255 - Steam Greenlight

[matt]

Steam Greenlight is a weird transitional step to open up the process of getting games on Steam. In this developer diary, I talk about my experience.



Sorry I posted this one late! I'm still trying to get into a routine at my new place.

[evilkinggumby]

was wondering when this would pop on the site. i saw it on youtube (i subscribed a while ago to your channel) initially.

First off, nice ring. I have that exact same one (or nearly so) from when I got married. I think mine is titanium. or some other crazy hard element. Though I got mine from Sears for like $100 so your is likely way way nicer. hehehe

second, I am seeing there were articles in the past where it sounded like companies were offering steam keys for greenlight votes? That seems mighty shitty/shady. In the last few years it's become almost impossible to properly greenlight stuff as browsing is such a minefield of crud. I do like the idea of linking the greenlight push during the KS campaign so it simplifies it for the backers and both sides work their magic to help keep things progressing. Right brilliant suggestion,

[matt]

Mine is also titanium. I got it because it was the lightest.

Yeah offering keys for Greenlight votes is shady, and Valve outlawed it. I'm not sure if they are actually going to actively enforce it, but at least people who do it will know that gaming the system is not ok in Valve's eyes.

I've been a Steam developer for a while, and it seems like they've reached the point where pretty much everything you need to run your game is accessible for the web interface, so I suspect the main thing they are waiting on for getting rid of Greenlight is how to improve discovery and not to end up like the iOS App Store. I think that is a hard problem to solve, and I think Valve is smart to not completely open the floodgates until they work that out.

[Cridone]

Speaking of Steam Greenlight, I looked at your indieDB page and found that you haven't updated it yet:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/neverending-nightmares

[matt]

IndieDB seems more for companies that don't run their own blogs or community, so I wasn't really planning on updating it since I spend a fair bit of time maintaining our own community. What do you think? Is it worthwhile?

I don't want to spend TOO much time doing community stuff since I have other work to do.

[Cridone]

IndieDB seems more for companies that don't run their own blogs or community, so I wasn't really planning on updating it since I spend a fair bit of time maintaining our own community. What do you think? Is it worthwhile?

I don't want to spend TOO much time doing community stuff since I have other work to do.

If you want I could probably work on it, although I doubt you trust a random stranger on the internet to do that.
Still though, I've always helped people with stuff like this so I wouldn't mind helping out. (my profile, just in case)

And to answer your question, I say yes because it's always good to have the game posted somewhere so people can check it out, never know what can happen. d:

[matt]

Well, if you really want to, I could probably give you access. What's the worst that can happen? Give me a bit, and I'll try and remember my log in and how IndieDB works. hahah

[miumiaou]

Matt you're awesome! you're the only person I know that can give his trust to someone you actually have never met. I think because of that, people can put faith in you. Thank you for trusting us

[matt]

Funny story - I had never met Chris Ewald (one of our artists) until Steam Dev Days in 2014 (we both happened to be in Seattle), but we started working together in 2011 on Dino Land for Android. (Don't play it. It's really bad. hahaha It also was only released internationally)

[Cridone]

To help you out I sent a message to join the Infinitap Games group, as far as I know, that's the only way I can edit the page. You just have to log in and 'Accept' the message in your PMs.