Steam Greenlight

[Koobazaur]

They do since a couple of months. Makes sense for three reasons: PR, PR, PR.

Ugh, but that's the problem if Greenlight does go that route - it's just another popularity contest that boils down game success to "who can market the best / has the most e-cred" rather than "who has the best game." Maybe that is exactly why the filtering is completly random - no playing of favorites?

Introducing a "top rated" section to greenlight would completly undermine the whole point.

At this point it really feels like Greenlight can go in two directions - plethora of shitty/animu/never-to-be-finished/copy-pasta hobby games, or yet another Kickstarter/IndieGoGo clone platform for advertising.

I've said it many times - the whole issue of Web 2.0 'social inclusion' has opened-up many cans of worms when it comes to giving a shit about what people think when it's somewhere between worthless and actually harmful.

We need a massive timeout on favouriting, commenting, voting until we can actually get people to UNDERSTAND stuff and not just act like monkeys punching the "I LIKE" or "DO NOT LIKE" buttons until they bleed...

Completely agree. As noble and beautiful the ideas of democracy and web2.0 empowerment is... most people really don't know what they want, including even me. So many games I expected to hate but learned to love, and vice versa.

[LTK]

Ugh, but that's the problem if Greenlight does go that route - it's just another popularity contest that boils down game success to "who can market the best / has the most e-cred" rather than "who has the best game." Maybe that is exactly why the filtering is completly random - no playing of favorites?

Introducing a "top rated" section to greenlight would completly undermine the whole point.

I can't believe more people haven't said this already. Developers are supposed to ask their established fanbase to go on Greenlight and vote for their game, so that Valve can get an idea for which projects are or aren't worthwhile to release on Steam. If that's the purpose, then the only reason a Steam user would browse the games available is to find one they are already familiar with, and upvote it. You're not supposed to go there and vote on projects you've never heard of, because then your guess is as good as Valve's, and that's not what they want to know.

To that end, I think it's actually detrimental to the system to even allow users to browse the available games, not to mention ask them to rate ALL of them. If Valve really wanted the average Steam user to upvote or downvote every single project on Greenlight, then they're essentially asking you to do their work for them, when they should be asking you to judge the available projects better than they can.

[Rauten]

Using downvotes just to track what you've seen and not seen is massively, massively harmful to developers - every downvote seems to cancel-out an upvote!!

That means if a game is "just not your cuppa" you're balancing out someone who's dying to play it - way to go there hero...

Favourites aren't needed because upvotes can and should do the same thing- keep a list of the games you like so you can watch and see when/if they are accepted.

Wait, what? I checked the FAQ and it doesn't say a word about downvotes; are you sure each downvote cancels an upvote (which is completely and utterly retarded)?

Also, yes, upvotes should do that, but they don't; hence why favourites, at least until they fix upvotes, is handy.

[burningpet]

Favourites perpetuate hype, since people look at their friends favourites, so they are very handy regardless of the effect they have on the calculated %.

Btw - does it says anywhere steam wont also review games for acceptance in the old fashioned way?

[trjp]

Btw - does it says anywhere steam wont also review games for acceptance in the old fashioned way?

Few pages back someone posted a link to where it says the old submission system has been suspended in favour of Greenlight - they're not accepting any games via any other means right now.

That can't last - they cannot seriously expect every developer will want to play this popularity contest - nor should they be letting other people choose how they actually make money (unless they're completely mad).

[trjp]

Wait, what? I checked the FAQ and it doesn't say a word about downvotes; are you sure each downvote cancels an upvote (which is completely and utterly retarded)?

Also, yes, upvotes should do that, but they don't; hence why favourites, at least until they fix upvotes, is handy.

It's worth remembering that they just kicked the Steam Workshop code a bit to make Greenlight - a system designed for showcasing mostly free 'mods' has been bent into a system for showcasing entire (mostly commercial - money costing) games!

Before stats were removed from developer pages, a few developers had done the finger-maths and they were sure that downvotes had an effect on rating - perhaps not 1:1 with upvotes but they definately have an effect.

I'm not sure how you could think a 'DOWN'vote would be read as nothing more than "not my cup of tea" - but you highlight the danger of having any sort of 'vote' where it's purpose is obscured.

If it was a BIG RED BUTTON which said "PRESSING THIS WILL CAUSE PEOPLE TO HATE YOU" you might, at least, have paused for a second? :)

[deano2099]

That can't last - they cannot seriously expect every developer will want to play this popularity contest - nor should they be letting other people choose how they actually make money (unless they're completely mad).

I imagine Greenlight will be used in two ways. Any game that gets over the arbitrary limit gets on to Steam directly, with no other faffing around. But those projects will be a minority. But I imagine any game that stalls out with a significant number of votes will get looked at by Valve's internal team too (if nothing else, I can't imagine they just fired the whole internal game assessment team).

Problem is, that still doesn't leave niche genre games in a very good spot

[soldant]

I think people are just watching that one for it's next massive, self-induced, car-crash...

One of the developers WILL be eaten by a flesh-eating virus contracted from a dirty telephone - it's about the only thing they've not endured as yet??

Haha, yeah. And they'll get a wave of sympathy again no doubt.

Popular yes, now, but its still a niche. and it sure was a niche when the world first heard of it.

What, a zombie survival game? Right now we're set to drown in them. When it was first announced it was sort of interesting because you could kill your own wife, but since then everybody else has cottoned onto the zombie theme and Project Zomboid isn't particularly unique any more. If anything it's going to get left behind since the rise of DayZ has started.

Portal would have rocked the top charts in greenlight, just as it did at the sell charts. maybe they would have been forced to release a demo though, but non the less, it would have been right there at the top spots.

You're thinking of Portal as it is right now - a Valve game with all the Valve trappings. Portal didn't start like that - its origins lie in Narbacular Drop, which I doubt most people had even heard of until Portal appeared. And that probably wouldn't have gotten through either, because everyone would have gone "What the hell is this? I don't get it!"


EDIT: All the niche genre stuff - Again, Steam isn't supposed to accept every single game ever. If you want to play a popularity contest, the niche games will lose. There's no other way around it. I don't see why niche games not getting onto Steam is such a big issue. That was never going to be the point of Greenlight, and they were highly unlikely to make it on their own. Why show preferential treatment, just because it's a niche game?

[deano2099]

EDIT: All the niche genre stuff - Again, Steam isn't supposed to accept every single game ever. If you want to play a popularity contest, the niche games will lose. There's no other way around it. I don't see why niche games not getting onto Steam is such a big issue. That was never going to be the point of Greenlight, and they were highly unlikely to make it on their own. Why show preferential treatment, just because it's a niche game?

Because the very best games in those genres deserve a wider audience. Analogue has outsold every other VN in the UK by an order of magnitude because it was highlighted on Steam. It got on there through being one of the best in it's genre and recognised as such by Valve's team. It would never have got on through Greenlight.

No, Steam shouldn't have every game ever, but I'd rather it have the best games ever than the most popular games ever. Like with Portal, pretty much any game that does something truly different, that does something original, won't make it. Because people have nothing to relate it to. No frame of reference, no reason to up-vote it. Even if there's a demo, most people aren't going to play it.

[soldant]

...very best games... deserve... one of the best in it's genre... the best games ever than the most popular games ever.

There-in lies the issue... these are all very subjective. Even popularity since it depends entirely on the population in question. Analogue for example might seem quite popular but I've also seen plenty of people who don't like it. When you expand that to people who don't like visual novels (and generally it's not a popular genre at all) and the entire "best games ever" thing falls apart. While something may be well received in a niche, as part of a whole it might not be very interesting. Steam caters to the population at large. These niche titles aren't likely to make it and that's not a problem.

Steam is a store. It's not a showcase. It's not a free advertising/hype platform. It exists to sell games with DRM. There is no requirement for Steam to elevate niche titles to stardom, because even if it did chances are they'll stay niche titles because they cater to that niche.

Even then Portal is popular not just for its mechanics, but for its character. Arguably Portal 2 was carried primary by the game's characters and humour, because the portal mechanic was stale and the gels weren't anywhere near as entertaining.

[internetonsetadd]

Some of the arguments against the downvote system seem to be bordering on "How could anybody not like this? If they don't like it they shouldn't be allowed to say so." Both up and down voting is open to widespread abuse and knee-jerk "NO GARFIELD IN DIS GAME -1/OMFG SAW 2 SCREENSHOTS LUKS AWSUM +1!" voting. Although the concerns of troll-voting are valid, that also applies to being able to like something.

Not every indie game is gold, and not everybody likes every game. I don't see a problem with letting people express that they don't like a game. If a game is popular, the upvotes will defeat the downvotes, and it'll be worth having on Steam. Not every indie game is going to be worth having on Steam. I don't think a system of "You either like it or you're not entitled to an opinion" is any more balanced than having the current system.

That's not the argument I made. I'm asking why it's relevant that x number of people dislike a game if a sufficient number (per Steam) expressed an interest in purchasing it. If one were to poll the gaming community at large on how they felt about the average indie, I imagine that the majority of responses would be down votes. For niche/indie titles, it's not relevant that most gamers wouldn't buy it. It's relevant that enough gamers would. Clearly that's an oversimplification that ignores some factors--those browsing Greenlight probably have an existing interest in indies, for example. You do raise a good point about manipulation; if the down-vote feature is intended to help mitigate abuse, certainly there's value in that.

Moving on, I'm not sure what you're getting at in your recent posts. Steam has been making money off niche indies for a while now. I don't think the purpose of Greenlight is to erect more barriers to these sorts of games, but to make it easier for worthwhile (sellable) titles to gain entry. You mentioned that you voted for Kinetic Void. That's a niche game in what has been relegated to a niche genre; the project barely succeeded on Kickstarter. I imagine it's the sort of non-hit indie that will sell only modestly until a sale--not unlike Evochron Mercenary, which climbed into the top 10 during the summer sale. This seems to be the general rule for most indies on Steam.

I genuinely don't understand your point re: Analogue. It's totally irrelevant that it's niche. Steam isn't elevating indies for charity--it's doing so because there's money in it. Few indies are going to have mass appeal or see AAA-level sales numbers. That's an unreasonable expectation of an otherwise valuable product. I think Greenlight can be looked at as an effort by Steam to capture more of the niche market more efficiently, perhaps in anticipation of Origin trying to aggressively edge its way in. "Not a problem" that a game like Analogue wouldn't make it to Steam is somewhere in the range of 30,000 lost sales.

[soldant]

It's relevant that enough gamers would.

But what is enough? Any sort of numbers manipulation just lowers the bar, or raises it unfairly depending on the game. My point with that section of the post is that people complaining that there should only be an upvote seem to be implying that the only opinion that matters is one that's positive towards the game. Everybody else can either not have a say, or ineffectually complain in the comments. For all we know Valve could be using information about users (such as their game library composition etc) in concert with the votes to determine what section of the market likes Game X. Failing that, I don't see why people shouldn't be able to vote against a game. There definitely should be a "I don't care, don't show me again" option, but I'm fine with there being a "I don't want this on Steam" option. Both votes are open to abuse.

Moving on, I'm not sure what you're getting at in your recent posts.

People seem to be suggesting that it's a terrible crime that niche titles aren't going to rocket to the top because the community, as a whole, aren't likely to vote for them. My point is "So what?" The idea behind Greenlight is that popular projects get a shot at a place on Steam (or a place outright, I guess it's not 100% clear yet how it works). We're dealing with a massive community which will tend to reach a general consensus on certain titles. That's not going to be niche games. Well, it's unlikely to be a niche title that gets picked, but that's what happens when it's a popularity contest. It's either something that most people like the sound of, or the game that gets hyped the most. And indie hype sure does happen, it's not restricted to the big studios.

I did vote up Kinetic Void, and I guess it is sort of niche because space has been forced into a corner in recent years (last game I really enjoyed was Freelancer, the X series are crippled by their dated UI). But that's not contradicting what I'm saying - that Greenlight isn't supposed to exist just to elevate niche titles to stardom. Kinetic Void has been generating a fair bit of interest, and may do so post-release. Only just reaching their Kickstarter goal might not be the best determinant because Kickstarter effectively asks you to back a project on a promise of what the game might be, not what it actually is. But in any event I backed it because it's something that appeals to me, just as I'd back a wargame. But I'm not going to get upset if they don't make it, because I understand that they're niche titles and not likely to have a mass appeal. And in a popularity contest, that's okay.

If they subsequently fail to turn a profit, then too bad. Gaming isn't a charity, it's an industry, developers are businesses. It's fine to make something that appeals to you or your niche only, but if you fail to turn a profit from an unpopular product, then I won't blame the system.

"Not a problem" that a game like Analogue wouldn't make it to Steam is somewhere in the range of 30,000 lost sales.

So what? I really don't care that the dev of Analogue doesn't get 30,000 sales. I'm a consumer, nothing that dev has done particularly interests me, I'm not required to care any more than I'm required to care that Call of Honour 6: Black SWAT didn't sell 60 billion copies. I don't know why you'd even bother to mention this.

[deano2099]

People seem to be suggesting that it's a terrible crime that niche titles aren't going to rocket to the top because the community, as a whole, aren't likely to vote for them. My point is "So what?"

It's not a crime. It's just worse than it used to be. As I said, if this was in addition to the normal process, it'd be inarguably great. But it's not. It's replacing it. Your whole argument against Analogue goes out the window because Steam clearly did want it on their service. We know this because they put it up there. Under Greenlight, they would never have had the chance to do so.

But I'm not going to get upset if they don't make it, because I understand that they're niche titles and not likely to have a mass appeal. And in a popularity contest, that's okay.

Yes, that is okay. But Steam didn't used to be a popularity contest. It now is. I think that's a step in the wrong direction. You don't have to look far to see what the result of picking the games you sell by a popularity contest is, just walk in to a high street game store.

If you think Steam is better off being a popularity contest than a curated storefront that's fine. But you're not offering any arguments as to why. You're just saying it's fine for Steam to do that because they're a private business. Which is obvious to everyone. We're just saying we think it's a bad call.

[soldant]

It's not a crime. It's just worse than it used to be. As I said, if this was in addition to the normal process, it'd be inarguably great. But it's not. It's replacing it. Your whole argument against Analogue goes out the window because Steam clearly did want it on their service. We know this because they put it up there. Under Greenlight, they would never have had the chance to do so.

None of that contradicts my argument. I'm not saying that Greenlight replacing Valve as gatekeeper of the walled garden is a good thing. In fact I suggested that Valve should (and probably will) still play gatekeeper at the end of the day. My argument with Analogue isn't 'thrown out the window' because Valve wanted it - all I suggested was that to go on about 'the best game ever' is ridiculous because that's a meaningless term, particularly when applied to Steam as a whole. Whether Valve wanted it or not doesn't change that since I'm talking about Greenlight. Beyond that I said that I don't care if Analogue or any other niche title succeeds or fails because they're not on Steam. If they're not, they're apparently not good enough.

Greenlight is a popularity contest involving the Steam community, with all the horrors that involves. The previous system was Valve accepting what Valve wanted to sell. Neither are particularly good systems on their own, but I'd much sooner take the latter than trust the community, because collectively we're terrible.

You've effectively twisted my argument around to make it sound like I'm in favour of Greenlight. I'm not. I think it's a misguided idea. I might even go so far as to suggest that, at least in its current version, it shouldn't have been done at all. But I will say that if a niche title doesn't make it, I won't lose sleep over it, and they were never likely to be in the running anyway. It's one big hype contest - whoever gets the hype to fever-pitch will win. I don't think that's a good system, I never said it was a good system, and any suggestion to the contrary is incorrect.

Just to hammer home the point I refer you back to my post on Page 7 from yesterday:

Who dares hype is he who wins. Which is why I still hope that Valve remain as the gatekeepers.

It does have the potential to expose new games to Steam... if it worked properly. As it stands it doesn't. The concept isn't bad. Its execution however is. Don't try to change my argument for me.

[trjp]

To summarize the whole argument about GreenLight as briefly as I can

I do not think Steam will be the best place to get/store my digital game collection if the games available on it are purely those chosen by "the massed hordes of the Internet".

Sheer weight of opinion is not enough - a mainstream-sounding game may get a million views but a I want good games - not games by developers good at plugging themselves.

Steam has a reputation for being 'hard to get into' - you cannot just change that to "easy to get into if you pander to the masses".

The first 'free' indie on Steam came just before Greenlight - Super Crate Box - I actually don't think it would have fared too well in Greenlight - certainly not in the higher end of the current games list...

[trjp]

and moving on to my other job - that of turning Greenlight upside down for interesting (to me, at least) stats...

Do you think Layernet are taking the piss with 29 titles on Greenlight? Alawar are closely following with 27 - the next highest has 'just' 8.

I can't help thinking that amongst all the other things they need to fix, limiting people to a few games at a time might be an idea!?

It shows a lack of PR awareness from the developers too (tho they are publishers I guess?) - it's much harder to get 27 votes - 27 views - 27 "do I want this" decisions from people than it is to get 1-3ish?

SOmething about 'eggs' and 'baskets'...

[stainedfan]

I want to let you know about a game on greenlight (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...s/?id=92920386) which is very little known. It has also got a demo if you like give it a little push.

Thanks

[sk2k]

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7...ion=greenlight

Why is this allowed on Greenlight? It's spam for me. They are not really indie devs. Alawar is some type of publisher/distributor.

EDIT: Whoops! I did not saw trjp's post. :)

[trjp]

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7...ion=greenlight

Why is this allowed on Greenlight? It's spam for me. They are not really indie devs. Alawar is some type of publisher/distributor.

EDIT: Whoops! I did not saw trjp's post. :)

Heh - I don't think Greenlight is 'indie only' by any means - right now it's the only way to submit games for consideration for Steam.

I think it might help if they thought about what they're doing - they've clearly not gotten anything on before so they DUMP IT ALL ON NOW - but then all publicity is good publicity!?

Hell I could submit the HTML5 game I wrote and posted about here - I'd never get accepted but I would get a tonne of publicity I couldn't easily get elsewhere!!

[alms]

I apologize if this has been posted already but I only have the time to skim through the massive pools of negativity about Greenlight :rolleyes:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...7#post32641767

"Downvotes do not nullify upvotes"

BTW, so far I only upvoted off the top of my mind:

The Sea Will Claim Everything
Wyv and Keep

I've also asked one of the Skygoblin guys to create an entry for The Journey Down.