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[Zizka]

Hello guys,
This is a message for people who got greenlit (or people who know about it  ).

Basically, I'd like to read about your experience getting greenlit.

a. Did it take a long time getting Greenlit?
b. How was dealing with steam like?
c. Are you getting useful feedback from the community?
d. Do "early access" sales work well?
e. What do you think makes or break a greenlit campaign?

Etienne

[joe_eyemobi]

Hello guys,
This is a message for people who got greenlit (or people who know about it  ).

Basically, I'd like to read about your experience getting greenlit.

a. Did it take a long time getting Greenlit?
b. How was dealing with steam like?
c. Are you getting useful feedback from the community?
d. Do "early access" sales work well?
e. What do you think makes or break a greenlit campaign?

Etienne

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=291861158

a. 3 months
b. Generally speaking, it was very easy to register and get a SGL page set up
c. Not so much from SGL - expos and Lets plays have been the most useful
d. That depends on a number of things
e. A few things - but presentation and preparation are very important

[Ryuno]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/321830/

a) 30 days.
b) Fantastic, really simple to set things up.
c) Very, our user base is active and helpful. If you compare the free b10 demo we distributed on our Kickstarter campaign to the current versions, it really shows how important Early Access was for us.
d) To an extent, yes. Just don't expect to make millions of it because people will be wary of investing in EA games due to the many issues other projects faced.
e) A good trailer, graphics and word-of-mouth.

[Zizka]

Thanks a lot for the input.

Where do you stand regarding greenlight/kickstarter? I've always been under the impression that the kickstarter should come first and greenlight after as the "natural" order of things. Do you agree?

[Zizka]

Yeah, I really should use a signature  .

Here it is.

EDIT: Thanks for the answer, really smart way of doing things!

[oldblood]

I've had two games Greenlit on Steam. So I've been through the process a few times. It can certainly be challenging to put your game out in front of a pretty vocal steam crowd but you will learn a lot about your game very quickly. One title was greenlit very early into the Greenlight process, the other was greenlit about a year ago. Because of this fact, take my reactions with a grain of salt as Greenlight has evolved a lot since my last title got the stamp of approval from Steam.

Both of the games took months to be Greenlit (around 2-3 months for one and around 6 months for the other) but now the averages seem to have dropped to around 30(ish) days for good games to sometimes just a matter of a few days for titles with a lot of polish. I should also notate that my first game didn't receive a greenlight till it had over 10,000 "Yes" votes. My 2nd game was greenlit with a little over 5,000 "Yes" votes. Current games seem to be getting greenlit with just 2-3,000 "Yes" votes so I don't think falling into "Greenlight Limbo" is really an issue these days unless your game simply doesnt generate any interest from people. Not to say it can't happen to you, but that you simply dont need nearly as much interest these days as you did one or two years ago.

I launched my 2nd Greenlight a week into a Kickstarter. The Greenlight got a lot of views in the first week, which is normal. But of the thousands of views and Yes votes, I had one user back the game via Kickstarter. I've talked to other developers who've experienced the same result. My take-away on Greenlight to Kickstarter conversion is this: People don't go to Greenlight to spend money. They're bored or curious. But rarely buying.

Not saying you shouldn't launch them at once, just notating not to expect a translation from this. If anything, I may recommend you launch the Greenlight BEFORE a Kickstarter just to help get your name out there in advance of the KS. If there are any big red flags with your game, you will hear about it first on Greenlight and can make changes accordingly to your Kickstarter before you launch. Down-side to this approach of course is, you don't want to launch your Greenlight too early and burn up all the initial launch views and votes on a weak product. Catch-22. Greenlight is a valuable tool for developers, but one you need to learn to leverage properly.

I'm honestly dreading the idea of putting up a 3rd game at some point because its a bit draining. But it's a necessary evil...

[Moth]

oldblood is correct, a decent product will no longer stay too long in greenlight limbo.

personally I think KS and GL at the same time is very important. kickstarter stats do factor into a campaign on greenlight (it's another criterion reviewed for what gets greenlit or not). people on greenlight can see that there's monetary support for a game which can increase how much they respect it.

also I'm not saying this is going to happen for everyone but a really cool guy found my kickstarter through greenlight and ended up pledging a very generous amount, accounting for more than an 8th of the total funds raised. personally I got quite a few backers who came from greenlight.

[btxsqdr]

Hi

http://provenlands.com

a. Did it take a long time getting Greenlit?

4-5 days, maybe less, I don't remember.

b. How was dealing with steam like?

After we've been greenlit? No negotations so far. But it appears to be smooth.

c. Are you getting useful feedback from the community?

Oh, yes, and it gives you wings in some tough times. Best thing ever imo, despite some pretty ugly comments and mails. But I found it also hard to track ALL feedback on multiple platforms. For instance, until now, I stayed away from TIGSource because it would have been too much for me (twitter, indiedb, tumblr, Facebook, Steam). But it depends largely on the team size (I'm doing these things alone so far), and I've changed my mind recently due to some nice posts here.

d. Do "early access" sales work well?

I don't know yet.

e. What do you think makes or break a greenlit campaign?

The buzz and the game itself. The buzz -- it means that, even in our case accidently, I found out that it makes a lot of sense to be loud at the same time on multiple platforms. I didn't have a big masterplan on how to talk about our game back then, I just did what felt right to me. I started with a small community on tumblr, so Greenlight became at some point fun for some of my followers. And the game itself, of course. GRAV was, for as far as I know, after a couple of days greenlit as well. The combination of Kickstarter and Steam is a good one too.

[GG-Works]

Still waiting on a greenlight, I'm not in the professional indie league but I need to work on reaching more people.  I have a twitter account, but I keep reading how tumblr is all the rage if you want to get people to see your work.

[aheydeck]

a. Did it take a long time getting Greenlit?

Yes, it took almost 8 months.

b. How was dealing with steam like?

Pain free. They are quick on answering questions, and have good tips.

c. Are you getting useful feedback from the community?

Yes. A tip is to create sticky forum posts like "Improvement suggestions", and boards like that.

e. What do you think makes or break a greenlit campaign?

I want to say "a good game", but that's not really true. =) It all seems to depend. Just make sure you do everything in your power to attract visitors to your greenlight page.

[Zizka]

@Moth: I take it your game is creepy castle?

Here's the link for those of you who are curious:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2048202604/creepy-castle

GG-Works' game:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=274636766

8 months to a few days, sure it a big difference!

Thanks for the input, keep it coming. Very useful for the community as a whole. 

[Moth]

Yes, that's my game. It's in my signature. :p

Oh, also, I realize I didn't fill out the questionnaire...

a. Did it take a long time getting Greenlit?
3 months isn't too long I don't think.

b. How was dealing with steam like?
It's fine. You just log into your account and you can go to a page with your game's stats.

c. Are you getting useful feedback from the community?
The kind of people who nay-sayed were ones who didn't like the style of graphics or about the fact it was turn-based.

d. Do "early access" sales work well?
Not gonna do early access, I don't think.

e. What do you think makes or break a greenlit campaign?
If your game looks fun to play it will go through. You need a quality product. Also, have the most professional trailer you can manage. Lots of games on Greenlight have badly thrown together trailers. That's like going to a job interview in smelly ripped clothes.

[J-Snake]

My TrapThem has been recently greenlit:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=182305538

The problem I am facing now is to decide how much effort I should put into polishing it up for Steam.
Sure I hear success stories but I have no clue how much revenue to expect on average for a puzzle game. If it makes few hundred Euros on average per month then it is already worth the investment. Do some of you guys have a rough guess what to expect on average, or at worst on Steam?

[Moth]

I've heard of games faring poorly on Steam, but no matter what, there's no way being on Steam could be a bad thing. No matter how the game fares relative to other games on Steam, you will be making more money by being on Steam than you would otherwise.

edit to try and answer the question better: I think it's hard to give an answer without providing a frame of reference as to how much time/money would be invested in the polish stage and what it entails. Personally I think you should simply polish it as much as you feel is necessary- until the game matches up to what you envision.

What kind of polish work would you do? Do you want to improve the graphical quality, try to increase appeal, etc?

[J-Snake]

Graphical changes would certainly require the biggest investment. I am not sure, what's your initial impression. Do you like what you see?

I've heard of games faring poorly on Steam

Can you name few?

I am wondering how much a game like Pushcat sold, for example.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/308440/

[Moth]

Personally I find the trailer a little hard to follow. I feel like if you added time pauses and used camera movement + overlaid text and stuff to highlight what's going on in complex sequences it would be more readable. I do think the game absolutely looks really interesting though, I like how many different things you've done with the tools that you created, so bravo. It reminds me of games like Adventures of Lolo.

The only changes I'd make about the game are subjective things. You have perfectly emulated the 90s DOS game aesthetic from character designs to visuals to music, and while I think you did a good job at that it's also not the sort of thing I'd be into if I didn't know it was an interesting game beforehand. Personally I'd like to see a more bright and colorful kind of setting (vibrant caves?) and more appealing characters. I feel like it would have a wider reach. I wouldn't want to try and talk you into compromising your vision or anything, of course. If you would like me to go in depth about anything or talk at greater length about your game, you could send a PM and I'd be happy to continue if you wanted my opinions on stuff.

Can you name few?

Don't know anything in the puzzle genre, but I've seen the creator of Momodora III express that Steam didn't do much for them, from what I remember reading on tumblr. Personally I would chalk it up to Steam alone not being enough to generate word of mouth. Even if you're on Steam, your game's success will rely on getting word of its existence out there- writing many letters to press and youtubers.

[J-Snake]

Hearing that about Momodora 3 is rather surprising as some bigger youtubers have touched on this game.
I certainly don't expect the level of Super Meat Boy sales here. 10000 sold copies would be more than I hoped for.
I am speculating whether it is the approximate number of Momodora 3 sales. I have compared the comments/sales ratio of some reports. Sure I would need more data to make a reliable guess but from some examples it looks like around 1% of customers are leaving a comment. If I can trust the trend 100 comments might indicate 10000 sold copies.

[BishopGames]

Hey, we just got Greenlit 3 days ago so I thought I could share how the process was for Light Fall.

http://steamcommunity.com//sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=393891302

a. It took us 11 days.

b. Very easy so far. Valve sent us an email to congratulate us on being Greenlit, now we haven't really worked with them as the game is still far from being released but from what I've heard they are very open and make it easy for you.

c. Yes and no. Most people either write ''Can't wait to play this game or this is not my type of game''. To be fair, we haven't handed out free builds yet so... they couldn't test it.

d. Really depends on the game. Look at Darkest Dungeon. But also take a look at all the others who have bad sales. I think Early Access took a bit of a hit in the recent years, but if your  game is awesome it's still worth it.

e. The quality of your game. Make sure the basics are SOLID and POLISHED. Put up engaging screenshots and videos on your page. Write an interesting description, that doesn't reveal too much but teases and intrigues the reader.

Good luck.

[RaccoonV]

a. Did it take a long time getting Greenlit?
It took us a while, but after a while we go Greenlit. We then received an e-mail from Steam with more details. (we of course put that up in the office to celebrate!)

b. How was dealing with steam like?
Good and bad. Some of the web-links to specific articles that can help you are not functioning correctly. Sometimes the Valve employees respond really fast and good to our questions, while sometimes it can take up to a week. Also there is a Steam Developer Community, which is a really helpful tool (it also has a chat)

c. Are you getting useful feedback from the community?
Yes, we have published a prototype of our game on GameJolt.com, got a lot of positive feedback on there. After that we decided we would work on it full-time, since we created it in a game-jam that we sometimes organize within the office. Also our Steam community is pretty active, which has been a valuable source of feedback. We have involved the community into the development process, which resulted in some fixes/features that recently have been added by patches. 

d. Do "early access" sales work well?
No experience with this. But you can look at all the reviews people gave on games that are offering early access. That way you can determine if this might be something for you. As the poster above me stated, make sure to have a polished game ready, this attracts a lot of people that will add your game to their wishlist.

e. What do you think makes or break a greenlit campaign?
Makes:
- Being active on social media
- Post regular updates on the development, involve the community
- Contests (give aways)
- Be active yourself, people love to talk to developers of games
- Tell EVERYONE you know that you are having a Steam campaign going on
- Have a trailer of the game, combining with action-packed screenshots (don't include a screenshot of the end credits)
- Make some Let's Play movies and put them on YouTube
- Steam achievements (gained a lot of positive feedback from Steam groups that are focusing on Steam achievements)
- Steam Workshop (look at Cities: Skyline that recently has been released on how they involve their community)

Breaks:
- Don't do any of these things.

[jeremiah]

From everything I can tell, a good branding logo and trailer are by far the most important parts. I wish I had done these a little better.

^Giveaway contests actually seem to be expressly forbidden by Valve and could backfire. There are tons of sites doing this right now. I've been approached already and it can be very tempting.

Could you elaborate on the Achievements thing? How is that helping people on Greenlight? Are they promising loads of Achievements and then going out to groups and promoting the game that way?