Valve introduce greenlight fee - is $100 too much?

It was my understanding that anyone could release on Steam until greenlight came out. All these years I was tricked into thinking how cool and awesome Steam was, and yet it's nothing I thought it was. Apparently it charges about 30-40% for each sale too which is pretty steep for a company that I hear is built by indies for indies and innovation.

Why do they need to charge? greatness in a pool of garbage will rise to the top by votes from users. That's how iphone/android work, and that's how kickstarter works.

I think the overall issue I have with it is that when I spend money on something I want something in return. I'm paying 100 dollars for.....a tiny icon to click on greenlight in hopes that people will upvote and then after all the upvotes have second hopes that Steam will let me through? Pretty lame for 100 bucks.

I'm seriously considering Steam Greenlight for a game I'm working on. I think it would be nice if the fee could get refunded if the game reached some minimum threshold of support (ideally less strict than actual acceptance) but it's not going to make my decision one way or another.

Why do they need to charge? greatness in a pool of garbage will rise to the top by votes from users. That's how iphone/android work, and that's how kickstarter works.

Well, I think "works" might be too strong of a word. Blatantly stolen and nonfunctional apps can be profitable on both iphone and android and occasionally supersede apps that are actually good. I will say it's a sign that Steam may need to tweak their algorithms if a few crappy entries being posted can ruin their service in the first few days, though.

It was my understanding that anyone could release on Steam until greenlight came out. All these years I was tricked into thinking how cool and awesome Steam was, and yet it's nothing I thought it was.

They're a publisher. You've always had to negotiate a publishing deal with them. I don't know what you think you've been tricked about?

Apparently it charges about 30-40% for each sale too which is pretty steep for a company that I hear is built by indies for indies and innovation.[/quote]70% royalties on each sale is about the best rate that you're going to get. It flat out beats all the "mainstream" publishers. If you want to keep that 30%, then set up your own sales portal and game distribution service. You'll probably make a lot less money in the end...

Why do they need to charge? greatness in a pool of garbage will rise to the top by votes from users. That's how iphone/android work, and that's how kickstarter works.

They added the charity donation because people were spamming it with jokes and fakes, etc...
N.B. you've also got to pay $100 to make iPhone games...
Also the iPhone app rating system is a joke. You don't get into the top 10 by being popular with customers. You only get into the top 10 by buying a hundred thousand copies of your own app (which apple also takes a 30% cut from). So you spend $100,000 and get $70,000 back, but now have 100,000 downloads on your app. There's a whole ecosystem of companies out there to assist with this marketing fraud. The same thing happens in other sectors -- back when people used to buy CD's, record labels would send out staff all over the country to buy back their latest release (which they'd put back into shipping containers and send back to the store), just to push their CDs to the top of the sales charts...

I think the overall issue I have with it is that when I spend money on something I want something in return. I'm paying 100 dollars for.....a tiny icon to click on greenlight in hopes that people will upvote and then after all the upvotes have second hopes that Steam will let me through? Pretty lame for 100 bucks.
[/quote]You're donating $100 to the child's play charity and getting onto the greenlight system.
Also, traditionally you'd spend quite a few thousand dollars on just having a meeting with a publisher, and again that's just for a chance for them to pick up your title. So compared to the traditional route, it's still damn cheap.

It was my understanding that anyone could release on Steam until greenlight came out.

That's sort of true. Prior to Greenlight, publication on Steam was dependent on having your project reviewed and approved, which meant there was often a lengthy wait to get a response after submission (if you got a response at all), at which point your game might have been approved for sale, you might have been asked to make some changes before receiving approval, or your game might have simply been rejected. Greenlight allows anyone to publish as long as they're willing to pay the $100 fee and they get enough votes.

The result was that most people didn't get onto Steam previously. Even with the $100 fee, Greenlight should present a much lower barrier to entry.

That's how iphone/android work

Publishing on iOS requires a $99/year developer membership fee. Although user ratings and reviews help to a certain extend, Google's Play marketplace for Android is full of low-quality and poorly functioning apps. You're not really worse off with Steam than you are with iOS, and as cowsarenotevil says, "works" is a term than can loosely be applied to both the iOS app store and the Android marketplace.


Personally, I think the $100 fee is a good thing, and I don't think it's a particular excessive amount of money -- perhaps they could consider some system where part of the money is refunded after publishing rather than the whole amount going to charity however.

It was my understanding that anyone could release on Steam until greenlight came out. All these years I was tricked into thinking how cool and awesome Steam was, and yet it's nothing I thought it was. Apparently it charges about 30-40% for each sale too which is pretty steep for a company that I hear is built by indies for indies and innovation.

Valve was built by two millionaire ex-microsoft employees. Dunno where you got the idea that it was "built by indies for indies", but it's wrong.
And 30-40% is pretty standard for this kinda thing.

Why do they need to charge? greatness in a pool of garbage will rise to the top by votes from users. That's how iphone/android work, and that's how kickstarter works.

It may be how android works, but it's certainly not for iOS. There's a $99 a year fee to register as an iOS developer, and then Apple still have to approve your app before it gets on the app store.

I think the overall issue I have with it is that when I spend money on something I want something in return. I'm paying 100 dollars for.....a tiny icon to click on greenlight in hopes that people will upvote and then after all the upvotes have second hopes that Steam will let me through? Pretty lame for 100 bucks.

Well, the alternative is to pay nothing and definitely not get on Steam. It's up to you as to whether the potential of getting your game on the largest digital distribution platform on the pc is worth $100 risk.

After rating all the games earlier I definitely supported the 100 dollar price to entry. I like that steam only allows quality applications in. The original list, which has had most of the incredibly bad games removed already, was filling up with cheap ipad games with ports to the PC or promises of a port. Many were just flash games I've played for free on newgrounds.

It was my understanding that anyone could release on Steam until greenlight came out.

Definitely not! I'd hate that. There's enough junk apps in the appstores as it is. Steam is a cultivated collection of games. Games they think are actually semi-decent, they add. Some junk gets through, but not much.

The problem is, Steam is so popular that everyone tries to get on it, and they get swamped by submissions, and can't handle it all, so good games that should be on Steam are overlooked. This is what Greenlight is attempting to solve (or at least reduce).

All these years I was tricked into thinking how cool and awesome Steam was, and yet it's nothing I thought it was.[/quote]
You weren't tricked into it. Steam is cool and awesome, but maybe not for the reasons you thought.

Valve is a really well known game developer who creates really well known games (Half Life, Team Fortress, Portal, CounterStrike, Left 4 Dead). They creates a system that allows them to auto-patch and update their games more frequently to improve their games. Then they expanded it to sell their own games directly to the user, cutting out Publishers (1/3rd of the cost) and becoming their own Store (1/3rd of the cost). It just makes more sense, financially.

Then, other game developers came to them and said, "Wow, that's pretty cool. Could you sell our games too?", and they said 'Sure!' and charged less than publishers and stores did, giving a larger share of the profits to the developers directly. Also, they frequently sell the games for less money than other places do, have almost constant sales going on at really steep discounts... to the benefit of themselves, the developers, and the consumers. Everybody is happy with it.

Some (most!) of the games they have are from other large game developers. Some are from large publishers who still take a cut, some from indie developers.

But Valve, while crazily supporting Indie developers in a number of huge ways*, isn't an indie studio (although they are 'independent' from publishers, in the original use of the term 'indie developer', they aren't 'indie' in the more recent (past 5 years) meaning of the word, which just means 'micro game studio'). Also while Valve definitely permits, encourages, and works directly with indie games on their digital store, Steam isn't "For" indie games. It was originally for patching Valve's own games, an then it was for selling and distributing Valve's own games, and later other games whether large or small.

*[size=2]Like using indie games to help launch their own commercial triple-A game, Portal 2, bringing huge amount of attention and sales to the indies they involved. Portal 2 didn't need the attention from the indie games, it already was guaranteed to be a huge success; but by using the indie games to help lead up to the launch of Portal 2, it helped bring mainstream attention to those smaller games.

Valve helped grow digital distribution into more mainstream audiences. They support indie, but aren't indie (and don't claim to be). They help indie developers and sell indie games, but also sell mainstream games - infact, they sell more mainstream games then indie games.

Back in 2006, when I first wanted to play Half life 2, I was told by a friend I knew online that Steam charges a monthly fee for the Steam service, even after purchasing the game you want to play. I hated that, so I didn't play Halflife 2 until mid-2007 when I found out that the monthly fee was completely entirely false. I was tricked. But not by Valve.

Valve isn't running some kind of mis-information campaign - They aren't trying to capitalize off the "Indie" hype, they're one of the primary reasons why indies are being hyped.
They also aren't trying to pretend they are selling (primarily) indie games - They have huge rront-page banners saying: "Skyrim! Assassin's Creed 3! Dues Ex: Human Revolution!" and every other mainstream game.
They also aren't trying to pretend that they are indie themselves - They created some of the most well-known triple-A games of the past decade, from their first game in 1997 (Halflife - Game of the Year, and bajillion awards) to the longest-running and still most-popular multiplayer FPS of all time (Counterstrike), to their wildly successful recent hits (Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2).

They are first a large, popular, successful game studio - and second a large, popular, successful digital store. They aren't publishers. But they are developers, and they are distributors.

Apparently it charges about 30-40% for each sale too which is pretty steep for a company that I hear is built by indies for indies and innovation.[/quote]
It's a digital store: Ofcourse it takes a share of each sale that it earned you that you otherwise wouldn't have made. 70% of something is better than 100% of nothing. And unlike alot of other companies, Steam does not request, badger, require, or attempt to purchase exclusivity.

Why do they need to charge? greatness in a pool of garbage will rise to the top by votes from users.[/quote]
What the masses think will be great, and what actually turns out to be great, are not always equal. This is rule #1 of game design: The player knows what he has already liked, and he knows what he currently hates, but he thinks (often incorrectly) he knows what what he will like in the future.

The reason for charging the $100 is because they were spammed by a bunch of people who didn't read any of the rules.
They got:
- Several hundred joke submissions (Medal of Honor: Warfighter 3, and get the Battlefield 4 Beta was one I personally saw)
- Several hundred submissions from people who thought it was a "Suggest a game for us to add" (plenty of Minecraft-request submission for instance)
- Several hundred submissions from people who are presenting an 'idea I just had for a game!' instead of an actual in-development game.

And they got a good 100 or so real submissions of real games actually completed or near completion actually submitted by the actual developers.
Charging a fee immediately cuts down on the spam, which makes it easier to find the real deal and get them properly voted on.
Donating the fee to charity underlines the fact that they aren't trying to eek out extra dollars from Greenlight, but that the fee is actually only there to combat spam.

That's how iphone/android work, and that's how kickstarter works.[/quote]
Kickstarter only works that way because is isn't mainstream enough yet to really be spammed heavily, and because Kickstarter has to approve your campaign before it's public.

I think the overall issue I have with it is that when I spend money on something I want something in return. I'm paying 100 dollars for.....a tiny icon to click on greenlight in hopes that people will upvote and then after all the upvotes have second hopes that Steam will let me through? Pretty lame for 100 bucks.[/quote]
Agreed!

iPhone and XBox Live Arcade are the same way though - both cost $100 for membership, with no guarantee you'll be approved.
iPhone just lets more junk (650,000+ apps) through the gates then Steam (1,500+ games) or XBox Live Arcade (500+ games).
I'd rather have the higher quality in the signal to noise.

But also, I'd rather not have to pay $100 to get considered. Luckily, I think the old submission process is still available - you could always skip the fee and submit to Valve directly. Greenlight is just to get higher recognition within Valve about your game by having the community tell Valve that they want the game even when Valve might not have allowed your game on their own, they may have second thoughts if the community shows your game enough approval. It's a secondary route to approval from Valve - if they first say, "Naw, I don't think your game is a good match for Steam" and the community backs it, they may say, "Well, the community wants it, so we'll reconsider it".

[hr]



The pie chart shows a normal non-digital revenue distribution in the United States ([size=2]And not that long ago, games were $50, not $60 - so even further reduced margins, though development costs were cheaper).

The blue chunk that says 'publisher' (less than half), after covering the funding (paid by the publisher), and the marketing cost (paid by the publisher), then the rest gets divided (unevenly - the publisher gets a larger share) between the publisher and the actual developer. The actual developer gets very little, and often times has to continue being beholden to the publisher for game after game after game, because it is dependent on the publisher's funding for the next game to pay for the salaries of the developer's employees. The studio is caught in this cycle permanently, until A) Their game flops badly enough that the publisher won't fund their next game, and the studio collapses. or B) Their game succeeds so extremely that the studio's share actually allows the studio to self-fund their next game (but still depend on the publisher for distribution agreements), and if that self-funded game fails, it puts them back where they were previously in the cycle.

Some studios eventually (through a string of hits, or through one super-hit) break free completely. Most eventually collapse and the employees form new studios to take it's place. The rest never succeed so wildly to become self-funded, and never fail so badly to collapse, and just stay in the same publisher-beholden position for the entire studio lifespan. Sometimes the publisher might just purchase the studio and make it an 'in-house' studio.


Steam (and the other digital stores) offer another option: Since a studio cannot get distribution deals with stores like WalMart or GameStop themselves, and don't have CD-pressing facilities and trucks to ship the merchandise, they have to go through publishers. But digital stores like Steam are willing to work directly with developers, and CDs don't have to be produced and shipped. It puts studios in a slightly greater chance of becoming successful and independent (the original meaning of independent: A studio that finally becomes self-funded and so is independent from, though it may still work with, the publishers). It also puts studios in a slightly better bargaining position with publishers.

At least, that's my understanding of how things go. I never worked in the industry myself, and (being rather young - 22 yrs) only started really paying attention to these things around 2007 or so. Actual industry vets may have a different (more accurate) perspective.

That's sort of true. Prior to Greenlight, publication on Steam was dependent on having your project reviewed and approved, which meant there was often a lengthy wait to get a response after submission (if you got a response at all), at which point your game might have been approved for sale, you might have been asked to make some changes before receiving approval, or your game might have simply been rejected. Greenlight allows anyone to publish as long as they're willing to pay the $100 fee and they get enough votes.

The result was that most people didn't get onto Steam previously. Even with the $100 fee, Greenlight should present a much lower barrier to entry.

I thought Greenlight still had to have reviews/approvals, but they were expedited based on how popular your game is on Greenlight. I view it as a way for the community to shine the spotlight on games they want so Valve notices them ASAP.

I think a big problem is that right now people are viewing it as a discoverability platform for customers to find your game, which it is not.

I thought Greenlight still had to have reviews/approvals, but they were expedited based on how popular your game is on Greenlight.

Yes, that's true -- sorry if I was misleading earlier. You do still need approval from Valve, but you will be noticed sooner if you're getting lots of votes, and may be able to get approval for a game that would have previously been considered unsuitable if it has enough community support.

It's not clear to me that charging money implies quality results - indeed, it's an insult to the idea of free software. Though at least the money goes to charity.

Publishing on iOS requires a $99/year developer membership fee. Although user ratings and reviews help to a certain extend, Google's Play marketplace for Android is full of low-quality and poorly functioning apps. You're not really worse off with Steam than you are with iOS, and as cowsarenotevil says, "works" is a term than can loosely be applied to both the iOS app store and the Android marketplace.

Firstly, I disagree - not had problems with Android software, and claiming one platform has poor quality is just POV and going the way of OS flamewars... But also, you're conflating charging money, with the review process that IOS requires. Plus, Google Play costs money too, albeit $25 instead of $99/year. Nokia Store OTOH is only 1 euro, but also has a review process like IOS to prevent non-functioning applications. These are separate issues.

Not that this should matter here, if a game is so bad it doesn't even function, it's not going to get support.

It's not clear to me that charging money implies quality results - indeed, it's an insult to the idea of free software. Though at least the money goes to charity.

I think the actual value charged is not important. Having a charge at all is a barrier that causes anybody who is not serious about it to back away. Having no barrier at all makes it really easy to troll with games that you have no intention of actually producing.

I was watching Randy Pausch's last lecture recently, and as he puts it, "The brick walls are there to keep the other people out," meaning that barriers are there to keep out people who don't care enough, not to keep everyone out.

I think the problem is people fundamentally don't get Valve's model. Valve isn't a "plan ahead" company; Valve is a "realese this, get feedback, tweak tweak tweak." Look at Steam - it started as horrible, opaque and boycotted mess. Today it matured into PC's leading digital distribution system. Team Fortress 2 went through several (unbalanced) changes with its items system, until reaching fair stability of today, and expanding even more. Same could be said with episodic content - they tried it, and clearly, it hasn't worked out as much as they hoped.

Greenlight is no different. In the short time, they already added and removed the "required x% of votes" and changed the wording on the vote buttons.

I think Valve's plan is to get the system running for a while, collect data and improve on how it works, then maybe take like the top 10 games, and make their "success-level" (aka votes up vs. down) as the effective barrier to enter Steam. In the end, I think it's a better way than arbitrarily saying "you must get x likes" just because x felt right. Tho, I agree they could do a better job of communicating that is their approach, IF my speculations are right.


Also, they can't fairly base that number on existing sales or other website popularity, as Greenlight is a different platform (pre-digital distribution) with different level of commitment ("would you buy" != "bought/like") and community (just registered steam users willing to put in personal time to vote).

Lastly, it was all fine an dandy initially, but the $100 fee creates a bit of an expectation of calculable ROI. Without knowing what one's chances are, it's hard to estimate if it's worth investing into the system (regardless of what the fee amount is). From reading a few online forums, that seems to be one of the main reasons behind the negative reaction to the fee.

I think 100 USD is the minimum required to make the system perceived as serious. If lower, I'd expect it to get flooded by teen weekend programmers. Who are sometimes good but I'd say 99% shit.

I really don't know how anyone serious can have a negative reaction about that.

...Lots of good info...

Excellent informative post. My hat is off to you, sir.

$100 once is ok but not charging about 30-40% for every purchase.

$100 once is ok but not charging about 30-40% for every purchase.

30-40% is actually on par with or better than many other options available to indie developers, and better than you would normally expect from traditional publishers. The alternative is setting up your own distribution system, which then takes some of your time, incurs operating costs, and doesn't have the huge fan base you get with something like Steam; for most developers it works out better to be on Steam even though you're sharing the profits.

$100 once is ok but not charging about 30-40% for every purchase.

When I worked for a large developer that in turn worked for a large publisher, they took 100% of the first 1 million purchases, and 95% of every purchase after that.
Most of our games did not sell anywhere close to 1 million copies, so there were no royalties paid
However, they did pay for most of the development costs, so we at least always almost broke-even, even though there was no profit.

Giving only %30 of your income to the sales & distribution part of your business is an amazing deal.
If you were to try and sell your product in physical stores, you'd be losing at least 40% of your sale price to retail/distribution overheads.

If you set up your own online store, you might pay much less for distribution (assuming you get a good price from your hosting company -- keep in mind Steam lets me download terabytes of data at multiple MiB/s all around the world), however, you'd instead have to pay a fortune in advertising in order to get as many visitors to your site as people who visit the steam store.

... And unlike alot of other companies, Steam does not request, badger, require, or attempt to purchase exclusivity...

Actually, while I'm not sure what the full story was with Battlefield 3, it is rumoured that Valve wanted exclusive rights to Battlefield 3. EA wanted to see their headline game on every distribution platform available. Valve do not want their games on Origin. I like steam alot and its a better system than anything else but Valve are not angels.

Actually, while I'm not sure what the full story was with Battlefield 3, it is rumoured that Valve wanted exclusive rights to Battlefield 3. EA wanted to see their headline game on every distribution platform available. Valve do not want their games on Origin. I like steam alot and its a better system than anything else but Valve are not angels.

The whole Origin vs Steam debacle was because EA deliberately (As in, "did so knowingly and intentionally, with forethought") violated Steam's terms of service by selling DLC through EA's system built into games to bypassing Steam, and then pretended to be the victim when Valve removed their games. Whether or not Valve should take a cut of DLC or in-game purchases is up for debate, and I'm not firmly on Valve's side on the point (but it's a complex issue), but that's not the point: it was clearly in Steam's terms of service (and had been for awhile), and EA intentionally slipped in-game non-Steam DLC purchases into multiple of their recent releases after they were already on Steam, forcing Valve to remove them from Steam afterward, and then EA blamed Valve and pretended they were getting bullied - which was amusing, because EA is really large, and has previously offered to buy Valve out, and most people online didn't buy into it recognizing how 'coincidentally' EA was launching their own rival service, and it was in EA's interest to claim Valve's ToS was too restrictive.

EA could've negotiated a new deal with Steam, or could've not made their DLC available to the Steam versions of the game (boycotting with entire games or just the games' DLC), or could've publicly commented on the issue and opened dialog, or could've let Valve have the cut they've always been taking without complaining... instead they snuck Origin purchasing into multiple games already on Steam at once, then acted surprised and shocked, and acted like this was something new Steam added to the ToS. It had nothing to do with Valve demanding exclusivity; it had to do with profit sharing from DLC, and EA acting like a child to raise awareness of Origin instead of negotiating a better deal.

[Even non-Origin digital sales require Origin to be installed]
[Battlefield 3's Absence on Steam Blamed on Restrictive Terms of Service]

EA was 100% in the wrong in this case, in my opinion.
I don't agree with everything Valve does; nor do I think they are perfect... but they are a lot better than EA.

Here was Valve's response after the whole debacle:
"I think at the end of the day we're going to prove to EA they have happier customers, a higher quality service, and will make more money if they have their titles on Steam. It's our duty to demonstrate that to them. We don't have a natural right to publish their games." [Valve's response]

That is a good response. EA during that time went around criticizing everything it could think of about Steam, and hinting heavily that Origin is a better choice for developers.

If one company (Valve) has a reputation of integrity and openness and of working with and alongside developers and customers, and another company (EA) has a history of abusing other developers and customers, then they get into a public spat of some kind, why would you believe the company with the proven track-record of deceit?
Again, as you mentioned, Valve isn't an angel. But at the same time, past events have earned them more trust, and lost EA trust. If a situation is unknown, I'm going to give Valve the benefit of the doubt, and EA I'm going to scrutinize harder looking for ulterior motives... and since they 'just so happened' to launch their own rival distribution store at the same time, you didn't have to look too far at all.