Earlier today, Adrian Chmielarz (@adrianchm) tweeted, “Indies want Steam to open wide b/c it’s a ‘guarantee of success’. But it’s only this guarantee if it’s hard to get in, not another AppStore.”
I have to agree and disagree in some sense with Adrian’s tweet. Yes, I do think that there may be a “guarantee of success” for indie games given the exclusivity; however, I don’t think it means that other indie games won’t be successful if they aren’t given high ratings through Stream Greenlight.
Positives and Negatives to Greenlit Games
Indie games can be successful through Steam Greenlight because gamers are the ones giving high ratings to those indie titles they want to see available via Steam. So, if the game is well liked by the community enough to be included in Steam, there is a already a large group of gamers interested in putting money down for the game.
Greenlighting Games can also be a great thing for the indie market, because it means that there is a greater sense of competition and pressure to make a great game that will be chosen by the community of gamers. However, if too many games are Greenlit at once—just as it was this September when 100 games were Greenlit—this can mean less coverage and prestige for indie games that were Greenlit.
In this scenario, Steam Greenlight makes way for a different kind of competitiveness. Instead of competition revolving around getting high ratings from gamers, it becomes competitive within Steam because the marketplace is flooded with too many Greenlit games. This could become a bad thing for indie games because the mark of being ‘Greenlit’ may start to lose its meaning. Instead, Steam might slowly become an open AppStore just as Adrian described in his tweet.
Does Exclusivity Work in the Favor of Indies?
All in all, Steam Greenlighting is a much better distribution option for indie developers than cumbersome homebrewed alternatives. However, as I said before: the exclusivity has its flaws, including competition for coverage in the sea of Greenlit games. The other negative is that the indie games that are not Greenlit can become quickly passed over by the community of gamers. However, this doesn’t mean that they are discarded completely because there is a chance that the games will be Greenlit sometime in the future.
Last thoughts
There seems to be some commentary from the gaming community that make it seem that: if an indie game is not Greenlit on Steam they failed. However, I don’t think it means they have failed. There have been many indie games that have become successful that are not on Steam. It is sad, however, that for some PC gamers, if a game is not on Steam they consider it to be invisible. This is because many PC gamers don’t like purchasing games that are not on Steam.
Do you think Steam’s exclusivity works in favor of Indie games? Why or why not? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
