Valve announces Steam Greenlight, lets users choose which indies get on Steam

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What will get the green light?

Valve has announced a new initiative within Steam that will allow the users themselves to select which independent games are released on Steam. Being showcased on Steam can mean a huge boost for some indie games, and competition can be fierce.Steam Greenlightgives this power to the players, allowing them to select which games they're most excited about.

"We are most interested in finding the games that people want, not requiring them to always hit a specific number of votes," the post continues.

In an industry where megahits like Minecraft can go unnoticed by the industry at-large (while the game spreads through word of mouth through forums), the new initiative should be a much more democratic way to get attention focused on the right games.

Increasingly, it seems like Valve is focusing their support on independent developers. Just today a (completely unsubstatiated, yet exciting) rumorbroke that they'll be launching a big indie bundle sale soon. It's growing pretty clear that Valve wants Steam to be the location of choice for the next wave of big indie games.

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Andrew Groen
Andrew Groen

Andrew is a freelance video game journalist, writing for sites like Wired and GamesRadar. Andrew has also written a book called EMPIRES OF EVE: A History of the Great Wars of EVE Online.