Steam Greenlight Discussion Thread

[ClayMeow]

Posted an editorial on Steam Greenlight, which you can read here. Basically a "day one" commentary.

 

Please feel free to post your thoughts!

[Bubbaxm2]

I honestly did not even give it the sixty seconds that it took for it to turn into a wreck. I just looked thru the games that were already listed and came to the conclusion that at least from my point of view that the reason none of them were already on steam is because they sucked. I could be wrong, but am not going to waste my time trying to vote a game onto steam. If the game is decent enough steam should already have it on there.

[Deathmineral]

I honestly did not even give it the sixty seconds that it took for it to turn into a wreck. I just looked thru the games that were already listed and came to the conclusion that at least from my point of view that the reason none of them were already on steam is because they sucked. I could be wrong, but am not going to waste my time trying to vote a game onto steam. If the game is decent enough steam should already have it on there.

You probably didn't look too hard then, I've found quite a few games that interest me. Majority of them do not mainly because they're mostly 2D 8-bit flash games that I just really don't feel like reading into to see if I might enjoy it.

 

The one I'm most interested in seeing is Lost Story: The Last Days of Earth. It's basically another Half Life fandom mod, similar to Awakening, just expands on the universe of Half Life. This one focuses on the history of when the Combine first attack I think.

 

I think the important thing with this is that people don't go into it with an attitude as if everything is going to suck or is a ripoff or something like that. For example, A Walk in the Dark, at first glance, you see LIMBO pretty much, but looking at it a little more, it's clear to see that it's not so much a ripoff as much as it looks heavily inspired by many indie games. That's what I get from it anyway.

 

Overall I think Greenlight is a pretty cool idea that needs a lot of tweaking still, not sure how many votes some of these are getting but for example, Towns currently has about 130,000 unique visitors and only a 7% positive rating, I can't say how many of that 130K would have voted but I find it hard to believe it's only at 7% if at least 20% of those people voted for it. My guess is the required amount of ratings is really high. About the best I could do for a guess is using the favorites statistic, current 5,000 and if that's what the 7% would be, that's an insane requirement, but I'm thinking more than that rated the game up.

[sack_patrol]

greenlight was a stupid idea anyway.

[IVIYTH0S]

I don't think it was a great idea to have and maybe that's why they didn't pour their heart into lol

[VaporX]

The "concept" was really cool but as pointed out in the article, the majority of people are morons who find fun in spoiling a good thing for others.

[ClayMeow]

I honestly did not even give it the sixty seconds that it took for it to turn into a wreck. I just looked thru the games that were already listed and came to the conclusion that at least from my point of view that the reason none of them were already on steam is because they sucked. I could be wrong, but am not going to waste my time trying to vote a game onto steam. If the game is decent enough steam should already have it on there.

That's a pretty broad generalization there. Greenlight isn't meant for AAA titles...if Activision wants the next CoD on Steam, believe me, they're not submitting through Greenlight. Greenlight is meant for indie games and while it's true some of the submissions had previously failed attempts to get onto Steam, others never bothered until now. Furthermore, it's pretty much the only way an indie is going to get their game onto Steam now, so as the lifetime of the service goes on, your point would be even less valid than it is now.

 

You probably didn't look too hard then, I've found quite a few games that interest me. Majority of them do not mainly because they're mostly 2D 8-bit flash games that I just really don't feel like reading into to see if I might enjoy it.

 

The one I'm most interested in seeing is Lost Story: The Last Days of Earth. It's basically another Half Life fandom mod, similar to Awakening, just expands on the universe of Half Life. This one focuses on the history of when the Combine first attack I think.

Agreed, there are quite a few gems on Greenlight right now and that's why it's a shame it's such a cluster**** at this time. Valve is trying to get a handle on things though. Last night I received the following email:

Dear claymeow,

 

Thank you for reporting content that violates the Steam Terms of Service or breaks the rules of the area in which it was submitted.

 

Because of your efforts, we've removed one more item from the Steam Community.

 

The Steam Support Team

I assume that was for my reporting of Guild Wars 2 (yes, someone actually posted that) because I believe my only other report was for Diggle, and that game is still curiously there (not simply a Terraria clone, it even uses the same exact animations).

 

I think the important thing with this is that people don't go into it with an attitude as if everything is going to suck or is a ripoff or something like that. For example, A Walk in the Dark, at first glance, you see LIMBO pretty much, but looking at it a little more, it's clear to see that it's not so much a ripoff as much as it looks heavily inspired by many indie games. That's what I get from it anyway.

Yep, totally, and that's one of the problems with giving power to a general populous...there's no telling how much information the voters are reading/watching. A quick glance at a screenshot may make someone thing Limbo-ripoff, but watching the video or reading about it clearly indicates it's not.

 

greenlight was a stupid idea anyway.

Bad implementation doesn't make it a bad idea. But knowing you, I'm guessing you didn't bother reading my article anyway.

 

I don't think it was a great idea to have and maybe that's why they didn't pour their heart into lol

I'm not sure I'd say they didn't pour their heart into it, I just don't think they were prepared for what transpired. They wouldn't have implemented such a system if they didn't believe in it...it's not like the public was asking for it.

 

The "concept" was really cool but as pointed out in the article, the majority of people are morons who find fun in spoiling a good thing for others.

Yep, definitely.

[Guest Trankop]

It is a good

Edited November 5, 2012 by Trankop

[ClayMeow]

It is a good idea but allowing users to make submissions is not that good, game developers will be sending their fans or paid fans to vote for them, everything related to voting can't be trusted these days.

 

Steam should come up with titles suitable for steam and allow only real/active/old accounts to vote, it is just the implementation of this idea is not that good.

 

I don't think it's a bad idea to allow users to make submissions, per se, but they definitely need to tweak it, whether it be through a nominal submission fee (maybe even one that's refunded if/when the game is accepted) or through a verification process similar to their forum accounts, where game developers can get officially verified.

 

As for your latter statement, you do bring up an interesting point. I don't think sending their fans, even if paid, is an issue, as that's the whole point - you want your fans going and voting and promoting your game. That being said, Steam allows multiple accounts and it'll be interesting to see if that's monitored. When it came to the Holiday sale, coal-abusers were dealt with, so hopefully that would take place with Greenlight as well, if someone registered 50 accounts just to upvote a game.

[Bubbaxm2]

I had a nice long reply typed out only to delete it because it is not worth my time.

[Boinker]

What were they thinking when they launched this project....

[My_Inner_Fred]

Lets just see how it goes a couple of weeks or months down the line if it still exists.