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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/determinance/?e

I signed it, just thought I'd pass it on in case anyone else wants to. It's a petition to get more independent games on Steam. It just started, so expect the names of the companies mentioned in the petition sponsors section to go up later.

Its author even has made an interesting promise:

If we get 5000 signatures on the petition in the next 6 months (that’s a lot) - I (Paul Taylor of Mode 7 Games) will personally fly out to Valve’s offices and give it to them.

If we get 10,000 signatures, I will personally fly out to Valve’s offices and give it to them, while dressed up as a tomato.

I think it'd be worth trying to get 10,000 just to see him do that.

[___]

Finally an internet petition that might have some effect.

[KennEH!]

Came for more indie, signed for man in tomato suit.

[Renton]

Came for more indie, signed for man in tomato suit.

Seconded.

[Melly]

I was under the assumption that internet petitions were completely useless.

[Renton]

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I was under the assumption that internet petitions were completely useless.

They've worked occasionally. I'd say it's about the same rate as normal petitions.

[Skofo]

Woo, indie games! But what does he expect Valve to do? Beg random indie developers to develop for their platform? As far as I can see, Valve is open to indie games.

Also, I'd much rather see a petition for Valve to rewrite Steam already! It's like the Cookie Monster. Except it eats cookies made of pure RAM.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Valve often doesn't even reply when indie developers ask for information on getting their games on Steam. There are plenty of great games that would do well on Steam. There are a few indie games on Steam, but very few, and a lot of them tend to be of the PopCap variety.

[Tanner]

And that one Eternal something or other game.
Signed.

[Cagey]

I always thought there were plenty of indie games on steam. Does anyone know of any that got rejected?

This should be directed at indie devs, not Valve.

[increpare]

I always thought there were plenty of indie games on steam. Does anyone know of any that got rejected?

Have you read the petition?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

There are a lot more than those that go rejected -- also it's not so much rejection as it is not replying, so you don't even know if they looked at a game or not. Rejection with reasons given would be preferable to how it is now.

We are writing this petition in order to encourage Valve to open up their service to indie developers, and allow people to buy games of all shapes, sizes and levels of quality without imposing arbitrary selection criteria. We ask, at the very least, that they have a defined set of selection criteria, and that they make these known.

[ChrisFranklin]

I always thought there were plenty of indie games on steam. Does anyone know of any that got rejected?

This should be directed at indie devs, not Valve.

Excluding mods there are currently about 25 indie games on Steam.  That number of actual developers featured there shrinks further when you count just developers and not individual games. Intorversion alone has Darwinia, Uplink, DEFCON, and Multinwinia - nearly a quarter of the indie games up there.

It's also damned near impossible to find any place to submit your game to Valve.  There's no friendly request for applications, no clearly noted e-mail address to turn to, no forms to fill out, nothin'.  It's not even that Valve is super picky about what they are willing to put on their store - it's that they don't seem interested in carrying games that don't have a somewhat substantial audience from the get go.

And even once you do manage to contact an individual who is willing to listen to your pitch, your only feedback is a terse rejection letter in response that does little to explain why you were declined acceptance into their elite club of games.

The PC is the premiere platform for independent game developers, and I don't think it's a shortage of product that's the problem.  There are way more than 25 great independent games out there, and it'd be nice to see Valve be less picky-and-choosy about which ones they bring to a wider audience.

That said, internet petitions don't do anything.

[team_q]

"We are writing this petition in order to encourage Valve to open up their service to indie developers, and allow people to buy games of all shapes, sizes and levels of quality without imposing arbitrary selection criteria."

This is why I won't be signing, I don't think Valve should have to open their system up. I think there are enough portals, people just want to be part of the biggest one, they are in a position to be selective.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Sure, they are selective, but are there really only 25 good indie games worth being on it? Most of the indie games they selected aren't games I think are very good, like Peggle, a game which congratulates you for doing nothing and watching a ball bounce around and sparkle.

I think it'd be beneficial to game development as a whole if they considered more independent games. There are other portals, but there are no indie game portals that focus primarily on "hardcore" indie games (platformers, shooters, games like Aquaria, strategy games, etc.), instead all the indie game portals currently focus on causal games. There are a lot of indie games which don't really fit the audiences of portals like Big Fish Games, etc., and are rejected from those portals due to being too hard for soccer moms to grasp, but do fit the audience of Steam. Noitu Love 2 and Aquaria are two examples: I think they'd sell way better on Steam than they would on some casual indie game portal, just because of what their intended audience is.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

As an aside, this is from the Aquaria forums:

There's really no need to "suggest" this again.  Because if you did indeed know that it's been discussed before then you should know that Bit-Blot applied for Aquaria to be on STEAM but the bozos that run the service refuse to get back to them about it.

[source]

Can you imagine not even replying? Aquaria is one of the best indie games ever made, and has a very sizeable audience already, and Steam didn't even bother replying to their email! I see this story over and over. The least Steam could do is reply with what they don't like about a game.

(Note that later in that thread it says that they did get a response when they went through someone who knew them / kept pestering them, so I'm just referring to their initial attempt.)

[GregWS]

I'm all for Steam taking a more open approach to Indie Games.  That said, I'd like them to heavily filter it, because I don't see why they shouldn't.  It's more games like Noitu Love 2 and Aquaria that I'd like to see there too.  I mean, look at how well Audiosurf has done because of Steam.  I highly doubt it would be the success story that it is were it not for the Steam connection.

And in general I think that online petitions are meaningless, but if they actually print it off and take it to Valve, then I think it that in some ways it stops being online.

And anyways, if Valve thinks there's money to be made, then I expect they'll act on it.  I think the main problem is getting them to start taking indie games seriously.  I mean, if they're not even replying to emails then who knows if they've even looked at some of these high quality indie games.

I also really agree about the whole "no other option" statement.  I for one am quite leery about buying things from random sites I'm not super familiar with.  Steam has built up some trust, and if they screwed that up there would be a lot of angry people, instead of just a few.

[Radnom]

I'm not sure I want indie games on Steam 

It's a pretty slow thing to have running in the background.. But I guess it's a fairly safe way to buy indie games.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I too would prefer to buy the game alone than to buy it on Steam, but at least Steam will introduce indie games to a larger audience. I suspect that all most gamers know about indie games is Introversion and Cave Story right now.