Stop bad games on Steam Greenlight.


Stop bad games on Steam Greenlight.
The Issue
PROBLEM:
Steam Greenlight is great platform for introducing new games and new indie developers to large community of gamers... Or it is in theory.
Lately we see influx of bad, poorly made, insulting and downright atrocious "games" submitted on Greenlight. It has come to point that Steam Greenlight has become synonymy for bad games and bad developers.
And this is not only affecting gamers; it actually has larger effect on decent game developers, because this bad quality games are flooding Steam Greenlight and make it hard for good games to get spotlight, but worst effect is that gamers lose interest in Steam Greenlight and are less prone to voting on games presented there.
SOLUTION:
- increase of submission fee for games published on Steam Greenlight
- make submission fee to be per game
Currently Steam re requires developers to pay $100 to be able to post games on Steam Greenlight, and after that, they can publish unlimited amount of games.
But, with increase of this fee, and making it be per submitted game, amount of poor games published will drastically drop because a lot of developers are dumping large amount of poorly made games in short period of time, just because it doesn't cost them anything.
And this increase of expenses for developers with decent games will be substituted with better chance of getting their game published.
Also, developers can utilize crowdfunding sites to gather needed finances and use that crowdfunding campaign as test to see if people are interested in their game or not.
Increased fee suld still not be to steep; something in range from $200 - $500 per game; that amount of money suld not be a problem for developers with game that will be good enough to be presented and sold on Steam Greenlight.
For test games, personal learning games, "my first" game projects exist other websites specialized for that kind of projects (and devs can get much more quality response/feedback on them) and they suld not be sold on Steam.
I'm gamer for more then 25 years and I'm also game developer my self, and it really makes me sad seeing how this system that was introduced on Steam, and witch has large potential for benefit of indie developers, gets abused and slandered because of lack of quality control. But I also realize that it's quite difficult to make good quality control system that will work, so that's why I think that this solution might at least help to filter out some of "junk" that is getting dumped on Steam Greenlight day by day.
If you believe that this will be at least somewhat helpful solution for Steam Greenlight issue, please support this petition and maybe if there will be enough of us, someone might at least consider to change something (if not this suggested solution, maybe some other).
Also, please consider sharing this petition.
FAQ:
Q: Do you realize that this petition most likely won't change anything?
A: Yes; I do get that petitions don't change things. But it might start discussions. And it already did.
Q: But, this will make difficult for poor, "on budget" or beginner developers to publish their games on Steam!
A: Yes; increase in submission price might hinder some of poorer developers. But Steam is not only option and not usually best option to start your game development career on. New and young developers need feedback from people who look at their game as objective as possible. But as soon as you try to publish game on Steam, that game is viewed as product and compared to waaayy better games. And when it's looked like that, it will get destroyed. And it will get cutthroat, to the balls honest (and mean) comments. And very little constructive feedback.
Just take a look at that recent event with guy who made "Bear simulator" ; if he published his game as free demo/test, I'm sure he would get much more objective and constructive comments.
And once you slap a price tag on something, no matter what you call it, it is a PRODUCT. And it will always be rated as one.
Also when money gets into "game", rookie devs start to get way more defensive about their game, and start to act aggressive and irrational. There are numerous cases of developers attacking and banning people from forums and comment sections, and ruining their reputation even more by doing so...
For all of those reason, Steam is actually bad place for new and inexperienced developers, who are still in early process of learning about game dev.
Q: Then why using Steam at all?? Protest by buying your games on other stores.
A: There is nothing wrong with Steam as online game store.There is also nothing wrong with Greenlight as concept. But it needs some sort of filtering, because it has been proven that people will post all sorts of crap there without it.
Q: Shouldn't Steam hire people to validate and approve submissions to Steam?
A: Sure; but only to check if they are inline with basic rules; don't have pornograhy, be discriminatory on religions, race, national or sexual basis, etc. But you can't have someone determine if game is good enough quality to be allowed on Steam Greenlight or not. That is too subjective to be decided by someone; some of this "reviewers" might not like RTS games, and will give worse ratings to that kind of games. That's why concept of Greenlight is ok; gamers/customers decide what will get on store. But problem arises when there is just to much "junk" to chose from, and after while, people start to lose interest in Greenlight and start to think that majority of Greenlight/Early access games are crap.
Q: Wont increased price affect development cost and development times for this small indie developers?
A: I believe that this might even motivate developers to try harder... If they will have to pay for submitting each game, they might rather spend more time developing each game and try to make it better, so that they increase their chance of passing to "Early access" and returning their investment... And some might save money for Steam submission, by building assets by them self, rather then to spend money on ready-made assets.

The Issue
PROBLEM:
Steam Greenlight is great platform for introducing new games and new indie developers to large community of gamers... Or it is in theory.
Lately we see influx of bad, poorly made, insulting and downright atrocious "games" submitted on Greenlight. It has come to point that Steam Greenlight has become synonymy for bad games and bad developers.
And this is not only affecting gamers; it actually has larger effect on decent game developers, because this bad quality games are flooding Steam Greenlight and make it hard for good games to get spotlight, but worst effect is that gamers lose interest in Steam Greenlight and are less prone to voting on games presented there.
SOLUTION:
- increase of submission fee for games published on Steam Greenlight
- make submission fee to be per game
Currently Steam re requires developers to pay $100 to be able to post games on Steam Greenlight, and after that, they can publish unlimited amount of games.
But, with increase of this fee, and making it be per submitted game, amount of poor games published will drastically drop because a lot of developers are dumping large amount of poorly made games in short period of time, just because it doesn't cost them anything.
And this increase of expenses for developers with decent games will be substituted with better chance of getting their game published.
Also, developers can utilize crowdfunding sites to gather needed finances and use that crowdfunding campaign as test to see if people are interested in their game or not.
Increased fee suld still not be to steep; something in range from $200 - $500 per game; that amount of money suld not be a problem for developers with game that will be good enough to be presented and sold on Steam Greenlight.
For test games, personal learning games, "my first" game projects exist other websites specialized for that kind of projects (and devs can get much more quality response/feedback on them) and they suld not be sold on Steam.
I'm gamer for more then 25 years and I'm also game developer my self, and it really makes me sad seeing how this system that was introduced on Steam, and witch has large potential for benefit of indie developers, gets abused and slandered because of lack of quality control. But I also realize that it's quite difficult to make good quality control system that will work, so that's why I think that this solution might at least help to filter out some of "junk" that is getting dumped on Steam Greenlight day by day.
If you believe that this will be at least somewhat helpful solution for Steam Greenlight issue, please support this petition and maybe if there will be enough of us, someone might at least consider to change something (if not this suggested solution, maybe some other).
Also, please consider sharing this petition.
FAQ:
Q: Do you realize that this petition most likely won't change anything?
A: Yes; I do get that petitions don't change things. But it might start discussions. And it already did.
Q: But, this will make difficult for poor, "on budget" or beginner developers to publish their games on Steam!
A: Yes; increase in submission price might hinder some of poorer developers. But Steam is not only option and not usually best option to start your game development career on. New and young developers need feedback from people who look at their game as objective as possible. But as soon as you try to publish game on Steam, that game is viewed as product and compared to waaayy better games. And when it's looked like that, it will get destroyed. And it will get cutthroat, to the balls honest (and mean) comments. And very little constructive feedback.
Just take a look at that recent event with guy who made "Bear simulator" ; if he published his game as free demo/test, I'm sure he would get much more objective and constructive comments.
And once you slap a price tag on something, no matter what you call it, it is a PRODUCT. And it will always be rated as one.
Also when money gets into "game", rookie devs start to get way more defensive about their game, and start to act aggressive and irrational. There are numerous cases of developers attacking and banning people from forums and comment sections, and ruining their reputation even more by doing so...
For all of those reason, Steam is actually bad place for new and inexperienced developers, who are still in early process of learning about game dev.
Q: Then why using Steam at all?? Protest by buying your games on other stores.
A: There is nothing wrong with Steam as online game store.There is also nothing wrong with Greenlight as concept. But it needs some sort of filtering, because it has been proven that people will post all sorts of crap there without it.
Q: Shouldn't Steam hire people to validate and approve submissions to Steam?
A: Sure; but only to check if they are inline with basic rules; don't have pornograhy, be discriminatory on religions, race, national or sexual basis, etc. But you can't have someone determine if game is good enough quality to be allowed on Steam Greenlight or not. That is too subjective to be decided by someone; some of this "reviewers" might not like RTS games, and will give worse ratings to that kind of games. That's why concept of Greenlight is ok; gamers/customers decide what will get on store. But problem arises when there is just to much "junk" to chose from, and after while, people start to lose interest in Greenlight and start to think that majority of Greenlight/Early access games are crap.
Q: Wont increased price affect development cost and development times for this small indie developers?
A: I believe that this might even motivate developers to try harder... If they will have to pay for submitting each game, they might rather spend more time developing each game and try to make it better, so that they increase their chance of passing to "Early access" and returning their investment... And some might save money for Steam submission, by building assets by them self, rather then to spend money on ready-made assets.

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Petition created on April 26, 2016