate crowdfunding platform available for your country.
 
S

schmoo

Guest
$100 is nice as it allows even hobbyists to post and sell on easily the highest traffic store. If steam do as they say and filter out the bad games, then I'm completely down.
 
I'd rather just pay to be on SteamDirect than sit in Greenlight limbo and mess up my timetables when the game is Greenlit much later than I expect.
 

JackTurbo

Member
I see a lot of negative thoughts about direct, but personally I'm hopeful.

I personally think whether it is a good thing or a bad thing will likely hang on how the changes to 'curators' works once in place. A while back there was talk of incentivising curators to play less prominent games and to rate them so that the wheat can be sorted from the chaff so to speak. If the community take up this role and if they are supported by valve with the tools they need then I think this could be a real beneficial move for smaller games that may still be high quality but lack in exposure.
 

Fern

Member
$100 is nice as it allows even hobbyists to post and sell on easily the highest traffic store. If steam do as they say and filter out the bad games, then I'm completely down.
Exactly! As long as the games are filtered. Like everything this is an experiment and if Valve feels that it was a mistake to set the price to $100, they'll raise it and try that instead.
 
Top