Since Steam Greenlight‘s launch last week the community-based game approval process has been flooded with submissions. While most have been legitimate games, the new service has also seen its fair share of joke “Half-Life 3” submissions and even a recently removed erotic game.
In an effort to add some kind of barrier to entry, Valve has decided to collect a $100 fee from anyone wanting to submit a game to Steam Greenlight, with all the proceeds going to charity.
Valve UI designer Alden Kroll announced the new policy saying:
“Two things we’ve noticed so far. First, there are a ton of legitimate submissions that people want to see. Second, there is unfortunately a significant amount of noise and clutter being submitted, either as a joke or by fans not fully understanding the purpose of Greenlight…”
“[We have added] a $100 fee for someone to post to Steam Greenlight. The proceeds will be donated to Child’s Play. We have no interest in making money from this, but we do need to cut down the noise in the system. (Note: Anyone who has already posted a submission to Greenlight will not have to retroactively pay for any existing submissions, but will need to do so for any future submissions.)”
Kroll also announced that Valve has redesigned Steam Greenlight‘s browsing experience, so that users will now see a “smaller, manageable list of games” that they have not yet rated. The list will be populated by a mix of popular titles, and new submissions to Greenlight. The hope is that it will help users find their “kind” of games to vote on.
Steam Greenlight has received over 700 submissions since launching on August 30th, so these changes will hopefully work to thin out the herd of games up for approval.
