Valve has announced that all future games published on its Steam platform will be required to pay a one-time fee of $100 (about RM430). This comes after weeks of consultation with the community and developers, and also signals the end of the Steam Green Light service.
Steam Green Light has been on its last legs since Valve announced its closure back in February. Instead, Valve is using a monetary barrier to reduce the flood of cheaply made shovelware that has flooded Steam.
However, the low barrier was set in place due to concerns from indie developers who were worried about the increase in publishing costs. The $100 fee sounds low to those in developed countries, but still represents a significant chunk of cash for those coming from the developing world.
There are still some concerns from the indie developers, particularly those who want to publish games for free. Steam has been a healthy platform for free games, even if we don’t hear about them very often. Adding a publishing fee could potentially discourage people making free games, since it would cost more to get them on the platform.
It’s still early days for the system, and we expect Valve to tweak to according to its own metrics. That said, the low barrier to entry will probably not deter the bad apples from releasing awful games to make a quick profit.
[Source: Steam Blog]
