Steam Greenlight

[Feldspar]

I upvoted Legend of the Knightwasher, it's been one of those days and I was happy just to see someone on the same wavelength in what looked like an unstoppable tide of shit.

I'm sure there are some absolute gems in there, and hopefully the cream will rise to the top eventually, but as it is, at the moment Greenlight is a mess and turds also float.

[RobF]

Well, if you look at it this way, Valve is essentially trying to get a ballpark of the market size of the game. People who vote a game up have a certain likelihood of buying it if it's released. People who vote a game down are unlikely to buy it. But people who don't vote at all are going to be somewhere in the middle. If there are a lot more upvotes than downvotes, people who don't vote are going to be more likely to buy it, while if there are a lot more downvotes than upvotes, people who don't vote are going to be less likely to buy it. It's very hard to tell how likely people who don't vote are going to be to buy it if you only have upvotes. Having both upvotes and downvotes gives Valve a lot more information for estimating the market size, which is ultimately what their decision to stock the game or not is based on.

But, if that's the case, perhaps Valve needs to be clearer on what upvotes and downvotes mean.

I've read that 4 times now and I'm still completely confused :D

As a store owner, why would I care how many people won't buy the game (or downrate a game?), I'm interested in how many people -will- buy the game and those alone, surely?

[ColOfNature]

I suppose he means that if more people downvote than upvote then you can extrapolate to more of the population disliking the game than if the voting went the other way. Not sure if it would actually work out like that, but it's all grist to Valve's data-mill.

[deano2099]

To be fair this is Steam, so it should have three voting buttons:

Will buy
Will never buy
Wait for the sale

[AlexClockwork]

I've read that 4 times now and I'm still completely confused :D

As a store owner, why would I care how many people won't buy the game (or downrate a game?), I'm interested in how many people -will- buy the game and those alone, surely?

OK, but some of the people that don't upvote it will probably also buy the game, so by adding downvotes you can get a more accurate count of how many of those are going to buy the game. 1000 votes might have more buys than 1500 votes and 500 downvotes. (Just an example.)

[RobF]

Right, OK. But there's a big difference in drawing conclusions from upvotes and downvotes which is where the problem lies for me.

If you RATE UP it means:

1. I want this on Steam

If you RATE DOWN, it means:

1. I don't want this on Steam.
2. I'm just trying to shift this off my list so I don't have to look at it again.
3. I'm a malicious bastard.
4. Maybe someday in the future but not now.
5. I hate the developer, he smells of wee and he told me to choke on my own dick or something.
6. It was funny lol.

Or many, many other things. It's that you can't draw any meaningful conclusions from just a thumbs down that makes it such a big problem. It needs to be more granular.

[soldant]

Voted up Kinetic Void, because it's the only project I regret not Kickstarting... making it the ONLY project I never Kickstarted. Chances are I'll buy it on release though.

Downvoted two games that were just using stock RPG Maker assets and didn't actually seem to do anything special except hope for money, downvoted Postal 2 (even though it was official) and a bunch of other commercial games submitted by the community because apparently that's all that's required to get any game on Steam.

[ColOfNature]

I really like Flowstorm. It's far from original but it's simple, compulsive fun and I really want to play with the level editor shown off in the video. (Top tip: you can give a fake email to play the in-browser version.)

[alms]

To be fair this is Steam, so it should have three voting buttons:

Will buy
Will never buy
Wait for the sale

4. "Have it already and want a free Steam key from the dev".

[internetonsetadd]

I'm not a fan of the down vote feature at all. If a hundred people up vote and fifty people down vote, the disinterest of the latter doesn't cancel out the interest of any of the former. A hundred people still (ostensibly) want to buy the game.

I imagine it's a lot more work to read and comprehend a game's description--especially innovative/experimental/niche titles with gameplay not immediately apparent to the average Steam user--than it is to decide in five seconds that a game is shit. That makes me somewhat nervous for a lot of the indies I'm interested in.

I also find it a little odd that moderately sized successes on Kickstarter would need to jump through hoops to get on Steam. Origin gave them a warm, honeyed welcome.

Of course, I have no idea how votes are weighed, and the bar might be lower than I imagine. Down votes could simply be an irrelevant outlet for gamers who enjoy shitting on things more than they do partaking in the things they like, giving them something to do instead of flagging everything they think is suck.

[trjp]

It's 5:31am and I can't sleep - so what better thing to do than create a spider to read all the Greenlight Games into a local database and have a meander through the stats!! :)

Steam is dead slow at handing-over the pages (probably deliberate) so it's taking a while (at least another 10 mins before I'll have a near-complete list) but there are some interesting things popping-up already - like the fact some games have an upload date WAY before the service went live (uploaded by Valve for testing perhaps?)

I'll post more juicy information - perhaps even a link to the raw data - if you're curious at all. Hell if you speak PHP (and a bit of jQuery for the output) I'll throw you the source and YOU can get IP banned by Steam too :)

p.s. I'm finally tired and it's only 'found' 500-odd of the 600-odd games - but here's something to go on until I wake-up and get coffee again :)

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1164739/greenlight.htm

Click the headings to sort - any questions??? Bueller??? Bueller???

[biz]

Before, there were really good games that Valve simply passed on.

Greenlight seems like a safe way to make sure that your game will be accepted as long as you have enough fans.

[soldant]

I'm not a fan of the down vote feature at all. If a hundred people up vote and fifty people down vote, the disinterest of the latter doesn't cancel out the interest of any of the former. A hundred people still (ostensibly) want to buy the game.

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.

Before, there were really good games that Valve simply passed on.

Greenlight seems like a safe way to make sure that your game will be accepted as long as you have enough fans.

Which is open to all sorts of abuse. It's not even really fans, just 'likes' or 'attention' which can easily be manipulated.

[MoLAoS]

Steam Greenlight is a hellhole.

Fucking morons voting down table top to computer war game ports because they think its a rip off of HOI. Because they are so fucking ignorant that they think HOI was the first wargame ever.

Letting the public vote on shit is always a disaster in the making. Maybe if you could only upvote it would be fine because idiots would have no effect on the proceedings.

[soldant]

Steam Greenlight is a hellhole..

I think the far greater problem is "I want it on Steam, therefore everybody else wants it on Steam." Every single title, no matter how obscure, is getting posted. And this was always going to happen, you could see that coming from a mile off.

What, did people think this was going to be some sort of awesome new system where their favourite indie niche game was going to appear on Steam and make the developer incredibly rich? The popular stuff will get upvoted and will win, and 'popular' is not niche.

[burningpet]

It's 5:31am and I can't sleep - so what better thing to do than create a spider to read all the Greenlight Games into a local database and have a meander through the stats!! :)

Steam is dead slow at handing-over the pages (probably deliberate) so it's taking a while (at least another 10 mins before I'll have a near-complete list) but there are some interesting things popping-up already - like the fact some games have an upload date WAY before the service went live (uploaded by Valve for testing perhaps?)

I'll post more juicy information - perhaps even a link to the raw data - if you're curious at all. Hell if you speak PHP (and a bit of jQuery for the output) I'll throw you the source and YOU can get IP banned by Steam too :)

p.s. I'm finally tired and it's only 'found' 500-odd of the 600-odd games - but here's something to go on until I wake-up and get coffee again :)

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1164739/greenlight.htm

Click the headings to sort - any questions??? Bueller??? Bueller???

Wow, thanks a lot for that! Towns is #4 place in the highest % and #5 in the most favourites, with about 100 favourites below project gianna, since then we surpassed project gianna by about 50 favourites so i guess we are also #4 in the highest number of favourites.

i just wish valve could also provide this data in real time.

[Unaco]

Has it even been confirmed what effect Downvotes have? Could it be it's nothing other than adding to the person who downvoted list of games they've rated? That is, downvoting just gets it out of the way for them, but doesn't count against the upvotes.

[sabrage]

+1 Giana, Routine, Gear Up, La-Mulana, Miasmata, Kinetic Void
-1 Afterfall Insanity Extended Edition, because of that stupid publicity stunt they tried to pull last year

[Spengbab]

Could you guys link the stuff youre voting on? Makes it easier to add votes by not having to sift through anime game after anime game (All made in RPG Maker).

[The JG Man]

The other amusing factor is that you're likely to rate and favourite a game your friend has voted on because the sorting list for those is far better than the main scrolling pages. Taken further if you have similar tastes to your friends.

As it stands, I can't be bothered to sift through the pages when one page isn't the same due to randomisation, which is a monumentally stupid decision.