
Valve to crowdsource distribution choices with Steam Greenlight - iProject
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/valve-to-crowdsource-distribution-choices-with-steam-greenlight/
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TylerE
I'm kind of surprised they haven't tried a sort of kickstarter model.

E.g. People commit to buying your title, and when you hit the threshold they
get billed (and get the game), and the game instantly gets approved to into
main Steam. The required minimum could be based on revenue rather than sales ,
so that a $1 game requires a lot more potential buyers than a $40 game.

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veyron
Steam would need to ensure each game is completed. It would tarnish the brand
if some games were not finished. Kickstarter does not suffer from this problem
because everyone goes into it expecting that the game may not get off the
ground.

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TylerE
It would not be for pre-funding. A completed game (or at least nearly finished
beta) would need to be submitted through some sort of basic approval process -
scan the installer for viruse, make sure it actually loads, etc.

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CodeCube
This is great! hopefully it can deliver on the promise that XBox Live Indie
Games never quite delivered on ... which is to say giving indies a channel to
the same marketplace, on the same terms, as everyone else. The problem with
XBLIG was always that the indie games were always in a different menu and
never quite given the same opportunities as other titles (ie. XBLA had
achievements, etc.).

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pixie_
To be fair I've played a lot of indie games on xbox live and a lot of them
feel like their based off of a bad programming tutorial. It's fun to play them
and go WTF why, definitely not something they should promote to a larger
audience. It looks like Valve is solving the problem by having their customers
go through the indie game bin and pull out the ones that are actually good.

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sodafountan
You make is sound like all Xbox Live Indie Games are bad. The problem with
that service is that which is mentioned above, not enough recognition as
"official" apps for the Xbox 360. I'm convinced that if developers where given
more responsibility then they would act upon that higher responsibility
accordingly. As it is now developers really don't have much of an incentive to
make decent games for the platform. But Valve's way of doing this seems to be
a good one, let the customer's decide what gets on Steam, you really can't go
wrong with that strategy.

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CodeCube
Well said. Also, the very fact that the service allowed lower quality games is
actually a good thing ... many game developers made well received titles on
XNA and have moved on to bigger and better things (see Ska Studios, and Zeboyd
Games for two examples).

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sodafountan
Very true, in a way Xbox Live Indie Games is a lot like the Android Market
Place. You have a wide variety of apps that are really very good but you also
have a lot of complete crap. If Microsoft would ever actually follow through
with it's experiments then it could really become a true power house again, it
seems that Microsoft tends to innovate but then burn out on their innovations
(keep in mind that Indie Games launched in 2008, right around the same time
that the Android Market Place was really blowing up). I just wish Microsoft
would give Indie Games the attention it desperately needs.

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joeld42
Nice. This is a great way to deal with Sturgeon's Law.

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untouchable
Link: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeons_Law>

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rsanchez1
I just fail to see the big deal behind this. Really, isn't the games market
enough to crowdsource distribution choices? This is only needed because Steam
is a closed platform, which people seem to forget.

