Why Greenlight AAA titles?

When I see a decade old game at one point published/owned by one of the largest gaming companies on the planet trying to Greenlight a game on Steam, I can’t help but feel perturbed.  Perhaps I don’t understand Greenlighting a game.  I thought this was a chance for games that otherwise stood no chance of ever ‘making it’ to be voted on by the Steam community.  I thought Greenlight was a platform to encourage upcoming designers and developers to have a means of getting their games out to the masses — it’s about the players getting they games they actually want on Steam.

I have nothing personal against EA.  I love most of their games.  Heck, DAoC?  You guys know I’m a fan of Dark Age and UO as well.  I just don’t think it’s fair for them to be on Greenlight. Aren’t these games on Origin?

Isn’t Greenlight the only way to get new games on Steam?  They say so themselves.

Nah that’s total crap.  Games get added all the time and never appear in Greenlight.  It replaced the submission form, the form people who don’t ‘know people’ use.  In other words, if you aren’t a publisher you had to fill out a detailed form to get Steam to even care about you.

Does it matter as long as gamers get the games they want?

I guess not.  To me it just clutters and tarnishes what I thought Greenlight was all about.

WTF do you care, Keen?

I feel like fighting for the little guy.  I have lots of friends who are fighting or did fight hard to get their games on Steam.  Some got there and others did not.  Seeing Dark Age of Camelot just truck on in kinda sucks.  We love indie game devs here, and we try hard to write about any great indie games we find.  Send us your indie games for us to try and if we think our readers will find interest in what you’ve made we will definitely share it with them in one way or another.

  • I don’t claim to have Clue One about how Steam works but that announcement puzzled the hell out of me. Why do UO or DAOC need to be “Greenlighted”, whatever that means? They’re successful commercially released games.

    The whole 2014 gaming market, from majors doing Kickstarters to $2000 alphas (Hi, Trion) to greenlighting MMOs from the Dawn of Internet Gaming makes no sense whatsoever.

  • UO and DAoC were only bought by EA, they were not MADE by EA.

    EA Sucks, it’s in the game!

  • @Bhagpuss: Yeah it’s baffling to say the least.

    @Damage: Yeah, EA only recently (I say recently but it really has been a while now that I think about it) became the publisher/owner/overlord then they pawned it off or sublet or something to Broadsword Games.

  • Hahah I saw that DAOC stuff and I t sounded appealing, but them I remembered the Trials of Atlantis Master levels(or whatever they were called) and lvling to 50 again!M No thanks 😛

    Not that I am a Graphics hog, but it looks really aged, lets concentrate on ESO lvl 50 and pvping for now 😉

  • @Joy-Energiser

    Leveling to 50 takes a day or two. And you do it in BGs so you will get some RvR action as well.
    All ToA stuff can be bought by BPs or glass which you get by doing RvR/BG quests or repeatable quests in Aerus.
    Leveling and equipping a char for RvR in a cheap but okay template should take even a casual player with zero support less than a week.
    Considering there is a two week trial… just try it.

  • UO and DAOC were (are?) great games. 100% no doubt about that in my mind. In the end I just don’t understand why two of the oldest (and best) MMORPGs ever made are being Greenlighted on Steam.

    Actually, let me reword that. I know WHY. Look at us — we’re talking about them. Somewhere one of their marketing staff are turning cartwheels screaming “mission accomplished!” It’s a marketing ploy. It makes business sense — for Broadsword Games. For everyone else, this is just weird.

  • i think in this case “Greenlighted” means do the steam community want to see these games? answer will be yes

    but i too thought i should be for small developers.

  • DAOC and UO seem to be getting run by Broadsword Online Games (which seems to by old Mythic folks under Rob Denton) these days, so I dunno how much of this was an EA decision or Broadsword. My guess would be Broadsword, as the whole idea of having them run the two titles sounds like EA washing their hands of the two games plus, I dunno what would possess EA to give up 30% of their sales for a pretty small increase in potential market, but it sounds like exactly the kind of plan that developers that aren’t particularly knowledgeable about distribution channels would jump on.

  • @Keen

    Read the thread on the CU tester board about DAOC and what Broadsword is.

    F(*& them they are a bunch of crooks as most of gaming industry I guess but these guys take the cake