Steam Greenlight has officially been closed and replaced by Steam Direct. Although submissions to Steam Greenlight were stopped a week ago there remained over 3,400 titles on hold.
Valve has now approved many of the games that were on hold. The only titles that weren’t approved are title that either had insufficient voter data or had concern reported by voter. Exact numbers are still unknown, but valve stated the following
“We’ve greenlit many of the remaining 3,400 titles that were remaining in Greenlight. There are a number of titles that we could not Greenlight, due to insufficient voter data or concerns about the game reported by voters.”
Whatever games that do not make it through can reapply through Steam Direct. This new program will have an initial $100 fee for all games which will be returned once the game makes $1,000 in sales or in-game purchases. The game will then enter a review period from Valve.
“So we have a couple of brief review periods where our team plays each game to check that it is configured correctly, matches the description provided on the store page, and doesn’t contain malicious content. These processes shouldn’t take more than a day or two unless we find something configured incorrectly or problematic.”
This new process sets out to address many consumers concerns about broken and unplayable games that plagued Steam Greenlight. Although consumers were a focus, Valve also set out to create “a more transparent and predictable path for new game developers”.
Full details on the process and Steam Direct can be found here.
