How Steam is about to change it's role (PCGamer) [Updated]
Last edited Sat Jul 14, 2012, 06:54 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: PCGamer
Tom Francis at 04:01pm July 12 2012
(snip)
Instead, Valve reps Anna Sweet and DJ Powers took us through a series of new Steam features that change its role in the industry: from an under-staffed megapublisher to a hands-off distribution platform. I can’t talk about all of it, but these are the two most important bits:
Unapproved updates
While Valve have always encouraged developers to update their games frequently, those updates would previously need to be approved before they went live. They’re now changing to a new system, where developers can make updates live themselves, with no oversight from Valve.
What if your update breaks the game? Customers will tell you, and if you don’t hear them, Valve will tell you what customers are telling them. But ultimately, it’s the developer’s responsibility to check this stuff, release good updates, and fix anything that breaks
(snip)
Greenlight
From August 30th, developers will be able to post a video, description and screenshots of their game, finished or not, and ask users to vote on whether it gets released on Steam. The games that get the most votes will get a green light. When they’re finished, they can be sold on Steam. Valve’s only involvement is to make sure the final code runs, and is roughly what was promised in the video.
Read more: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/07/12/how-steam-is-about-to-change-its-role/
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Seems like an interesting development for independent developers. Apparently the process for actually getting on Steam is getting simpler (if you can get the necessary votes, I wonder if there is a B-option for getting on for those who can't), and also updating a game is streamlined, so that patching bugs, adding features etc. can be done quickly and without having to go through a (possibly lengthy and complicated) approval process.
The only downside I see (as mentioned in the article) is that a faulty update might go live. Maybe Steam could counteract this be including a "Roll back to previous version" option for a game, so that you can re-download the last functioning version. Don't know if that's technically feasible though.
Greenlight (as I understand it) will only be for indie games, AAA games won't be affected. A few people in the comments sure would have liked to give Ubisoft, EA, Activision etc. a piece of their mind... 
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