Steam Announces Greenlight

[LeftEyeNine]

Enlisting the community to help select new titles

July 9, 2012 -- Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Steam Greenlight, a new platform feature that enlists the community’s help in selecting some of the next games to be released on Steam.

Steam Greenlight will allow developers and publishers to post information and media about their game in an effort to convince the Community that their game should be released on Steam. Greenlight piggybacks on Steam Workshop’s flexible system that organizes content and lets customers rate and leave feedback.

As well as serving as a clearing house for game submissions, Greenlight will provide an incredible level of added exposure for new games and an opportunity to connect directly with potential customers and fans.

“Making the call to publish or not publish a title isn’t fun,” said Anna Sweet, at Valve. “Many times opinions vary and our internal jury is hung on a decision. But with the introduction of the Steam Workshop we realized an opportunity to enlist the community's help as we review certain titles and, hopefully, increase the volume and quality of creative submissions.”

Steam Greenlight will be released August 30.

For more information, please visit www.steampowered.com/greenlight (http://www.steampowered.com/greenlight)

I sense Google Wave.

[TinCow]

Hmm... could be interesting, but could also be useless. Seems more like a PR portal to me... it cannot possibly be that hard to determine what gets released on Steam. It makes me laugh to think of a company that can't even figure out what to sell.

[rickinator9]

Hmm... could be interesting, but could also be useless. Seems more like a PR portal to me... it cannot possibly be that hard to determine what gets released on Steam. It makes me laugh to think of a company that can't even figure out what to sell.

I think this is more meant for indie games. The big AAA titles get released on steam no matter what. This might be a good way of getting more indie games on steam and boosting indie sales overall. Might also be good for those old titles that have been forgotten by the many and are still being followed by a small 'cult'.

[Monk]

Hmm... could be interesting, but could also be useless. Seems more like a PR portal to me... it cannot possibly be that hard to determine what gets released on Steam. It makes me laugh to think of a company that can't even figure out what to sell.

I agree. It's more steam trying to cope with their PR image as being hit or miss for indie devs. They have denied several really good games from independent devs from being released while at the same time allowed some real crap to show up on the service. I see this as a move to take sole responsibility off of valve's shoulders and try to rebuild their image among the indie dev community.

[rajpoot]

I think this is an excellent idea. I remember reading one of the recent Peter Molyneux interviews on Gamespot, where he talked about how the Internet allowed the companies to reach out directly to their consumers in a manner never possible before. The ease of taking feedback and suggestions and all that, and the way I see it, this move by Steam is a perfect example.
IMO the idea is so good, I'm surprised no one else ever thought of it before. Certainly going to be a good way to launch indie games.

[TinCow]

My main question is why they are barring games on Steam for any reason other than technical compatibility in the first place. When it comes down to it, Steam is just a store. They sell goods. People buy what they like, they don't buy what they don't like. Due to the fact that it's digital, games that don't sell huge numbers don't really detract from the experience of shopping there. I've never heard of anyone complaining about there being too many games available on a digital distribution service, and I doubt I ever will. If iTunes can handle half a bazillion apps, surely Steam can handle more games. Steam gets a cut on every sale, so even low-selling games will still make them at least a minimal amount of money. While I can imagine exceptionally low selling games possibly not justifying the man-hours required to do the initial contract and setup, those games have got to be pretty few and far between. If Steam are filtering games based on content or style, they're essentially just acting as censors.

[rajpoot]

My main question is why they are barring games on Steam for any reason other than technical compatibility in the first place. When it comes down to it, Steam is just a store. They sell goods. People buy what they like, they don't buy what they don't like. Due to the fact that it's digital, games that don't sell huge numbers don't really detract from the experience of shopping there. I've never heard of anyone complaining about there being too many games available on a digital distribution service, and I doubt I ever will. If iTunes can handle half a bazillion apps, surely Steam can handle more games. Steam gets a cut on every sale, so even low-selling games will still make them at least a minimal amount of money. While I can imagine exceptionally low selling games possibly not justifying the man-hours required to do the initial contract and setup, those games have got to be pretty few and far between. If Steam are filtering games based on content or style, they're essentially just acting as censors.

I actually didn't think of it that way.
From that POV it does seem like nothing more than a PR stunt.
I'm sure the truth is somewhere in between. Probably they have an 'image' to protect. I'm pretty sure thousands of indie devs must apply to get their games on Steam, but not all get selected, even though Steam loses nothing tangible by allowing the games into their store.