There’s a rather underhanded practice going on right now through Steam Greenlight where developers are promising to give away keys in exchange for votes from users. Valve has issued a statement.
They don’t want this to continue and state the obvious, that these are bribes and starting a worrying trend. It could end up ‘the norm’ if not stopped as other developers ‘feel pressured’ to give away keys.
”When you give away copies of your game in exchange for votes, you put us in a really uncomfortable position,” said Alden Kroll of Valve in a letter to developers. ”We do not think these votes accurately reflect customer interest and it makes our job harder in deciding which games customers would actually buy and play on Steam.”
It’s a polite way of saying: ‘get your sh#t together or we will’. Developers found to be using these types of tactics are likely to find their Greenlight process taking ”significantly longer” to counter the bribe / marketing ploy. They also remind devs unless you have gameplay ready, then yours is just a concept.
Valve is asking developers to no longer promise keys for Greenlight votes. pic.twitter.com/8v5zCdEhyl
— Steam Database (@SteamDB) February 10, 2015
