Steam team has informed their users about the total closure of the Steam Greenlight service. The purpose of this project was to help small game developers to appear on the Steam store platform. Now this function will be replaced by Steam Direct program, which will offer everyone the opportunity to test their games by Valve. Of course, all within the Steam platform and without the participation of community. This may create new problems.
Now, promotion of new game will look different. In order to appear on the list, you will have to pay for your application. The amount will be in range from $100 to as much as $5 000. Of course, game developers are concerned about the upper limit of the price. Greenlight program already required $100 charge for access to the service for smaller developers. But the question still is one. Who from niche game developers will be able to pay $5 000?
The high fee will kill the production of games with low circulation
Members of many communities agree to one. The fee, which they will have to pay in exchange for putting their games on Steam, is too high in comparison with profits they could receive for this. It will be simply not profitable, especially if you create the game which is very niche. However, it is not as bad as it seems. The fee will be refunded if the game meets the conditions set by Valve. So far, they are not known to anyone and the final decision will still belong to the owner of the platform.
Valve tries to find a balance
The idea of the Steam Greenlight seemed cool. The platform where players promote interesting titles. For an example, the digg.com service works in the same way. Users decide what is suitable for publication and is worth reading. It was also good solution for Valve, because they did not have to delegate their staff to check each new game. However, in practice it turned out that a lot of bad games appeared in Steam platform via Steam Greenlight system. They have been promoted in artificial way. On the other hand, developers who have prepared interesting titles, but did not take care of proper promotion, did not have any chance. Steam Direct will change the situation, and deposit fee required by Valve will be the first sieve. Valve hopes that the creators of weak games simply will discourage to apply.
Source: Steam Blog
