There is a lot of emotional chaff in Jonas’ writeup to be sure, but I think the point I take away, as it applies to this, is about the cost to be on Greelight. Or even more specifically the reaction from both sides. I believe that the reaction of North Americans that 100$ (USD) can be easily acquired is a little short sighted. I think that in other areas of the world the cost “could” certainly be a blockade. This is something we should be aware of as developers and as people on this planet. Personally I instantly saw inconsistency with Steam’s own selling policy. If its ok to lower purchase prices of games in a place such as “the Russian lands” (sorry Estonia!); then the same area should be able to receive a Greenlight upload discount no?

Either way though, its certainly not ridiculous or stupid to talk about this simply as an idea, even if its not something we can ever dictate Steam to change. If this is how legit developers in that area feel is a problem for them getting on a global market*, how is it stupid or ridiculous to at least listen to that? I feel this is important, and I desperately want to see those games, if only for reference. You can say that cream will rise to the top anyway, and sure, that could be true; but why put blockades up?

Do we demand a private company change their legal policies for any reason? Fuck no. But should we talk about different options in sometimes heated discussion without being dismissive? Of course we should. Should we find an acceptable way to view the most cool indie games? I dont see why not. A proper rating system along with journalism ect will weed out crap anyway- Lets not block people by income lets block them on their game ideas.

*As private companies do more and more on a global scale, and start to monopolize, by preference, I think its functional to have a forum for open discussion on how everyone thinks that company should perform on certain issues; simply so ideas can spread and be heard by said company. Clearly with no requirement for that company to enact on any of it. Im sure Valve welcomes this and understands this very well when listening to people talk about their experience on Origin or whatever that blip Ubisoft made….

I understand what you’re saying about $100 USD being a lot of money for Russians. The conversion makes menial labor unrealistic. Fine! But you’ve also got internet access. If you can’t leverage that into $100 USD then I don’t know what to tell you.

I’ve continued to argue because you keep employing language that suggests Valve is intentionally implementing unfair systems so that they can benefit from Steam submissions fee.

“I’m not the one donating to the charity, Steam is. And donating to charity is tax deductible. So if I fail Steam is earning money, if I succeed Steam earns more money. And all the legwork is done by the users. Don’t try to sell me this as a thing thats to my benefit. That’s dishonest. This is a thing for Steam’s benefit.”

“Steam is essentially stacking the decks. They’ll change their situation to win-win while developer is still win-lose.”

I know they are not trying to slight anyone and I see an amazing light at the end of the tunnel but seem utterly intent on supporting the idea that they are fucking you up so I’m done. Good luck with everything.

I am not arguing over a fictional discussion of “if greenlight in itself is good practice or not”. And I never claimed Steam is made of fat cats with twirly mustaches exploiting indie devs. They made a perfectly valid business decision from their perspective.

I was oblique about the Russia issue. Let me clear it up for you. When you pay 100$ to Steam it’s not a guarantee that you are going to be able to sell your product over Steam. That is a risk. That risk means 2 days of menial work for you. That same risk means 15 days of menial work to a Russian. That was the point of my dare. 100$ does not mean the same to you. A guy in Russia or a guy in Mexico or a guy in India takes more risk than you when he invests 100$. You can’t claim that’s a fair practice.

I don’t have a problem with Steam. Steam is business it does what businesses do. I am not arguing about greenlight as a system. Simply, what Steam CHANGED about their system is not good for indie developers nor is it fair for everyone. Now does Steam has to make it good for devs? No, Does Steam has to make it’s decisions fair? No again. That’s entirely their prerogative. But the decision is still not good for indie devs and it still is unfair.

Anyone saying otherwise is either can’t grasp the business aspect of the works or deliberately misleading.

Greenlight was created to help Valve by taking an unmanageable load of submissions and crowdsourcing the selection efforts. There are only x people at Valve who manage submissions as their full time jobs, and it has become too much work for them in recent years. Not too much work as in “Gee we’re lazy and don’t feel like doing all of this”. More like “Holy crap there’s so much shit to do and trying to do it all is unrealistic”.

Continuing to operate like this would hurt Valve because it spreads their portfolio team thin and which hurts their portfolio, which HURTS EVERYONE.* It especially hurts indie developers because the process is bottlenecked, and if those x people only have so much time and energy, they’re going to prioritize with their established partners like EA and THQ and Ubisoft and Squeenix and all those AAA companies they have long standing relationships with. Meanwhile, the AA and the A and the indie developers are probably not going to make it through and onto the service. But they recognize this and WANT TO FUCKING DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! It’s why they created Greenlight.

What’s going to happen now is that in any given period of time that only x indie games would make it through the bottleneck and on to the service, now Greenlight will ensure that x + y indie games will make it on to the service since they’ve enlisted the player base’s help. This is how it helps the indies; in the long term, and as a whole.

Not every last indie, and not right now.

And to be totally honest, I feel like you’re not really thinking about this at this point in time. What possible way do they benefit by making it harder to help the people they created the service to help? You’re focused on this one move they made that they didn’t originally want to make (remember, there was no fee at first) because people abused their service. To sincerely assume they sat there and cackled about how it’s going to make it harder for some people is naive and cynical and pessimistic and like I already said; juvenile.

Last but not least, knock it off with that “in Russia” business. You know what point I’m trying to fucking make; it’s to do whatever trivial, meaningless, degrading, boring thing you have to do in order to get the money you’d need if your situation is that dire.

*If they’re not able to maintain their portfolio in whatever way they do and have been doing for years now, Steam would be valueless and we wouldn’t give a shit about Greenlight, or about getting our games on the service.

Both of you have missed my point.

Change from “Everybody sends their games and it’ll be voted” to “Everbody that paid 100$ sends their games and it’ll be voted” is a move beneficiary to Steam. Steam is essentially stacking the decks. They’ll change their situation to win-win while developer is still win-lose.

My point is selling this change as something beneficiary to indie developers is dishonest. It’s not, that’s a pay wall considering the facts of the world:
Gross annual income of US is 15000$
Gross annual income of Russia is 2000$

I dare to you raise 100$ dollars in Russia mowing lawns and cleaning garages in a weekend.

The measurement of quality you’re referring to is about bugs. I’ve never played Trainz, but it looks buggy and not entirely useable. So what. Games have bugs. There’s also thousands and thousand of other games on Steam. Plenty of them have bugs, but all of them are there because enough people care about them that having it on the service is profitable to both Valve and the developer.

This is direct evidence that Steam doesn’t have tight quality control. A company that cares even a little about the quality of the products they sell wouldn’t touch this garbage. Sure it effectively exploits its target demographic, but that is not an indicator of quality.

Second: “pushing boundaries” doesn’t mean anything: implementing complex mechanics without making your game overcomplicated is pushing boundaries; creating tight control and smooth gameplay is pushing boundaries; implementing new technologies and perfecting what came before is pushing boundaries; making a system and a story more interactive, trying to implement different ways to overcome the same obstacle (maybe using ingame logic and physics instead of prescripted events) is pushing boundaries.

Almost all (good) games are pushing boundaries, the problem is pushing boundaries and at the same time targeting a demographic large enough (or rich enough) to make your game commercially viable, if you want to make a job of your passion.