I had some stuff to say about Steam’s new Greenlight service. Also, I tried a new video format to see if I could do rapid turnaround videos for current events and the like.
Excellent video! I’m excited at the idea of more Errant Signal content. The video still came out to be eight minutes and plenty good-looking and well put-together. Even if it wasn’t this good, it would still be awesome!
I don’t think it’s really appropriate to even call what Valve is doing curating a digital collection of quality titles. If that’s what they were really interested in they wouldn’t have made Greenlight at all; you don’t curate by off-loading the vetting process onto a popularity contest in which the voters are. Greenlight is a great (and cheap) way of making sure what you offer is already likely to sell well though.
I’m also not keen on this new insane fiction that Steam is currently a place filled only with quality titles worth purchasing and making it open would make it impossible to find the gems. Steam is already filled with a mountain of shit and it’s already a pain in the ass to find the gems. The metacritic link is OK, but a whole bunch of games either don’t have a metacritic or the page isn’t linked. The recommendations might be OK except you have no contextualisation to make sense of it. If a game has 500 recommendations, you don’t know whether that’s because it sold a few thousand copies and it’s really well liked or becuase it sold a few hundred thousand and barely anyone liked it. And either way, you can’t tell why they liked it or how much they liked, so it’s still not super useful. Plus, you can’t sort by the number of recommendations.
The thing is that even if Steam was this library of carefully curated top quality titles, it still doesn’t really justify what Greenlight is. What they could have done is made Greenlight a store that was seperate from the current Steam store and then move it over to the regular Steam store if it gets enough votes. That way you can have an open platform and an exclusive store, customers can go to one place if they want the experimental stuff and another place if they want stuff that’s already passed the gauntlet. Plus, and this is pretty damn important, people can vote on stuff based on their experience actually playing it, rather than a dozen screenshots and a 4 paragraph write-up.
That second sentence should say "If that’s what they were really interested in they wouldn’t have made Greenlight at all; you don’t curate by off-loading the vetting process onto a popularity contest in which the voters aren't even able to play the game. "
[...] Errant Signal – Blips: Greenlight games video podcast steam 10.09.2012, von Superbot in Super.licio.us When A Campaign Fails, Does Anyone Get The Money Back? kickstarter Systems and theology in The Binding of Isaac games religion Sexism in Video Games [Study]: There Is Sexism in… « Knightmare Tower [...]
Campster
5 Comments
Digibro
Sep 9, 2012
Excellent video! I’m excited at the idea of more Errant Signal content. The video still came out to be eight minutes and plenty good-looking and well put-together. Even if it wasn’t this good, it would still be awesome!
Arclight
Sep 9, 2012
Yep. I’m going to go ahead and say that this “blip” concept is a win. I found this to be a very interesting take on Greenlight. More of this, please!
Lame Duck
Sep 9, 2012
I don’t think it’s really appropriate to even call what Valve is doing curating a digital collection of quality titles. If that’s what they were really interested in they wouldn’t have made Greenlight at all; you don’t curate by off-loading the vetting process onto a popularity contest in which the voters are. Greenlight is a great (and cheap) way of making sure what you offer is already likely to sell well though.
I’m also not keen on this new insane fiction that Steam is currently a place filled only with quality titles worth purchasing and making it open would make it impossible to find the gems. Steam is already filled with a mountain of shit and it’s already a pain in the ass to find the gems. The metacritic link is OK, but a whole bunch of games either don’t have a metacritic or the page isn’t linked. The recommendations might be OK except you have no contextualisation to make sense of it. If a game has 500 recommendations, you don’t know whether that’s because it sold a few thousand copies and it’s really well liked or becuase it sold a few hundred thousand and barely anyone liked it. And either way, you can’t tell why they liked it or how much they liked, so it’s still not super useful. Plus, you can’t sort by the number of recommendations.
The thing is that even if Steam was this library of carefully curated top quality titles, it still doesn’t really justify what Greenlight is. What they could have done is made Greenlight a store that was seperate from the current Steam store and then move it over to the regular Steam store if it gets enough votes. That way you can have an open platform and an exclusive store, customers can go to one place if they want the experimental stuff and another place if they want stuff that’s already passed the gauntlet. Plus, and this is pretty damn important, people can vote on stuff based on their experience actually playing it, rather than a dozen screenshots and a 4 paragraph write-up.
Lame Duck
Sep 9, 2012
That second sentence should say "If that’s what they were really interested in they wouldn’t have made Greenlight at all; you don’t curate by off-loading the vetting process onto a popularity contest in which the voters aren't even able to play the game. "
Superlicious | Superlevel
Sep 9, 2012
[...] Errant Signal – Blips: Greenlight games video podcast steam 10.09.2012, von Superbot in Super.licio.us When A Campaign Fails, Does Anyone Get The Money Back? kickstarter Systems and theology in The Binding of Isaac games religion Sexism in Video Games [Study]: There Is Sexism in… « Knightmare Tower [...]
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