Valve opens Steam Greenlight to indie-game submissions
updated 10:11 pm EDT, Sun September 2, 2012
Crowd-sourced scheme sets popular items onto online store
Valve Software has opened its crowd-sourced product release scheme. Steam Greenlight will allow game creators to list their titles on the service and allow users to vote for which they wish to see put onto the service in the future, effectively taking a significant amount of product vetting work off the Valve employees. Large game publishers will still be able to add their titles to the system though existing procedures.
Steam users can go through the list of prospective candidates and add their support to those they want to play, raising a meter for publication on Steam. An option exists for “down-voting” a title, but it isn't clear if it will lower the same metric. Users can search through the plethora of games vying for votes by genre, what friends have selected as favorites, or by a customized list the system thinks may be worth looking at.
The Greenlight system will soon be used for software other than games, as Valve is setting the online store up to sell productivity and creativity applications in the future. The first non-gaming titles are currently set to begin digital distribution through the service on September 5th.
