It ain't easy getting Green

September 12, 2012 8:19 AM

Steam Greenlight is Valve's initiative to expand their catalog by letting the community vote on the games they want to see distributed (sound familiar?) Developers are generally positive, but issues with discoverability and outright trolling have led Steam to institute $100 entry fee (with all proceeds going to charity) that runs the risk of "[limiting] Greenlight's appeal by crowding out hobbyist developers that ... lack the will or ability to risk $100." In response, Dejobaan Games announced their plan to loan the fee to one aspiring developers and is calling on others to do the same. Meanwhile, the first ten games have made to the coveted Greenlit section.
posted by griphus (28 comments total)

Honestly if you can't drum up 100$ bucks then I'm not inclined to take your game seriously. Games are huge massive complex investments of time and effort.

I mean, we have right here proof of concept of a sign-up fee.
posted by The Whelk at 8:23 AM on September 12, 2012 [15 favorites]

Bring on Black Mesa!
posted by infinitewindow at 8:25 AM on September 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

But then people start trolling Dejobaan's contest and then they have to start charging a fee to be considered...

INCEPTION
posted by kmz at 8:28 AM on September 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is going to be great for indie developers. I'm happy that Project Zomboid has already been greenlighted because in its current form the game is buggy and lacking.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:29 AM on September 12, 2012

I think the real INCEPTION moment will come when someone buys adspace to advertise a Kickstarter campaign to get the money to enter Dejobaan's contest to get the money to enter Greenlight to be able to sell their game on Steam.
posted by griphus at 8:33 AM on September 12, 2012 [4 favorites]

it's just paypall all the way down
posted by The Whelk at 8:37 AM on September 12, 2012

It's important to note that this isn't really for game development. People are going to use it that way (witness the selling of alpha access via kickstarter and Steam itself), but there's plenty of games on Greenlight that are already for sale elsewhere. They just want to use Steam to get a wider customer base and maybe take some of the hassle out of selling it themselves. If you don't have $100 to spend on this, you're not ready to use it anyway.
posted by curious nu at 8:42 AM on September 12, 2012

Black Mesa is apparently coming out the day after tomorrow. I'd be sad that it's not actually finished, but apparently the game currently ends after "Lambda Core", which means that the part they aren't done with is Xen.

(You can tell you used to play a lot of Half-Life if the HD version not including Xen doesn't bother you in the least.)
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:43 AM on September 12, 2012

Dejobaan is great, though. AAAAA! is some of the most fun I've had with a game absolutely ever. I wish 1-2-3-Kick It! was available for OSX. =/
posted by curious nu at 8:44 AM on September 12, 2012

I thought Aaaa was terrific and then I played it on the iPad and holy shit do tilt controls take that game to a whole new level of awesome.
posted by griphus at 8:46 AM on September 12, 2012

It'll be interesting to see where Greenlight goes. I started working on up/downvoting stuff the other day. Out of 250-300 projects I think I've upvoted nine or ten, about half of which have already been released but that I'd just rather purchase through Steam.
posted by cog_nate at 8:49 AM on September 12, 2012

I think the real INCEPTION moment will come when someone buys adspace to advertise a Kickstarter campaign to get the money to enter Dejobaan's contest to get the money to enter Greenlight to be able to sell their game on Steam.

it's just paypall all the way down

Imagine the horrorCredit Default Litigation Rate when they realize that someone has used the "Pay Later" feature, and is counting on the income from the end result to fund the first.
posted by Blue_Villain at 9:05 AM on September 12, 2012

My favorite game of last year is now on steam, you should buy it.
posted by empath at 9:58 AM on September 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Empath, there is no f-ing way I am buying a game that made me tear-up in the review. You are either extraordinary, a masochist or an extraordinary masochist.

/cheers for amazing storytelling in video games!
posted by Vysharra at 10:49 AM on September 12, 2012

Hey, is it possible to play the original Half-life on a Mac? Steam doesn't offer it, which is why I'm asking, because I sure do like Half-life 2 and I'd love to get the backstory.
posted by davejay at 11:52 AM on September 12, 2012

People would bitch if it was a nickle.

I was there the first few days greenlight ran, and it was so full of garbage submissions for things that *weren't even games* (including random photos, "game concepts", assorted stupid mods) that it was totally clouding anyone from actually seeing and finding reasonable games. It was just a giant free eyeball source.

At least now it's cleaned up somewhat.

Steam isn't a museum, an art house or a place for performance art. It's a place to *sell games*. If you're unwilling to drop 100$ to sell your game (or you don't think that selling your game will make you 100$) then maybe you shouldn't be on steam at all.
posted by dethb0y at 12:26 PM on September 12, 2012

davejay: It theoretically runs perfectly in Crossover, though that's always a "cross your fingers, YMMV" sort of thing. Parallels or BootCamp would be another option.

Alternately, you could watch Machinima's Freeman's Mind youtube series, which is basically a playthrough of the game with snarky voiceover representing Gordon Freeman's internal monologue added. It's pretty funny.
posted by rifflesby at 2:39 PM on September 12, 2012

Black Mesa screens impress
posted by homunculus at 4:28 PM on September 12, 2012

I hope someone makes the Portal 2 mod where Chell marries a turret.
posted by homunculus at 4:32 PM on September 12, 2012

I wish 1-2-3-Kick It! was available for OSX. =/

You haven't missed anything fun. They basically said that the whole music algorithm they came up with was a failure, and as far as I've been able to tell (though I haven't looked in a while since they 'released' it prematurely during the Portal 2 ARG, I bought it in alpha because I wanted to support them) have abandoned it entirely.

It's pretty funny.

It is pure comedy gold.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:58 PM on September 12, 2012

Hey, is it possible to play the original Half-life on a Mac? Steam doesn't offer it, which is why I'm asking, because I sure do like Half-life 2 and I'd love to get the backstory.

Nah, just get Black Mesa on Friday and then watch a Let's Play of the Xen levels.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:24 PM on September 12, 2012

Does anyone know how active the Steam forums are, as in is it an effective place to solicit recommendations for other games based on what you liked/didn't like about particular titles?

Oh, and Kenshi really looks promising, but I'm going to have to wait for the reviews views on its mid- long- game enjoyability. The promises by the ...

HEY They have a demo! Been a while since seen one offered.
posted by porpoise at 9:29 PM on September 12, 2012

What, wait. I have to register first? eh, I'll wait for after the reviews and try to get the stupid installer/client thing uninstalled until then.
posted by porpoise at 9:32 PM on September 12, 2012

Does anyone know how active the Steam forums are, as in is it an effective place to solicit recommendations for other games based on what you liked/didn't like about particular titles?

If you want to ask/talk about games (especially with other Mefites), you'd be hard-pressed to find a better place than MefightClub to do it. Come, join us!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:52 PM on September 12, 2012

Setting the fee at $100 did surprise me, to be honest. Would you find $1000 too high? Some people are ten times poorer than you.

$5 would achieve the same thing, and it seems mean to dismiss people who are reluctant to drop more as unworthy of attention.
posted by lucidium at 2:54 AM on September 13, 2012

I'm not as active as I used to be, but if you like video games and you're not on MeFightClub I don't know what to tell you.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:28 AM on September 13, 2012

Other than GET ON MFC.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:28 AM on September 13, 2012

I thought the controversy over the $100 was a bit silly at first, but this blog post by game developer Jonas Kyratzes made me reconsider. Metafilter uses $5 and careful moderation to keep the community sane, and I think the same would work well for Greenlight.
posted by archagon at 12:46 PM on September 13, 2012