Valve launches Steam Greenlight

Valve, the creator of best-selling game franchises such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal and Team Fortress, and leading technologies such as Steam and Source, today announced the launch of Steam Greenlight, a new platform feature that enlists the community’s help in selecting some of the next games to be released on Steam.

Announced earlier this summer, Steam Greenlight allows developers and publishers to post information and media about their game in an effort to convince the Community that the game should be released on Steam. Greenlight piggybacks on Steam Workshop’s flexible system that organises content and lets customers rate and leave feedback.

“We’ve been working on this feature for the last few months with the input from a group of indie partners, and the response has been extremely positive,” said Valve’s Anna Sweet. “With the additional help of beta testers, we are able to launch with a solid line-up of titles for the community to start viewing and rating. And, as we’ve done with all Steam features, we intend to continually grow and modify Greenlight as more and more developers and community members have a chance to get involved.”

Greenlight is finally out!

Apart from serving as a clearing house for game submissions, Greenlight also provides an incredible level of added exposure for new games and an opportunity to connect directly with potential customers and fans.

The problem smaller developers had with Steam was when they were attempting to get their game on Steam, they’d either get a “yes” or “no” for an answer. No explanation was given otherwise. Greenlight looks to help the developers who submit videos, demos, screenshots etc. and let the community decide if the game is worth being on Steam.

The Greenlight site states that the number of votes needed to gain full approval "is going to change during the first few days/weeks since we don’t know what kind of traffic to expect." Steam states that part of the drive for this system is the need for customers to help prioritise which games they want to see made available on Steam. The site states that therefore, "the specific number of votes doesn’t matter as much as relative interest in a game compared with other games in Steam Greenlight".

“We’re going to be reaching out to developers as we see their games getting traction regardless of whether they have achieved a specific number of votes or are sitting 1st or 2nd place at any given time. We are most interested in finding the games that people want, not requiring them to always hit a specific number of votes,” the site explains.

Interestingly, Valve is encouraging developers to update and post new builds and screenshots and demos of their games as often as possible, and actively engage with the community. Greenlight could standardise the Minecraft-styled open development.

For more information, please visit the Greenlight website.