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[hanako]

The average greenlight voter is probably going down the list of games looking for something to impress them, they may not give your page more than 10-20 seconds of examining before making their decision,

Now, see, compared to that, doesn't the IGF judging seem a lot more generous?

(ducks and runs)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yeah i actually do wish demos were required for greenlight submissions. it'd have made the whole thing a lot more healthy

also, igf judges are supposedly selected for their expertise, instead of just being a random steam user

[Klaim]

What? Aquaria was not made by people who worked in the big industry companies, nor was MineCraft or World of Goo...

world of goo was made by two ex-EA employees. the others you are right about though.

As far as i know it was mostly a 1 week experiment from the 1 design per week experiment some students of I-don't-know-that-school did, that was called Goo, then they iterated from there.
I don't know the details but I remember the reports. I also heard about eh EA guy afterward so I suppose he came after?

[zalzane]

I don't think an IGF judge would complain about how minecraft or battlefield 3 weren't submitted either.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

What? Aquaria was not made by people who worked in the big industry companies, nor was MineCraft or World of Goo...

world of goo was made by two ex-EA employees. the others you are right about though.

As far as i know it was mostly a 1 week experiment from the 1 design per week experiment some students of I-don't-know-that-school did, that was called Goo, then they iterated from there.
I don't know the details but I remember the reports. I also heard about eh EA guy afterward so I suppose he came after?

from what i remember the two people who ran the experimental gameplay project and created that goo experimental game were also ex-EA employees

[Hangedman]

Looking at the greenlight scrubber stats, the top games in terms of approval are just about all worthwhile, so it is actually working out in that way. But the number of visits varies wildly, and many of the successful ones may just be due to devs asking their fans to upvote.

So good games may get on top, but a lot of great games without any notoriety will never get anywhere.

If Valve's aim was to provide an effective and sobering cross-section of the gaming market they have certainly done it, but the results aren't exactly pleasant

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i've seen a few top games that are just concept art / description, with no gameplay shown. so i don't think it's possible to know if some of the ones at the top are worthwhile or not

from what i've seen, factors that help a game get a higher percent of votes (in order of strength of the factor) are

- having an active community off-site
- having high production values
- being 3d (as opposed to 2d)
- being a fps
- being a slenderman game
- being an action platformer
- having loud, driving music in the trailer

factors which actively harm a game's vote percent seem to be

- being a visual novel
- being a dating sim
- having anime art (even if the game actually is made in japan)
- being a rpgmaker game
- not having a video
- being a simulation
- being a minecraft clone
- being a casual puzzle game
- being or looking like a flash game / iOS game

[Sos]

You forgot "pixel art" in the latter list!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i have seen some games with pixel art highly rated (la mulana and towerclimb for example, but there are many more). if the pixel art is *very good* (high production values, like ff6 quality) it tends to help a game. but it's still not as much of a boon as having 3d graphics, though. from what i've seen in the forums and in the comments a lot of steam users feel that a game isn't a real game if it isn't 3d

[Sos]

One more thing that came to my mind is looking like an iOS game. I even saw a game with portrait mode screenshots, the response was not pretty.

[poe]

I was avoiding posting this as it's quite embarrassing, but maybe someone can learn from my mistakes.

I posted this to reddit's gaming subreddit:

http://i.imgur.com/2Ev3Q.png

NOTE: I was being genuine, I wasn't posting for views on my game; or karma or anything, just me being disgusted with how Greenlight is going. (And not just towards me, just towards people in general)

Of course reddit assumed I wanted them to be my personal army, so it lead to a lot more hate(whatever though)

Anyways in the comments, what people think greenlight is becomes quite apparent.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/z4ult/rgaming_can_we_have_a_word_on_greenlight/

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

One more thing that came to my mind is looking like an iOS game. I even saw a game with portrait mode screenshots, the response was not pretty.

that's true; i'll add that one to the list

I was avoiding posting this as it's quite embarrassing, but maybe someone can learn from my mistakes.

I posted this to reddit's gaming subreddit:

http://i.imgur.com/2Ev3Q.png

NOTE: I was being genuine, I wasn't posting for views on my game; or karma or anything, just me being disgusted with how Greenlight is going. (And not just towards me, just towards people in general)

Of course reddit assumed I wanted them to be my personal army, so it lead to a lot more hate(whatever though)

Anyways in the comments, what people think greenlight is becomes quite apparent.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/z4ult/rgaming_can_we_have_a_word_on_greenlight/

if it's any consolation ID isn't a minecraft clone, hasn't gotten any negative comments at all (besides one guy not liking the old logo, which i replaced), and was still at 55% negative 45% positive at the point when they turned off the ability of the users to see the %'s

[zalzane]

I was avoiding posting this as it's quite embarrassing, but maybe someone can learn from my mistakes.

I posted this to reddit's gaming subreddit:

http://i.imgur.com/2Ev3Q.png

NOTE: I was being genuine, I wasn't posting for views on my game; or karma or anything, just me being disgusted with how Greenlight is going. (And not just towards me, just towards people in general)

Of course reddit assumed I wanted them to be my personal army, so it lead to a lot more hate(whatever though)

Anyways in the comments, what people think greenlight is becomes quite apparent.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/z4ult/rgaming_can_we_have_a_word_on_greenlight/

I can definitely see why people would see the screenshots of your game and label it is a minecraft clone. There are two major defining element's of minecraft's aesthetics, the whole "everything is a voxel!" thing, and pixelated textures. Your game has both of these.

Since cubes are essential to your gameplay, I suggest looking at cube-based games that are -nothing- line minecraft in aesthetics. An excellent example is the puzzle game, RUSH.

[deathtotheweird]

those comments in that image you provided aren't really unwarranted. your game does look like minecraft and the gameplay does resemble edge. I down-voted your game too, it looks unimaginative and generic. hardly steam quality. I wouldn't play it if you paid me.

while the comments are a bit harsh, that doesn't make them wrong. and I don't think anyone is abusing it by posting how they feel. they see wyv and keep and it looks a whole like spelunky, so they immediately make that connection and comment and vote accordingly. that's not their fault, it's the developers fault for making a game that literally looks like a spelunky clone.

you say don't judge on graphics, but that's terrible thinking. if you are trying to sell and market a game, graphics and art style really do matter. I don't want to buy a game that looks like you literally just downloaded a minecraft texture pack.

edit: the top rated comment is spot on as well: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/z4ult/rgaming_can_we_have_a_word_on_greenlight/c61hw54

In fact, I think some greedy devs are abusing the system more than steam users are. Most of the games submitted look like garbage and I really don't want Steam to turn into something like the App store.

[poe]

those comments in that image you provided aren't really unwarranted. your game does look like minecraft and the gameplay does resemble edge. I down-voted your game too, it looks unimaginative and generic. hardly steam quality. I wouldn't play it if you paid me.

while the comments are a bit harsh, that doesn't make them wrong. and I don't think anyone is abusing it by posting how they feel. they see wyv and keep and it looks a whole like spelunky, so they immediately make that connection and comment and vote accordingly. that's not their fault, it's the developers fault for making a game that literally looks like a spelunky clone.

you say don't judge on graphics, but that's terrible thinking. if you are trying to sell and market a game, graphics and art style really do matter. I don't want to buy a game that looks like you literally just downloaded a minecraft texture pack.

edit: the top rated comment is spot on as well: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/z4ult/rgaming_can_we_have_a_word_on_greenlight/c61hw54

In fact, I think some greedy devs are abusing the system more than steam users are. Most of the games submitted look like garbage and I really don't want Steam to turn into something like the App store.

Fair point. The real issue I had was as it seemed to me, blind voting. I mean people aren't forced to use Greenlight so they may as well look through everything in a game before voting on it at all.

I really wish I could do something decent graphics wise though :S

[deathtotheweird]

by blind voting you mean just watching a video or clicking screenshots and clicking upvote or downvote?

that's literally how I buy most games, I just watch a video and see screenshots and buy it or I don't. and it's the same way I'm judging games on Greenlight. I (and I wouldn't be surprised if others were doing the same) vote in Greenlight as if I'm shopping for games. if I see something visually appealing in screenshots or if the gameplay looks fun in the video I will upvote. if not, downvote.

and having bad graphics is not something you should be ashamed of, it takes time and skill to make something visually appealing. just keep working on it and you'll get there, just don't expect people to be so understanding of that when they are in a market to purchase your game.

[zalzane]

it takes time and skill to make something visually appealing.

Or shaders

[poe]

by blind voting you mean just watching a video or clicking screenshots and clicking upvote or downvote?

that's literally how I buy most games, I just watch a video and see screenshots and buy it or I don't. and it's the same way I'm judging games on Greenlight. I (and I wouldn't be surprised if others were doing the same) vote in Greenlight as if I'm shopping for games. if I see something visually appealing in screenshots or if the gameplay looks fun in the video I will upvote. if not, downvote.

and having bad graphics is not something you should be ashamed of, it takes time and skill to make something visually appealing. just keep working on it and you'll get there, just don't expect people to be so understanding of that when they are in a market to purchase your game.

Thanks for the info, I'll keep at it

Also anyone notice Postal 2 is on there? I think it's great that they're using Greenlight when a game that popular could have just sent them an email. (Or I figure at least)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

postal 2 was rejected by steam for being too violent in the past. it's much more violent than postal 3, which is already on steam. this is their second attempt at getting it on steam

[Falmil]

I'm not sure I understand the voting system and allowing games still heavily in development. A game in development is usually not far along enough to be appreciated. Raw mechanics and graphics just make people want to down vote instantly, which makes the creators frustrated. So it seems like the idea is that people reserve their votes until the creator says they are done so then it can be judged?

The idea that I am supposed to see the potential in a WIP game with all kinds of promised features and wait for them to be delivered in X months before voting is ridiculous. Hopefully GL adds some kind of re-review feature to the system, otherwise I probably won't see most of these games again to unless I hear about them elsewhere.