Valve says goodbye to Steam Greenlight, hello to “Direct” publishing

Valve says goodbye to Steam Greenlight, hello to “Direct” publishing

Thanks Donald! So far the developers I know are happy with this.

They threaten to rise the fee up to 5000 USD, and that is too much for many developers from other countries :(

It states 200-5000. I can pretty much guarantee someone making millions with a huge release will be charged the 5000 and the 200 will be for smaller indies.

Also, indies in the US are no different than in other countries. Everyone struggles to make ends meet.

These are just example numbers they are considering. I think the fee would be the same for everyone.
Besides, how a developer who submits his or her first game, could know whether it would be making millions or not?

And what about free adventure games, like 'A Date in the Park' or 'Heroine's Quest'? I don't think any developer can afford to pay 1000 USD to publish a free game!!!

Am I the only one who has less than a vague understanding of what "Direct" publishing is? Could someone help me with a brief explanation?

Direct publishing means that the developer can pay to have his game published on Steam vs. having to pay to be on Greenlight and leaving it up to votes to get on.



They aren't "threatening" anything. They asked developers what they thought and they posted the responses. Here is their exact quote: "While we have invested heavily in our content pipeline and personalized store, we’re still debating the publishing fee for Steam Direct. We talked to several developers and studios about an appropriate fee, and they gave us a range of responses from as low as $100 to as high as $5,000. There are pros and cons at either end of the spectrum, so we’d like to gather more feedback before settling on a number."

Ana

Under Greenlight there was a one-time fee of $100 for developers.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/219820/
***Archived link for Steam Greenlight purchase***

And from the Ars Technica article...

So more paperwork for a supposedly "recoupable" per game cost. Sounds worse for small developers to me. The new system is supposed to cut down on what they're calling "noise" in the article (bad games), but the author of the article thinks it will make things worse.

I am friends with a lot of Indies and the response is about 99% favorable.

Rather than reading other game news websites interpretations, you may wish to read the actual announcement by Steam here.

There is also a poll on Twitter Here.

Ana

Got it. Thank you

Another opinion on Steam Direct
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiVDGzjSGFk

The fact that 40% of Steams' total catalog was released in 2016 gives some sort of indication of the rubbish that has poured into Greenlight. People using stock Unity assets and next to no creativity just to make a quick killing.

Speaking of killing (grounds - see what I did there?) Digital Homicides owner and arch asset flipper has finally lost his case against youtuber and games journo Jim Sterling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDefw1WMYzM (another SidAlpha vid)

The problem with Greenlight/Steam Direct is that steam simply does not want to put any effort (or money) into any sort of quality control.