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| Also I get to meet this Joan babe or whatever. |
Steam recently announced Steam Greenlight, not Project Greenlight, which is that weird Matt Damon/Ben Affleck reality show where they found screenplays and made movies for just a million dollars. No, Greenlight will be a community based system where game developers can upload their games and have people vote on them to get them on Steam. This sounds like a great system, based around a democratic notion that the best titles will get in, however, not everyone is happy with the system.
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| Pictured: Not Everyone |
I read the multiple news stories as they came up, just over twelve hours ago and I was pleasantly surprised at the reaction, until I posted it over on the IGDA Sydney Facebook page. The IGDA people are some of the nicest and coolest people you'll ever meet, but they are cautious and weary over almost every news story they hear. And you know what, that's a good thing. It's better to be safe than sorry, but it's also better to be sorry than a dick about things.
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| Then again, you can make a career out of being a dick. |
I think from a good open-minded outset, that they were thinking, logically and said that hopefully "it doesn't turn into Xbox Live Indie Games" or that Steam really doesn't put in a filter such as "x votes and automatically it gets on Steam." But I trust Steam, I really do and Steam Greenlight will have issues when it starts and people will get flustered and people will rage and hell, at worst, some dickish people might leave Steam, but I think what they're doing is a great way for indie developers to really make a mark and get on Steam. Of course, let's think about it from a discursive and logical point of view.
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| What the fuck did I just say?! |
I don't think financially or even from a coherent stand point that any indie developer, outside those who have had large mainstream success, would have enough money to pay people to force a vote to get their game on Steam and even then, they would be found out and reported immediately. Also you have to remember that the players and community of Steam are going to be voting for this game. These are the same people who have kept both Modern Warfare 3 and Endless Space in the Top Sellers at the same time. This is a truly balanced market from my point of view, but hey, don't be a dick about it.
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| We can totes have a reasoned discussion about it and glorified Booth Babes |
Steam also needs to factor into making sure the games aren't all just labelled as "Indie" or "Greenlit" as that it makes the process, much like XBLIG, a bias to other shoppers. I have a whole other beef with the word Indie, in different mediums, but that's for later. I'd rather see a game on the front page or with literally the other hundreds of games, rather than put off into a secondary section, like a "Sell Quick" item at your local petrol station or someone to make a quick profit on a house.
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| "Are you selling it because of the smell? It's the smell, isn't it?" |
Also, for games that don't get through the Greenlight stage, there should be a wayward games foundation where games can go though a workshopping process, or given secondary options to make sure the game gets the care it deserves and needs before being smashed like so many dreams. These games may not be "good enough for Steam" but they probably do need to be worked on and then again, they may just need to find a specific audience.
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| Pictured: All high school dreams. |
Steam has a long road ahead of them and I'm sure they've got a lot of trial and error but seriously, if people let them do their thing and not be a dick about it, things should go well. While I played Captain Hindsight in the last post about the Above Average Network, I realise something like this is in it's early stages, and is slated for an August release, but I can say right now, I expect a lot of people complaining in the early months, not dissimilar to the launch of Steam but with worse spelling and stupider comments. But then again, I don't want to be a dick about it.
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| Yay, belated joke! |
