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Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 8:06 am
by Killrob
I just sent an email to TotalBiscuit as a mailbox discussion suggestion. Here my little write-up for you to read as well.


Hey TB!

On the first weekend in September we witnessed the launch of Valve's new Steam-Community platform Greenlight.

As you probably are aware, the launch was a less than flawless undertaking. The massive response along with a seemingly
endless stream of games pouring onto the platform was rather overwhelming for both users and the choking servers.

What is astonishing, in my opinion, is the embarrassing average quality of entries. Don't get me wrong, there are a few
excellent, unique, polished and well-presented games put up for display and voting. On the other hand for every good
entry that deserves its place on Greenlight, I count 3 clones of successful indie platformers, 2 shoddily assembled zombie-
shooters, some survival horror game and two random kiddie-programmer entries that will stay on the last few pages of
Greenlight forever, a place that shall be known as "indie purgatory". Oh, I forgot the AAA EA titles being put up by random
Russians missing the point of the platform entirely... hell, even TF2 was on there a few minutes before it got deleted.

In my opinion the current situation defeats the purpose of having the platform, as it mainly wastes peoples' time - in a bad
way. I can't stop wondering: what did Valve expect? To me it looks like they were trying to have a good share of the trendy
indie-cakefest that is Kickstarter & Co, but wanting it for "free", with only minimal moderation effort/manpower put into it.
A bit more moderation probably would have helped the start of the platform immensely.

As a developer having a rather successful entry on there ourselves, it doubly pains me to see some of the utterly putrid
things getting uploaded. It is giving people a frustrating experience instead of the possibility to quickly discover what the
platform seemingly was intended for (superficially at least): innovative, quality content which doesn't get any attention in
mainstream gaming media yet.

I'd very much appreciate hearing your opinions on the whole situation and a bit of discussion around the topic in general.
/Killrob

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:49 am
by Combustible Pet
Oh my, that was a reasonable query and I'll have to look out for that and see what his views on it are. I wonder how many letters he got concerning it though. But yeah, I'd imagine he'd be fairly pissed at how it went. Perhaps ^^;

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 12:41 am
by FordManFromHell
Heres some data about the current standings in Greenlight: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1164739/greenlight.htm

Overall we are in P80 (Faves) but when you enable only Strategy and Simulation options (wich is the category where Automation kind of competes), then we are on third place! Automation also has less hours in Greenlight than all the nearest competitors!

So as far as I can see, Automation is doing very well! :D

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:38 am
by Driver69
For those of us who don't like Steam or Origin and have already paid for the game, will we be able to download the full version from the Automation website?

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 2:05 am
by Daffyflyer
Driver69 wrote:For those of us who don't like Steam or Origin and have already paid for the game, will we be able to download the full version from the Automation website?


From our website still

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 2:36 am
by Killrob
This link is awesome! Thanks for sharing :) It really puts things into perspective. Yes, Automation is doing pretty well - could be better though ;D

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 2:37 am
by Driver69
Awesome.

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 10:16 pm
by FordManFromHell
Some new information regarding Steam Greenlight http://www.computerandvideogames.com/36 ... reenlight/

The Greenlight doesnt seem to display Likes or Visitors for any game anymore. Now when I visit Automation's Greenlight page it just asks me "Would you buy this game if it were available in Steam?" and when I try to press "Yes" it doesnt do anything.

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 3:06 am
by hanitora
"Visitors" and favourites were unnecessary information.

Also, when you press "yes" it should display this message under the buttons : "Thanks for helping this game get closer to release on Steam!" and it will display the progress bar as to how many of the "required" votes the game has.

There is no other effect. If it doesn't display that, you most likely need to upgrade your browser because that shit uses modern web design techniques which aren't supported by ancient browsers.

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 6:10 pm
by victorhansamnmax
Heavy: Da.

Yes. This time, Let's ALL VOTE!
Please Make a TF2 Propaganda to ensure the safe performance of all authorized activities.
Certain objects may be vital to your success.
Please?

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 11:09 pm
by FordManFromHell
hanitora wrote:"Visitors" and favourites were unnecessary information.

Also, when you press "yes" it should display this message under the buttons : "Thanks for helping this game get closer to release on Steam!" and it will display the progress bar as to how many of the "required" votes the game has.

There is no other effect. If it doesn't display that, you most likely need to upgrade your browser because that shit uses modern web design techniques which aren't supported by ancient browsers.


Yes it was changed from the fly, it didnt ask that question at the beginning. Still It appears to count my (positive) vote in, even tough it changed the question.

Btw, Ive been going trough these Greenlight games voting "No thanks / Not interested" (because like 99.99% of them are shit) and I was just wondering does anyone know what is the purpose of voting "No thanks / Not interested"? There doesnt seem to be any stats about that option and if there arent any stats, then that button is pretty much a no-brainer. I mean them guys at Valve must understand this? Dont they?

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 11:20 pm
by Killrob
I hope they do understand that... TotalBiscuit had some good points in this mailbox video. Downvoting is pretty pointless. :)

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 6:53 am
by hanitora
Total Biscuit is uninformed on the matter, or he was when he made that mailbox video. I have no idea if he has since been informed or not, as he hasn't addressed this issue again.

Downvoting is not intended to have any effect on a project besides removing it from your ratings queue. Eg you don't have to skip over a shitty project you aren't interested in 10000 times to find a new one that you are interested in. The idea is to downvote everything except what actually interests you. Perhaps in the future it will have implications like making it less likely for you get a type of game you tend to downvote in your ratings queue first.

Without the downvote system, using Greenlight would be literally impossible. You keep getting the same games in your to be rated queue until you decide to vote yes. And by the way the term "downvoting" is really a misnomer as you don't take away votes or anything, and the effect as previously stated is just the removal of given game from your queue.

It is also possible to choose yes after choosing not interested. So the vote isn't locked.

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 7:55 pm
by Killrob
Sure, but I don't see how he "didn't get that". It was a thumbs down, and even if that is not counted as a negative, it gives the impression of having a negative effect, which is a misconstructed mechanic - at least from a psychological standpoint. The new "not interested / no thanks" button is better in that regard. And yes, I agree that this button is needed in order to make the system work and remove entries from your list, it is just the initial presentation of it that failed to convey the mechanics of a rather sensible system.

On another note: I'd actually love to see the new fee to apply retroactively too (including us), that would clean up the huge pile of mess on there at least a little bit. :)

Re: Steam Greenlight - Give us a Helping Hand

PostPosted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 3:59 am
by hanitora
It did give the wrong impression, granted. There was a clarification available by a Steam employee a long time before it was changed to "Not interested", however.

TB does research this shit, so it's strange that he didn't pick up on it, but there you go.
Greenlight is a bit of a mess in general, there are many problems with it right now. For example, in my opinion the progress bar that shows you how many % of votes needed should be removed - and replaced with a favourite counter instead. The % is not really representative of your ability to get on Steam and it just discourages people who voted for your project with the incredibly small percentages.
Indie Stone made good suggestions relating to collections as well which would help it a lot.

I think it's fine that the fee isn't retroactive, because for the most part the games that are still on there are reasonable. There are some bad apples, but nothing like before and only kinda weak in terms of quality.