Steam Greenlight to be Replaced by Steam Direct

Valve have taken to the Steam Blog to detail the service which will replace Greenlight. The company have previously been very vocal that they intend to replace the service as it hasn't been working as intended, with many users questioning the quality of content that is added to the programme.

We now know that the replacement will be called Steam Direct and it will ditch the voting model in favour of a direct publishing deal and a recoupable fee. The addition of a fee isn't anything new, Greenlight has had a $100 fee since 2002, however Steam Direct looks to be increasing the amount that developers will need to pay.

In their statement, Valve said that:

"... we’re still debating the publishing fee for Steam Direct. We talked to several developers and studios about an appropriate fee, and they gave us a range of responses from as low as $100 to as high as $5,000. There are pros and cons at either end of the spectrum, so we’d like to gather more feedback before settling on a number."

Subject of a number of recent GameGrin Theme Nights, 7 Days to Die, started life as a Greenlight title.

This move could serve to increase the quality of games on the platform, with developers less willing to take a higher financial risk for their game, especially with the fee being per game, rather than a programme entry fee like on Greenlight. The flipside however is that this could price some developers out of the market, especially in those areas where exchange rates makes the cost of dollars more expensive. It could also mean that publishers aren't keen to publish more experimental titles, and this is a view that has been expressed by a few indie developers.

The service is set to launch in the Spring, so we only have so long to wait and find out exactly how the service will work. If it cuts down on games based on memes and "borrowed assets" then everyone will be happy, we just hope that Steam still appeals to bedroom developers creating the unique indie titles we love.