Steam has officially announced the shut down of the greenlight process! While they don't plan to start Steam Direct just yet, this is great news for gamers and developers alike! During the week, until Direct goes live on June 13th, the team behind the game pass/fail selection is going to be sorting through the remaining campaigns and giving the greenlight or the boot. To developers still in this process, good luck!
But after reading the full disclosure from Steam on this change, there really is nothing to be sad about! In fact, I would say this is going to be their smartest decision yet!
The best top 3 rules for Direct are:
- $100 recoupable fee for each game they wish to release on Steam. This fee is returned in the payment period after the game has sold $1,000.
- Personal Attention to every game sent in to be processed to check for malicious content, game stability, matches given description, etc.
- Brand-new developers that we haven't worked with before will need to wait 30 days from the time they pay the app fee until they can release their first game. This gives us time to review the developer's information and confirm that we know who we're doing business with. (aka Content Control).
And, specifically for developers who bought the pass, but have yet to use it, or those that still currently have a live greenlight campaign going that can't continue due to them shutting off voting, they added this awesome option:
"If you are a game developer with a game in Greenlight that hasn't been Greenlit yet, please be patient as we review the 3,400+ pending submissions. If you bought the Greenlight Submission fee, but haven't had a chance to post a submission, or if your submission has not been Greenlit by the end of this process, you can use the Steam support site to request a refund of your submission fee."
The new, incredibly fair, process will make it easier for games to get on the platform, but it also comes at a $100 cost per game instead of the original fee per developer. This means that games will be judged on their ability to attract their own attention based on consumer interest, which will hopefully manage the amount and quality of games ending up on the server.
I look forward to seeing how well the new system goes for Steam over the next year or so, but am happy to see they are still concerned for the quality of games that end up in players libraries!
