Steam Greenlight and the Discoverability Challenge

Update: Since writing this post, Steam has introduced a $100 entry fee for Greenlight. I've added my thoughts at the end of this piece.

Last week saw the launch of Steam's new Greenlight programme. For the uninitiated, Greenlight is an initiative by the aforementioned desktop games portal to get its user community deciding what indie games should be published on the service. New game proposals, with demos and screenshots, can be shown in the portal, much like an App Store, and users can upvote games they like, share comments, and help promote the games they are most interested in for selection by Steam.

When I heard about the scheme after its announcement in July, I was apprehensive. While taking game selection out of the hands of a black box of executives was promising, I was concerned that any community-rated games ecosystem would suffer the same issues as the App Store and Google Play do - that is, the games receiving most attention (sales in App Stores, upvotes here) would receive the best promotion, creating a virtuous cycle for those at the top, but a wall for exposure for newcomers. Fortunately, as Mike Rose intelligently explained in his recent Gamasutra article, Greenlight has found a way around this issue…

… by not including a ranking system at all.