Once set up, developers will pay a recoupable application fee for each new title they wish to distribute, meant to decrease the noise in the submission pipeline. we’re still debating the publishing fee for Steam Direct. Developer feedback has apparently suggested anything from $100 – the current Greenlight submission fee – and $5,000.
Advertisement
Valve hasn’t yet settled on what that fee will be, but the range sounds fairly large. In other words, the company will continue giving titles the green light which have sufficient community interest until the upgraded service goes live. What a tricky thing to balance. On the lower end, though, the fee does nothing to deter shovelware. A high submission fee could weed out non-committed developers, but also small indie creators without much money. Publishers will pay for access to that line, but Steam hasn’t specified what aspects of the Greenlight program will remain intact.
However, Valve hasn’t yet determined how much this application fee will be. Games that receive enough votes are reviewed by Valve staff and then make it onto the Steam store. The latter price could easily leave first-time developers with few resources, which is what the Greenlight system was initially created to be: a resource.
The, which serves the same quality control objective, is $100.
Greenlight was Launched in 2012 and to date, thousands of items have been Greenlit by steam users. And why shouldn’t be on Steam? Valve is now still taking feedback on the Steam Direct program, so you still have a chance to maybe influence how this program will turn out.
Valve has already hinted of doing away with the Steam Greenlight system back in 2014.
SteamSpy also questioned the effectiveness of any sort of fee as a barrier against bad games, as did Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail.
Steam is the de facto champion when it comes to digital gaming distribution, and it’s something most PC gamers around the world likely have installed on their gaming rigs at this very moment. “An example of this is the Steam front page”, wrote Valve’s Alden Kroll, “where, the improvements of Discovery 2.0 have resulted in showcasing 46 percent more games to customers via the main product capsule”. Steam Greenlight will continue to be in place in the meantime.
Itch.io has cultivated a great community of indie developers.
This fee is where most early critics of the move are getting caught up. A common criticism of Steam, or just general anxiety about it, is that its rapidly growing library is burying good work that might have sold well on the platform five or more years ago.
Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail joined the chorus of designers who decried Steam Direct’s potentially pricey pay gate.
Advertisement
Besides, we need to lose this false idea that Steam is where all buying decisions are born.
