Please support Game Informer. Print magazine subscriptions are less than $2 per issue
Steam Direct Set To Replace Steam Greenlight
Valve announced today via the Steam Blog that Steam's current Greenlight program will be ending this year, and will be replaced by a new initiative called Steam Direct. After Launching in 2012, Steam Greenlight served as a more streamlined approach for publishers looking to sell their games on the Steam marketplace, as opposed to the heavily curated method previously employed by Steam.
Details on Steam Direct are scarce, though the Steam Blog does detail some of the communications they've done with publishers regarding submission fees in the new program.
The next step in these improvements is to establish a new direct sign-up system for developers to put their games on Steam. This new path, which we’re calling “Steam Direct,” is targeted for Spring 2017 and will replace Steam Greenlight. We will ask new developers to complete a set of digital paperwork, personal or company verification, and tax documents similar to the process of applying for a bank account. Once set up, developers will pay a recoupable application fee f or each new title they wish to distribute, which is intended to decrease the noise in the submission pipeline.
While we have invested heavily in our
content pipeline and personalized store, we’re still debating the
publishing fee for Steam Direct. We talked to several developers and
studios about an appropriate fee, and they gave us a range of responses
from as low as $100 to as high as $5,000. There are pros and cons at
either end of the spectrum, so we’d like to gather more feedback before
settling on a number.
Steam Direct doesn't have a specific date yet, but is set to arrive Spring 2017.
[Source: Steam Blog]
Our Take
There's no way yet to predict how this will affect the publisher side of things, but this could very well be a quality control measure to help prevent good games from being buried by shovelware that seems to have infested the Steam marketplace in the last few years.
I’d like to ask you to support Game Informer’s continued coverage of games with a subscription. For less than two dollars per issue, we mail you a full year of 10 print magazines, each with cover stories and preview features filled with exclusive details about the most exciting upcoming games. We profile and interview game creators. We look back on the rich history of gaming, and we celebrate what’s next.
Here on the website, we offer much of our content for free, including game reviews, daily news, videos, event coverage, and more – all with minimal ads.
We do so with a small editorial team, alongside contributing paid writers from around the world – over 65 individuals from 9 countries around the world, just in the last couple of years.
It’s not possible without support.
In a time when game makers and games coverage have faced hard struggles and layoffs, the future of this 30+ year magazine and community is at risk. Our new standalone magazine subscription is the number one way you can keep us alive – and we believe you’ll get a pretty fantastic gaming magazine in your mailbox every few weeks for your trouble.
Thank you.
