It's a kick in the teeth because a lot of modding involves DLL injecting and reverse engineering that is a violation of Steam's agreement. It's quite right they have this restriction, because it is illegal, but most modding is. I'm a game programmer, I like to do more than play about in designer tools. I hear you on the mod organisation (I was never a fan of the Nexus, either), but I'm looking at it from a modders perspective, not a users.


Everything is about benefits and drawbacks and we all have to balance them. Most of my points were on issues that I once balanced the other way, but a changing market has made me reconsider. Steam hasn't changed, everything around it has. Yes, Greenlight has some benefits, but I find the blanket treatment a deal-breaker. All indies must now go through Greenlight. What defines an indie and why should they be treated differently? It is a two-tier system and I don't like it.

Actually I suspect GOG probably does give this to the publishers - I imagine that especially for certain, "big" classic games they get exclusive deals to sell those games with the caveat that the publishers get to use the GOG version elsewhere once exclusivity ends. Remember the publishers are a lot bigger than GOG and usually have a lot more power in negotiations. However, it is not a terrible deal for GOG. They do get to sell the games and they get to be the only ones selling them for some period of time. That's not bad. I very much doubt that the publishers are using GOG material without permission.

I thought that the reason for DLL injecting or EXE hacking was due to the lack of modding tools. If there are proper modding tools available, you don't need to resort to those methods. Not sure about the workshop though, but don't you need to have proper mod tools to be able to integrate the game to the workshop?

That's fair enough. I imagine there's probably a number of restrictions in place because of the Workshop so I can see how that might feel limiting compared to what is common outside the workshop. I can see that point as well. I'm not really sure what defines an Indie company, or rather how Steam defines it. I guess at some point it's an arbritrary thing, but at least for now, it seems to have given the Indie market another boost. I imagine in the long term the term indie will have to become more specific. Either that or it gets blurred more and more as Indie companies become succesful and regular publishers of games, not really needing Greenlight approval anymore, and when they select publishers to be part of that group or not.

I do think it's nice people get a direct input into what games are 'likely' to get Greenlighted though, even though it's highly influenced by games popularized by youtubers and the like no doubt, and in some cases it (painfully) highlights how niche the public for some of my genre interests actually are.

I don't know what problems you are having, but at least for me the GOG versions run great in Win7, at least so far (I've played TR1 the farthest).

With TR2, there was tiny cosmetic glitch with the intro movie (ie. it shows some bit of a Windows window while running it), but that's a small temporary glitch.

Yes, the Workshop only supports games that have modding tools. It is always great when developers/publishers allow the release of tools and I've probably not done a great job of explaining myself, but suffice to say that even titles like Oblivion, with their modding tools, have a lot of popular 'backdoor' mods.

The Workshop is great for introducing people to modding, but the way it attempts to hoover up the whole modding community is worrying. In essence, if I make a mod, that is being used to drive revenue to Steam. That's wrong on so many levels. On the surface it looks great that you can have all your mods in one place, automatic installations and updates etc. but it won't last when others enter the market as there will be a fragmentation. Either that or console-like exclusivity. I'm certainly not going to support either.

Most of the times these games are already Steamworks anyway though aren't they? Unless you feel they made the games Steamworks so they could use the Workshop?

That's the worry, yes.

In the interest of fairness, I blame the publishers equally =P

Heh, I've sounded really bitter in this thread. Truthfully, there was a time when Steam made me wet my pants with excitement. Perhaps I'm just going through a difficult divorce.

This is either a lie or a misunderstanding...

There are several indies which do not go through the greenlight process, for example Don't Starve and Protus EP (which are released shortly) and Thomas was alone released a few days ago. The list of indies being published on steam without going through greenlight is very long...

There are also examples of indie titles being picked out of the greenlight process by Valve and given steam distribution, for example Miasmata right now, Miner Wars 2081 and another one whose name escapes me at the moment...

So far, greelight has been shown as nothing more then a way for more indies to get exposure, even though they might not get on steam. The amount of indies being released on steam has not changed at all. The major difference is that there is now some community control over them and not 100% in the hands of what Valve thinks is interesting.

To be fair I wasn't referring to those who want to keep things simiple and not have to juggle diffrent accounts. I get that I just can't stand the obsessive fan boys camp

It's not the first one, thank you.

I'm not party to the submission processes for those games, do you have any sources to show they didn't go through Greenlight and didn't start their negotiations before Greenlight? I'm not being confrontational, quite the opposite. Always happy to change my opinion when presented with new (to me) information.

I know there are many indies on Steam that didn't go through Greenlight, because Greenlight has only been around for three months. I'm sure we will see some more given that negotiations start a long time before release.

It do not explain the titles being picked up from greenlight and given distribution...

and as far as I understand from the forums, both Don't Starve and Proteus EP got into discussions with Valve after greenlight was put in place, this is may off course not be correct. However, I only see the same constant influx of indies on Steam, and there is so far only 5 greenlit titles published.

Edit - oh, and another point which got eaten by a forum gremlin - there is no single definition on what an indie game is, so everyone and their grandmother can call themselves indies.

I'v seen them and it was quite a shock! Damn 10€ for each, what were they thinking!

I think here we are on different pages - not suggesting games on Greenlight don't get released.

I'll have a look on the forums, - Steam forums? Greenlight is new, hard to say what process recent games have gone through. that's why I asked for sources on the ones you stated.

Those gremlins are a pain in the backside, I just lost my post replying to you, too. Anyway, I agree.