After being in operation for over half a decade, the Steam Greenlight program is finally getting axed by Valve, to be replaced by a more accessible system. In its earlier form, the program was essentially a popularity contest where developers below a certain size could put their games up for vote to Steam, after which those with the most votes on the app would get to see the light of day.
The initial idea behind keeping a community driven Indie market was to avoid shovelware and quick, vapid cash grabs on the developers’ part. However, over the course of its lifetime we have seen numerous titles that are such blatant cash grabs that the less said about them the better. Due to the massive influx of such titles in 2016, Valve’s hand has been forced and they have decided to introduce new discovery mechanisms based on feedback garnered from users, curators and YouTube personalities.
With this new system for recommending games, Valve feels that the Greenlight program has run its course and is replacing it with a much more streamlined program called Steam Direct. Here, developers will have to pay steam a certain amount of money to have their game feature on the store, along with filling out a form. The fee has not been announced yet and could be anything in the neighbourhood of a hundred dollars to a couple of thousand. The paperwork involved, Steam has assured, will be kept as simple as possible.
While some may get annoyed by the introduction of a pay wall, I feel that it will only help the gaming community in the long run as now devs will only pony up for those games that they are certain will turn a profit and, in turn, ensure quality and not just pump out garbage.
