A third update from Valve about the closure of Greenlight and introduction of Steam Direct has been posted on Steam. In it, the company gives a date of 13 June for the launch of Steam Direct, and talks about how they will deal with the large number of games still in Greenlight.
From today, no more Greenlight submissions will be taken and the voting system has been disabled. That leaves more than 3,400 games still pending, and Valve says their aim is to accept “as many of the remaining games as we have confidence in”. An internal Valve team has been set up to go through the remaining titles and selecting the final batch that will pass through.
Anyone who has paid a Greenlight submission fee but not yet submitted the game, or whose game has not been Greenlit at the end of this process, can request a refund through Steam Support. Valve ask for patience due to the number of games they’re going to have to look at.
The new Steam Direct process will work as follows: “A new developer will simply need to fill out some digital paperwork, including entering bank and tax information and going through a quick identity verification process.” After that, a fee of $100 USD will have to be paid for each game the developer wants to have appear on Steam. This $100 can be recouped if a game makes $1,000 (whether that’s net or gross or what isn’t stated).
Valve will continue the review process where, prior to release, a team “installs each game to check that it is configured correctly, matches the description provided on the store page, and doesn’t contain malicious content”. In addition, they mention that if you’re a brand new developer you’ll have to wait 30 days between paying the Direct fee and getting your game on Steam; Valve want to do additional checks to make sure you’re legit.
