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[c023-DeV]

Like Gabe Newell said: "We want greenlight to 'go away'..."

I guess greenlight ->as barrier<- is fading away and becoming more of a prioritizing tool for Valve and for us developers which I think is a good thing. Since some day everybody will be able to publish games via Steam without any barriers. I guess Valve are just slowly opening up the platform to test their discovery tools and find ways to let quality content shine even if there is a great amount of content. (Reviews/Curators/Custom Stores ... they are trying a lot if you look close)

So in hindsight I thing Valve is doing a pretty good job in taking away the heavy impact by opening up the platform slowly if you know what I mean. And I think its time to look at Greenlight more as THE tool it was meant to be from the beginning (but was massively misinterpreted) - It's a tool to measure public interest in a game.

So trying to 'cheat' the system by offering free keys and stuff to get through the system fast is useless - in the end that only takes developers longer to find out if their work gets received by the steam audience as intended.

I come to this conclusion since my second Greenlight project only took less then 2 Months to get greenlit and I see a lot more games coming through the gates than a few years ago.

What's your opinion on this?

[readyplaygames]

Perhaps people are confusing greenlight and early access? I know I was a tad confused for a while.

The people who gamed the system didn't help it, Greenlight has developed a bit of a reputation. I love the idea of gauging interest in a game, but is Greenlight too far-gone? Does anyone trust it anymore?

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

I don't think it's fading away, it's just that entries doubled / tripled since summer 2015.

I used to vote daily from january 2015 and it took 6 months to reach 1000 total votes on steam greenlight and i continued until now and i'am at 3500 votes. It had become a chore voting now, surpisingly overflowed by low-quality games.

Until greenlight pass (the 100$ thing) disappears from the store i doubt it will go away.

Btw Greenlight acceptance got stricter since december 2016 as less and less entries who relies on vote giveaways are getting greenlit since the community is reporting those behaviour.



And for devs here. As long as you're having a "solid" "worth money" project, your project will be greenlit even it takes +1 month.

[bateleur]

And for devs here. As long as you're having a "solid" "worth money" project, your project will be greenlit even it takes +1 month.

That hasn't been my experience so far. Got a lot of upvotes (and a decent "yes" rate) when my game's page first went up, but after a few days the traffic dropped to zero and stayed there.

Now obviously I can get more votes by other means, but so far the traffic I've generated myself has been far too small to ever get the game Greenlit, so unless I can get press to link to it (failed so far - apparently they prefer covering Steam launches) it's going to take a lot longer than a few months to get through.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

Not been a month since you posted your project and imo your game doesn't look exciting enough to generate hype or interest by itself.

but wait & see, i've seen worse being greenlit ,just wait for the next batchs.

[bateleur]

generate hype or interest

Indeed not, but if you look at the analytics no games "generate hype" in a way that translates to Greenlight votes. That implies people linking to the page virally and I literally can't think of a single game on Greenlight that's happened to.

(Interest levels seem fine from people who've actually got as far as watching the videos. It's getting them that far which is the problem.)

[io3 creations]

Like Gabe Newell said: "We want greenlight to 'go away'..."

I guess greenlight ->as barrier<- is fading away and becoming more of a prioritizing tool for Valve and for us developers which I think is a good thing. Since some day everybody will be able to publish games via Steam without any barriers. I guess Valve are just slowly opening up the platform to test their discovery tools and find ways to let quality content shine even if there is a great amount of content. (Reviews/Curators/Custom Stores ... they are trying a lot if you look close)

So in hindsight I thing Valve is doing a pretty good job in taking away the heavy impact by opening up the platform slowly if you know what I mean. And I think its time to look at Greenlight more as THE tool it was meant to be from the beginning (but was massively misinterpreted) - It's a tool to measure public interest in a game.

So trying to 'cheat' the system by offering free keys and stuff to get through the system fast is useless - in the end that only takes developers longer to find out if their work gets received by the steam audience as intended.

I come to this conclusion since my second Greenlight project only took less then 2 Months to get greenlit and I see a lot more games coming through the gates than a few years ago.

What's your opinion on this?

My impression is that Greenlight can already serve to let the games through that people are interested in.  This can be measured via the Yes/No interest and the number of total votes. 

I guess, by free keys, you are referring to those services that offer you to get your game greenlit (i.e. help you with votes) in exchange for you giving free copies for their promotions?  Is the number of games doing that significant?

If the current system wouldn't be in place, what could take it's place? Would it become similar to one of those online portals (e.g. Newgrounds) where there's still an initial rating based voting but if the game passes that, then it can "stay".  Sure, there are daily, weekly, best as well as front page as well searching for games based on ratings.  So, if your game is "good" then it should still stand out but I wonder about game dilution in a general sense.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

Got a lot of upvotes (and a decent "yes" rate)

Total Votes    1,090    
'Yes' Votes    587 (54% of total)    
'No' Votes    503 (46% of total)

[gornova]

As steam user, most of the time I just say No, because steam suggest me not-so-exiciting games.

As hobby developer (nothing on steam, only thinking), just get Yes and no is not enough: why steam don't introduce a simply mandatory comment "why yes or why not?".

Feedback from potential customers is really important!

[MikeHart]

If greenlight goes away, then the same thing will happen to Steam like it did with Google Play and Itunes. To much crap to have your good game being discovered. Right now if your game is greenlit you can expect at least some kind of money. If everyone is able to publish there, then forget about that.

I hope it doesn't go away and even raise the fee to 200 USD or maybe 100 USD per game.

[Taky]

I hope it doesn't go away and even raise the fee to 200 USD or maybe 100 USD per game.

I agree - I'm not saying I'm all for the current situation of Greenlight, but the idea of Steam becoming iOS/Android marketplace is scary. Some bar to the level of entry I believe is healthy.