Steam changed the way games are marketed with the introduction of Greenlight last year. Sometimes it feels as though every conversation ends with "And don't forget to vote my game up on Greenlight," even if you weren't discussing anything remotely related to video games. Greenlight's pretty prominent, is what I'm saying—but is it prominent enough? According to some indie developers: no.
In a live chat conducted by Valve last week, a number of indie developers had their say. An edited transcript, posted at Crunching Koalas' site , revealed a number of thoughts and concerns. Topping the list was the worry that many Steam users simply "forget" that Greenlight exists.
"Many people I know don't visit Greenlight pages because they forget it exists," said a representative from Intravenous Software, whose game NeonXSZ is currently up for voting. "You have millions of members and maybe 15k regular Greenlight viewers. Something is wrong."
"Considering you have millions of members, don't you think those numbers are very low? Only games that get media attention get any more visitors than that."
Valve's rep, Tom Bui, made the valid point that gamers can't be forced to vote. After all, it's probably fair to guess that at any given moment, most of us are logged onto Steam with the intent of actually playing games. But perhaps Intravenous raises a fair criticism—Greenlight is a popularity contest, and entrants with support outside of Greenlight are likely to soak up the majority of votes. What's your stance on the issue? Do you regularly check out Greenlight's offerings? How often do you vote on games you haven't heard of?
