The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Valve was even slapped with a court case after one transgender employee alleged that her supervisor constantly referred to her as “it.”

such a massive quote that this Codex-relevant bit went completely unnoticed!

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Valve was even slapped with a court case after one transgender employee alleged that her supervisor constantly referred to her as “it.”

such a massive quote that this Codex-relevant bit went completely unnoticed!

May 24, 2016

 

[Latelistener]

True indies will get buried among the shovelware.

Couldn't be worse than it already is.
At least now it will be harder for shit games to make money on trading cards.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Valve was even slapped with a court case after one transgender employee alleged that her supervisor constantly referred to her as “it.”

such a massive quote that this Codex-relevant bit went completely unnoticed!

May 24, 2016

It was posted on Codex in May of 2017. That 2016 date is not mentioned there at at all.

We have a link-clicker here!

 

[gaussgunner]

shovelware devs will be fine.

Depends. Shovelware devs put up their games to recoup their expenses through scamming Trading Cards. But according to the new Trading Card system, cards won't drop in games until a game reaches a certain confidence metric, which will prove that the game is actually played by people and not bots. So if the shovelware devs won't get money from trading cards, I don't think they will be willing to put down 100 dollars per game each time.

And anyway I always thought that this "oh the true indie gems are buried under greenlight shovelware" complaining is bullshit. It is not Valve's job to promote one's game. If you can't promote your game so that it is actually burried by shovelware which nobody actually plays, than you deserve it.

I never encountered these shovelware shit on Steam because I'm not spending my day digging through the whole catalogue of Steam. If I want to buy a game I heared and read about, I go and buy it.

GOG occasionally promotes good recent indie titles, why not Steam? Dunno what you mean "not Valve's job", they're a game publisher and retailer, it's their business to promote games and increase sales.

I'm talking about legitimate shovelware btw. Casual trash, low-effort indies, every kid with an idea and Unity and $100. They're all out promoting their shit games on forums and social media, and doing a better job of it than serious indies who spend their time making better games. If Valve's not gonna be the gatekeeper who says fuck you you're all talk and no action, Steam will be flooded with shovelware just like the mobile app stores.

Not complaining, just calling it how I see it.

EDIT: I even have friends who are making shovelware. True indie shovelware. One's even making real money. And if they want to be bottom feeders, I encourage them to take full advantage of Steam Direct. They sure as hell won't be the only ones.

 

[Thane Solus]

Google Play II we finally arrived. So basically they wont do much, just like some of us anticipated. Oh well...

 

[Riso]

Volvos 100$ fee to put any game on you want to "curb abuse" is totally meaningless because you just need 143 suckers to buy a game at 0.99$ to get the money back and a slight profit.

 

[J_C]

Volvos 100$ fee to put any game on you want to "curb abuse" is totally meaningless because you just need 143 suckers to buy a game at 0.99$ to get the money back and a slight profit.

And those 143 suckers will probably refund the game after the 10 minutes.

These asset flippers were not making money by selling their games for people. Usually they made a bunch of keys, sent them to people who then ran the game through bots to get a lot of trading cards. Then selling those trading cards to make a profit. But if the trading cards won't drop thanks to Valve's new system, they won't make any profit.

Casual trash, low-effort indies, every kid with an idea and Unity and $100. They're all out promoting their shit games on forums and social media, and doing a better job of it than serious indies who spend their time making better games

And whose fault is that? Maybe indies should start realising that they need to put a lot of effort into marketing and PR if they want their games to sell.

 

[gaussgunner]

Casual trash, low-effort indies, every kid with an idea and Unity and $100. They're all out promoting their shit games on forums and social media, and doing a better job of it than serious indies who spend their time making better games

And whose fault is that? Maybe indies should start realising that they need to put a lot of effort into marketing and PR if they want their games to sell.

Says a guy selling a $2 rpgmaker game on Steam. That's what I'm talking about.

 

[J_C]

Casual trash, low-effort indies, every kid with an idea and Unity and $100. They're all out promoting their shit games on forums and social media, and doing a better job of it than serious indies who spend their time making better games

And whose fault is that? Maybe indies should start realising that they need to put a lot of effort into marketing and PR if they want their games to sell.

Says a guy selling a $2 rpgmaker game on Steam. That's what I'm talking about.

Your point?

 

[Black]

Casual trash, low-effort indies, every kid with an idea and Unity and $100. They're all out promoting their shit games on forums and social media, and doing a better job of it than serious indies who spend their time making better games

And whose fault is that? Maybe indies should start realising that they need to put a lot of effort into marketing and PR if they want their games to sell.

Says a guy selling a $2 rpgmaker game on Steam.

What, too much?

 

[Metro]

Is JC's game really on Steam? What's it about? A 30 year old guy who humps a 50 year old to get a crack at humping her 15 year old daughter?

 

[Don Peste]

 

[Don Peste]

Also that $100 is recoupable unlike the Greenlight fee (which donated to charity).

 

[Icewater]

I've been skeptical of Valve for a while now but $100 is surprisingly low. Props to Valve if it stays like that.

 

[LESS T_T]

Brace for the impact: http://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1265922321514182595

Closing Greenlight Today, Steam Direct Launches June 13

In this post, we're going to talk about closing down Steam Greenlight and the transition to Steam Direct.

If you haven't already, it's worth reading the last few posts we've made recently about our philosophy, some changes to address bad actors, and some upcoming improvements to Steam Curators system. These posts introduce and describe the subtle, but important, shift in the way the Steam Store is designed, and who it is designed for.

A look back at Greenlight
Steam Greenlight launched on August 30, 2012, at a time when we realized that we weren't able to predict which titles players were really interested in. Up until that point, a small team here at Valve had been hand-picking games to invite on to the Steam platform, and almost every day we would hear from players wondering why awesome new game X wasn't available on Steam. The more this happened, the less confident we became that our own tastes were accurately representing the tastes of everyone using Steam. Greenlight was introduced as a way to help our team figure out which games players most wanted, by having those Steam users vote. Almost right away, we saw an incredible variety of games being submitted and voted on, which made it clear to us that there are far more distinct tastes and interests among Steam players than we had realized.

Right from the early days and throughout the life of Greenlight, we have been continually surprised by the hits coming through. In just the first year we saw titles such as War For The Overworld, Evoland, Rogue Legacy, and Verdun move through Greenlight and go on to become hugely successful. We found it was easy to explain afterwards why some titles turned out to be big hits, but when we forced ourselves to predict beforehand, we weren't nearly as accurate as we thought we were going to be. Those early years also saw huge growth in some categories of games that we had previously considered extremely niche, like visual novels. Whether you love or hate visual novels (In which case you can customize your preferences here!), they have gone on to form a huge following on Steam. Even today, we still see surprising smash hits come through Greenlight, such as the recent releases of Dead Cells and Blackwake.

Now, five years since Greenlight started, we've seen over 90 Million votes cast on submissions in Greenlight. Nearly 10 Million players have participated in voting in Steam Greenlight, but over 63 million gamers have played a game that came to Steam via Greenlight. These players have logged a combined 3.5 Billion hours of game time in Greenlight titles. Some of those titles, like The Forest, 7 Days to Die, and Stardew Valley, are in the list of top 100 selling games ever released on Steam.

With these kinds of successes, the thousands of niche titles, and everything in between, we realized that a direct and predictable submission process will best serve the diverse interests of players moving forward. So thanks to all of you who voted and played games in Greenlight, as we begin the transition to Steam Direct.

Retiring Greenlight
The information below on Greenlight and Steam Direct is going to be most relevant for game developers, as it discusses the nuts-and-bolts details of the transition.

As of now, we are no longer accepting new game or software submissions via Steam Greenlight and voting has been disabled. One week from today, on June 13th, we'll be turning on Steam Direct.

Over the next week, a team here at Valve will be reviewing the list of titles that have not yet been Greenlit and will be selecting the final batch of titles to pass through the Greenlight process. Our goal is to Greenlight as many of the remaining games as we have confidence in. There are some titles that will not be Greenlit, due to insufficient voter data or concerns about the game reported by voters. Titles that are not ultimately Greenlit may still be brought to Steam via Steam Direct, provided they meet our basic criteria of legality and appropriateness.

If you are a game developer with a game in Greenlight that hasn't been Greenlit yet, please be patient as we review the 3,400+ pending submissions. If you bought the Greenlight Submission fee, but haven't had a chance to post a submission, or if your submission has not been Greenlit by the end of this process, you can use the Steam support site to request a refund of your submission fee.

Steam Direct details
The goal with Steam Direct is to provide an understandable and predictable path for developers from anywhere in the world to bring their games to Steam. With that in mind, we're making the process as easy and streamlined as possible. A new developer will simply need to fill out some digital paperwork, including entering bank and tax information and going through a quick identity verification process. After completing the paperwork, the developer will be asked to pay a $100 recoupable fee for each game they wish to release on Steam. This fee is returned in the payment period after the game has sold $1,000.

As we have been doing for the past year, there is a short process prior to release where our review team installs each game to check that it is configured correctly, matches the description provided on the store page, and doesn't contain malicious content.

Additionally, brand-new developers that we haven't worked with before will need to wait 30 days from the time they pay the app fee until they can release their first game on Steam. This gives us time to review the developer's information and confirm that we know who we're doing business with. Developers will also need to put up a 'coming soon' page for a couple of weeks prior to release, which helps get more eyes on upcoming releases and gives players a chance to point out discrepancies that our team may not be able to catch.

Steam Direct will launch in one week, on June 13th.

 

[Volrath]

Who is Chris Green? And why should I care?

 

[J_C]

It's over! Good fucking riddance. (But thanks for making my game available.)

 

[Sentinel]

can I see your green notification thingy?

 

[Hellion]

"Over the next week, a team here at Valve will be reviewing the list of titles that have not yet been Greenlit and will be selecting the final batch of titles to pass through the Greenlight process. Our goal is to Greenlight as many of the remaining games as we have confidence in."

Valve had to resort to shutting down Greenlight in order to stop Grimoire from being released, it's the only logical explanation.

 

[Infinitron]

Additionally, brand-new developers that we haven't worked with before will need to wait 30 days from the time they pay the app fee until they can release their first game on Steam. This gives us time to review the developer's information and confirm that we know who we're doing business with. Developers will also need to put up a 'coming soon' page for a couple of weeks prior to release, which helps get more eyes on upcoming releases and gives players a chance to point out discrepancies that our team may not be able to catch.

Possibly relevant to Cleveland Mark Blakemore

 

[J_C]

"Over the next week, a team here at Valve will be reviewing the list of titles that have not yet been Greenlit and will be selecting the final batch of titles to pass through the Greenlight process. Our goal is to Greenlight as many of the remaining games as we have confidence in."

Valve had to resort to shutting down Greenlight in order to stop Grimoire from being released, it's the only logical explanation.

Nah, Grimoire has already been Greenlit, it is safe.

 

[J_C]

can I see your green notification thingy?

What now?

 

[Konjad]

quick, someone steal gdomjan83 account!

 

[LESS T_T]

Well, Pinkerton is still at Valve.

Not anymore:



No cabal for writers, move on.