The Indie Flood Continues…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 30, 2013

Steam just Greenlit 100 new games – the largest ever.

It gave Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon greenlight page a nice little boost towards the top 100.

It is apparently Valve’s intent to phase out Greenlight in favor of a better system that removes most barriers to getting a game on Steam. The 100 approvals is something of a stress test on their system. While it’s likely a one-time event (for a while), the goal is to increase the throughput of games onto Steam.

While on the plus side, it means it will be easier to get games on Steam, there’s a downside to those who have long-enjoyed the exclusivity of that particular gatekeeper. Getting on Steam was never the equivalent of winning the lottery, anyway, but this will further dilute the attention from the Steam audience. Getting on Steam may one day be as big a deal as getting on the App Store. Just getting on the platform will no longer be the gigantic jump in discoverability that it has been.

As an interesting side-note, a lot of the greenlit items are games still in development. Kind of an interesting phenomenon, between that and the crowd-funding craze — people are a lot more interested in promises than reality. I guess that explains politics.

Also of note, Majesco has opened up an “indie publishing” division, entitled Midnight City. It’s focus is getting indie games into places that are difficult / impossible without a “real” publisher.

How much money can indie (or non-traditionally published) games (or games company) actually make? Minecraft seemed to really push the boundaries, to the desperate salivation of the big publishers, but apparently the new pie-in-the-sky figure is: $2.4 million PER DAY.  I don’t think that’s quite so doable with niche titles.

After watching the Unite 2013 keynote and having a few more headlines catch my eye this week, I was once more impressed with how indie games – once the exiled stepchild of the games industry – has become front-and-center. Things have changed a lot over the last decade. Who woulda thunk?

 

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