I have similar concerns about the lack of approvals. The approval adds value to the customer: it ensures the games work and aren't malware and supposedly ensures a modicum of quality to make it worth purchasing.

I rarely buy any games for my Google Android phone because of the lack of curation: I have no way of sifting through heaps and heaps of crapware to find a game worth playing, let alone buying. If the same thing happened to Steam I'd be forced to bail out.

Then again, the concept of user stores adds some potential saving face. There could be multiple storefronts, multiple curators each offering their opinions on what games are worth buying. In theory, this could be really fantastic: find a curator who's tastes match your own and you'll never have to sift through junk again.

In practice, this could just be another layer of junk: too many curators competing for the same "best storefront" and you've got just as much of a hard time picking out a storefront as you do picking out a game.

The store concept just pushes the idea of discoverability one level deeper. That is, now people want their stores to be noticed (much in the same way as brick and mortars are run) and so they might band together in larger groups (like the Greenlight Collections) so stores can be niche and still reach as wide an audience as possible.

The positive end, however, is that this essentially streamlines all of the various indie bundles that exist. Valve, I think, is looking to leverage that market by allowing people with all sorts of skills monetize through their service. (It started with dev studios. Then 3D artists and level designers could start selling various freemium addons to TF2. Now business and marketing people can make stores to monetize their skills.)

I'd like to thing they would still curate the front page to a certain extent. So it's not like some guys college project is going to end up in the new releases bit on the front page, but it's on steam for people to buy if they find about it via word of mouth.

I'm just guessing though.

I share your curiousness on the subject as I also quite like today's arrangement from a customer perspective. But I am even more curious to see how the new plans might pan out.

I say, give it a shot! If it fails, Steam can always return to its current state by delegating user created stores and unsanctioned game submissions to someplace other than the front page.

Yah I think there's a logical flaw in what Gabe is saying. He wants to democratize the games marketplace, but it *is* already democratized. Anyone can produce a competitor to steam if they wanted, and they already do exist. Curating is part of what makes Steam, Steam. He said he thinks people will start following people who pick good games for their store, but they already do; they are following Steam.

I think this is quite simply about profitability. He wants to leverage the goodwill he's developed with Steam so there's less work for them for more gain (a traditional Valve practice, and nothing bad in itself for a business). You can make and lose money quite easily as a speculative trader, but you always make money as a trade broker. By letting anyone set up a steam store he's letting them take the risk and make the curating effort, while taking a cut from everything that actually sells...essentially crowd-sourcing the approval process.

The quality bar you mention shouldn't be affected, really, as there are plenty of people who would be worth following, and it will usually self-sort with the popular becoming more popular.

That's exactly what their current problem is though, they don't have a balance. There are frequently games or updates to existing games that get rejected because of a driver issues that affects less than a percent of users and yet completely and totally broken games like Hotline Miami get pushed on through. That one still isn't playable as far as I'm aware.

They need to choose one extreme or the other as what they've been doing lately is causing more harm to the reputation of the platform itself than throwing the doors wide open could.

It only counts as a 'delicate balance' if you're part of the club that gets publishing slots on Steam. I don't think the people outside the club consider it to be particularly delicate or balanced.

They'll still need to have *some* platform control, though, or they'll get themselves into other difficulties. Monitoring for copyright issues, for example, not to mention the adult content issue. While I personally do not object to porn games, last I checked Valve still did... so they'd need to consider how to handle that.

If they keep their store looking mostly like it is now but allow people to quietly in the background use Steam as a payment processor to sell their own weird indie titles, some indie devs will definitely see benefits (We all get semi-customers who write us and complain that they won't buy it if they can't use Steam, because Steam is easier to buy with). Other payment processors may not be pleased though!

Speaking of which, you can still be chasing very real sales NOW, you know... Other sales tools exist!

Well, Google have managed a system with no manual review whatsoever, and XBLIG managed with peer review. But an Apple-style system (basic checks to filter out offensive content and completely broken apps) would be great.

Anything that removes Steam's version of 'concept approval' (without relying on a popularity contest instead) would be a great thing. Even if it creates a multi-tiered system, with the main Steam storefront like the XBLA and a 'Steam App Store' like the XBLIG.

@"Well, Google have managed a system with no manual review whatsoever"

I am fairly sure this is not the case.

Respectfully I disagree. There is so much spam and garbage that gets submitted with less curation that it's easy for good titles to never see the light of day.

The last thing I want to do when I'm browsing the marketplace is have to go through piles and piles of shovelware.

To me Gabes response comes off as "we don't have the resources to deal with this, so here's a model that requires us to do the bare minimum." Microsoft did this with XBLIG, and that worked out so well. Right guys?

Honestly, Valve just seems spread way too thin. For a company staffed of ~300 employees they have trouble just releasing software in a reasonable time.

and I respectfully disagree. They will also give people the tools so that there can be many curators for many different likes, instead of just one. Good titles like always will be easy to find.

So peer reviewing, essentially? How is that any different than XBLIG outside of having individual stores? To me it seems that's going to end up being worse in a saturated/bigger pond like PC gaming.

It's a slippery slope.

@Jimmy - it's significantly different from XBLIG. The idea is more akin to Amazon storefronts - anything can be sold through Amazon, as long as it meets certain legal requirements and makes certain customer guarantees. Amazon merely acts as the storefront software provider and as the payments system provider (taking a cut, of course). The individual storefronts are maintained by different publishers, or by publications, or by power users maintaining their 'Top RPGs Lists.' There are still noise-to-signal ratio problems in sorting through which STORES are worth paying attention to, but nobody can block a game from being greenlit altogether. Power to push a game is derived from outside influence, i.e. Activision's ability to get its players to subscribe to its in-Steam store.

@Vin St John Right, I get that. The problem is instead of fighting to get your game through submission you're going to be fighting against infinite amounts of shovelware to get noticed to get on whatever the popular stores are. To some people getting your game on steam is going to mean very little when it gets no attention and is buried beneath shovelware, similar to some of the problems with XBLIG.

@Jimmy
You can get noticed prior to publishing. Maybe not by the main store front, but say there is a store front specialising in your genre of game that lots of people use, you can just contact the curator and say "Hey, my game is coming out in 2 months, it's the genre of game you and your customers like, here is a beta copy/gameplay video/whatever." and as long as it isn't obviously shovel-ware they would probably put it up on release.

Well that is a fantasy unfortunately.

Although you can pretty much play any older pc game through virtual Windows. Not sure where the cutoff is... at least 10 yrs old generally speaking?

bootcamp...?

If Valve doesn't do that, a "storefront" will. Either way, this will result in a two-tiered (or more) store, similar to the XBox.

Isn't that the big draw though for indie devs? The main steam store will not go away so that is still going to be a big push for everyone. However there are tons of games on steam that never appeared front and center for 50+ million gamers. The games that get front and center stage are almost always big titles or stand out indie games. There are thousands of indie games that never got promoted by valve on their main store front, you would only find them by searching. So being able to shoot to be featured by valve is great, just like its great for app developers to shoot for being featured by apple. However just like the app store the sad reality is, is there are tons of games and you will not get featured unless you are that stand out game or get a lucky feature. That doesn't mean developers can't still make good money by making a good game. This will give developers another way to get their game featured and shown to people who actually might care about your game. Get it seen by them, get them excited and it will spread. However it is a sad hard reality we all have to face that just because we make a game, even a good game, doesn't mean that either way it would ever be featured as it is right now. I can only see this helping the majority of indie devs.

The only negative thing I see in greenlight is the also just as natural room for abuse by copy corps like Zynga. But what self respecting person plays a Zynga game? Even if they used a sister corp to sell games I could spot their commercial junk a mile away.

Do you currently have a game on Greenlight? If not, you'll understand why it doesn't work when you do put one on there. If your game isn't easily marketed to the mainstream your chances are almost zilch at cracking the top 20. My company's game has been buried on Greenlight since the first week. In Week #1 we achieved 8,000 "Yes" votes - after that we completely flat-lined since we became buried under the new or more popular entries. We're in a limbo now around 9,000 votes with almost no movement. Keep in mind Week #1 was the first week of Greenlight - so over the last six months only 1,000 people have managed to find and up vote us. Getting into the top 10 games (the ones that actually make it on to Steam) requires 60,000+ "Yes" votes. Good luck getting that if you're a niche game!

Also, users are forming opinions completely based on screenshots and text. It's not uncommon to see comments like "NO! This looks like a flash game!". It's unfortunate because these people have no idea whether the games in question are actually good - yet they're the ones with the power to get those games on Steam. It sucks!

There needs to be a way for developers to get on Steam without Greenlight, plain and simple. Niche games (that may sell 10k to 20k copies on Steam) really don't stand a chance passing Greenlight.

The big problem is that the users on Greenlight only represent a very small slice of Steam's actual customers.

I think you inadvertently hit a key point there Josh. Gabe clearly has too much faith in humanity. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the concept here but people generally gravitate to what they know, most people on Steam know AAA titles and only venture into indie games because Steam puts them in a high profile position at a low price.
If (god forbid) Jay-Z created a store page for people to peruse, there would probably be a 5:1 ratio of Call of Duty to Anything Else.
Democracy may sound like a fair and happy utopia on paper but without outside influence more often than not you just stagnate.

One problem with Greenlight is simply the numbers. Around 1000 Greenlight pages were created, maybe a fair bit more by now. Last time I checked, only 6 greenlit titles had made it to Steam.

Yes, more than that have been approved, but some where in the quite early stages of development. The gaming community seem more likely to upvote an unrealistic concept/design than the actual reality of an indie game.

Also, Greenlight seems to encourage trend-following (e.g. zombies or voxel games) and very ambitious games, and oldschool arcade-style games - shmups and platformers - don't seem to stand much chance, even when they look very polished.

There's also the real hate being shown for anything ported from a mobile platform. Vocal elements of the gaming community are making a real effort to deem mobile ports as 'not Steam-worthy'. Even when it's a genuinely decent game.

@Josh Fairhurst

Well I suppose I am inexcusably ignorant, for that I am sorry. I am not a game developer atm, though I "may" go somewhere aligned to this path soon, still figuring that out. I didn't know the criteria for Steam was so steep. I have only thumbed throguh maybe a 1k games with about 50 or so upvoted, I am not the norm. what I think is missing from Greenlight is a top 5 for players interests. Say every year you can give 5 companies 25 points 5 times ... I think would change the outcome and make a difference .. I see room for abuse .. but there is always that. Or perhaps base it on if you actually purchase goods and services from Steam ... Now this isn't democratic but it certainly would sift the pot a bit toward a more mature audience.

"Also, users are forming opinions completely based on screenshots and text."

That's the thing though, I also make comments on unfinished games, and it's a way to communicate back to a developer just trying to get their feet wet .. like hey, this looks good, but what I don't see is this that I like." There are always a league of mouthbreathing gimme now naysayers out there. There opinions aren't invalid there just obnoxious and unhelpful.

I have several times made comments about things that seem missing from games, and I think developers like the responses good or bad because it says, my game actually caught someones attention enough .. must be doing something right.

In a flat system ~ you won't see that. Not worth the effort too much junk to sift through, could spend days never being able to see past the advertisement fence. The information on Greenlight is raw, and real and that is incredibly important not only to the consumer but to the developer as well for honest feedback.

@Michael Galloway and Dave Reed

And that is what I was trying to say, is like or not you are actually being offered a fair opportunity here where you wouldn't get one from even me selling your wares on a more remote site yo wouldn't even have a shot at presenting your ideas. And that is important, even at chance that your ideas will be stolen. To me the idea behind Greenlight is to make great games, and sell them.

It would be awesome if we could imagine some "open market" where people go to town and check out the latest rustic indi fairgrounds, but that doesn't exist. If this system changes to attempt this it will not be a fairgrounds it will be a survival of the fittest smorgasborg, where ad agencies rule the roost. The idea of trojans, unfinished vaporware, very buggy riddled with problems games, ect ect. along self applied ad spam will be a serious problem. And then there is the problem of the real slim shady, who has the "correct download for bugs, or who should I pay for the IP?

The reason things like a "Saturday market" work is because there is a certain level of ownership identity between the consumer and seller, pull that out and more problem arise. I think the level of stupid 18-30 year old tirades are a problem now, I think it's nothing compared to the harsh future.

A lot of indi's are now hopeful for that harsh future that gleams opportunity, what happens where a perfectly free market only nets them 100 players for their $5 game. Maybe they make their money back, maybe they don't but at such low numbers was it worth it for the years of personal sacrifice. I'm not trying to be devil's advocate here, but everything has a cost. Right now, for what it is worth you have a fair shake, I think it could be a little fairer .. lower the bar a bit .. pull some power out of the 18-30 year old club ...until a happy medium is found.

Imho about 60% of Steam Greenlight is shovel ware 30% of the games have potential, 5% are on to something special, and 5% are probably being overlooked for their brilliance is Steam really going to fix that flaw in humanity not the potential buyers?

So there are what 7-10k entries on Steam Greenlight? Imagine sifting through 5-10 times that in alphabetical order to find that one cutting edge indi, that didn't give up, had a brilliant idea, the support for it and was able to make everything just perfect. No one would use it almost, and almost no one would make games for it.

Now you have no advertising that is seen, even to be laughed at and ridiculed. You have only see the grittiest of developers, not the best, the best end up doing something else that is more rewarding and meaningful for their time.

What I see there now, right now are games I've been wanting to play, but almost all of them are fairly sub par, would it be better for me to shrug off the whole thing?

This - over the Christmas sale I was very tempted to pick up Steam copies of the Galactic Civ only to find in the forums that it required a different username and password and login process. This kills what steam is to me. Steam is convenience - multiple storefronts will breed more of these 'authenticate with us instead' stores which can go screw themselves and when that happens steam will die for me and I'll go back to Gog.com seeming they treat me like a customer and not a pirate.

If you've got a large fanbase, and a game that can pretty much guarantee good sales, it seems pretty clear that Valve will *already* let you bypass Greenlight and fast-track you onto Steam.

Which begs the question of who is Greenlight really for, and is it really anything more than a graveyard for games that Valve doesn't want to even spend the time evaluating?

I don't get this repeated fear of shovelware or malware.

the whole point of letting users create storefronts is: people with lots of time will sort through the shit, while people will less time will just track down useful storefronts.

No one is going put shovelware or malware on their storefront. (aside from some inevitable joke stores). if you screw up and let in some bad titles (or if you're exposed as a marketing plant), then you'll lose your followers: and that's fine because you shouldn't be running storefront.

I think there's some flaws to the user-generated storefront idea, potential malware peddling notwithstanding. To echo Simon Ludgate's sentiment above, it's also becomes a question of who hosts the games, not just who's selling them-- if Steam doesn't actually host the games anymore, what's the stop the storefront you bought from from pulling the plug and making you lose your copy, or better yet losing copies of the games already purchased through Steam? People pick Steam because of convenience and security-- two features that could get axed with multiple storefronts and uncertain hosting.

Valve's successful but still doesn't have the capital or manpower of say, Amazon, to handle something like this. If they felt bombarded by how many Greenlight submissions came in when it first started, it was a drop in the bucket compared to the stuff that would get submitted under this proposed new system.

People are cheap. Yes, there would be better voting, but the requirement to be Greenlit would come down to like... 20 votes. But it would be good to require something to vote. A basic math test, perhaps?

Or maybe some kind of incentive like Newgrounds had, like achievements and exclusive content?

People loved to vote on NG because you earned achievements. You got bronze, silver, and gold whistles for whistle-blowing inappropriate entries, and awards for how many Blams and Saves you committed. I remember when my vote happened to be the one that saved a Flash cartoon, and I got to see a cool Flash short made by the founders that they only showed to hardcore voters. Perhaps that's the direction Greenlight would need to go in if it doesn't start pushing up daisies. If there's already Steam Badges and in-game achievements...why not?

I haven't really hit NG in years so I don't know what system they used now or what kind of crowd it attracts but when I hit it frequently a decade or so ago, there was a vibrant community that really engaged in deciding if new submissions were saved or blammed. Just my 2% of a dollar.

"Storefront maintainers could be given some small percentage of sales they generate."

"Huge problem of finding critics/reviewers that you trust."

These two goals are directly in conflict with each other.

Steam already *did* that pre-Greenlight. If RPS gave your indie title a decent review and you turned around and handed that to Valve as part of your application, that was basically your 'in'.

However, whenever you have a group of gatekeepers, you have games that don't catch their interest for reasons of taste rather than quality. Where are the niche games supposed to manufacture a reputable source from? :)

That's the thing that bothers me also Georgina, it sounded to me as if there would be some platform for judging games, but he didn't really say "how" this would work. And my suspicion is that it will highly favor these terrible game sites instead of reputable consistent critics. And heres the deal, metacritic for instance, terrible mainstream critiquing, and the public choice is almost as bad. Only about 5% of the critics have a clue and can articulate it well, and out of the 5% how many have similar tastes to yourself? And how will these critics be judged? By the same people that already hate these aspiring brilliant indies?

How do you sort the wheat from tares? It looks like a pop-culture nightmare to me, and another excuse for costing the potential buyer .. or duping them.

@Georgina

I can't help but think... if a game is so much in the "niche" category that no one even wants to glance at it, I have trouble believing it would have much success anyhow.

I know that there's a chance that a game considered "niche" might be an amazing new take to games, have some awesome new mechanic, etc... but there's a better chance that very few people would be interested. It's fun to root for the underdog, but sometimes they're the underdog for a reason!

Just my two cents :)

Sadly there are already plenty of games on Steam that require separate accounts and logins to play after you purchase. It would be nice if these were marked more prominently.