how Steam Greenlight brought classism in the indie game development world to the surface
(this is a crosspost from an article i wrote on alpha six productions. it's recommended you read the article on the original site.)
when Steam Greenlight first launched a year ago, it was hyped up beyond belief. indie developers all over, including myself, were getting ready for the grand opening of this service. “holy shit, we finally have a way to get our games on Steam? this is gonna be so fuckin’ killer, dude! we can finally open our games up to hundreds of thousands of people and we could potentially make a lot of money and go full-time!” stuff like that.
the launch was a mess. fake games, clone games, and people posting games that already existed were running rampant. Valve tried to find some way to contain this problem, and so they introduced a $100 fee in order to “filter” out the “serious” games and the “joke” games. what Valve didn’t consider (and probably still aren’t), is that there are thousands of indie developers who can’t afford to spend $100 on a gamble. that’s essentially what Greenlight has now boiled down to: $100 to get verbally assaulted for your non-zombie game and essentially throw your money towards something that you have a less than 5% chance of achieving. not all of us can do something like that. i certainly can’t, that’s for sure.
a few months ago, i ranted on twitter about Greenlight’s $100 fee and how it fucks over almost all of us small indies who are struggling to make ends’ meet while quietly hoping that we can create a game that gets enough attention that we don’t have to worry about bills for another 30 days. most of my major points were retweeted by fellow game developer Sophie Houlden, who’s also written some very wonderful pieces about Valve and Greenlight on her website (and i really suggest that you read them), and this is when my eyes were opened. my mentions were filled to the brim with all sorts of arguments.
(please keep in mind: i’m paraphrasing here, as this was months ago so i can’t remember most actual details)
“what, do you just expect Valve to let any rando with a program get on Steam for free?” “$100 isn’t that hard to come by.” “If your game’s complete enough, put it out there. If it’s good, it can make the $100 all on its own.” “if you aren’t willing to sink the Relatively Cheap One Hundred Dollars, then you obviously aren’t confident in your idea.” “you mean, Valve are focusing on the games that matter, like a business?” (pretend i read this one in a really snarky high pitched voice.) “i’ve spent a lot more money on my game, quite frankly the $100 doesn’t bother me.” “maybe your games just aren’t worth paying for.”
these weren’t just random Dumbass Gamers With Opinions, either. most of these were… indie developers.
Indie Developers.
OTHER INDIE DEVELOPERS!
PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING THE SAME THING WE’RE DOING!
i honestly couldn’t believe it. how can anybody who’s ever tried to make it as a full-time indie try an argue these things? “a game will make $100 itself if it’s good enough?” are you kidding me? do you really think that’s how the industry works? you fucking WORK in it like the rest of us do! is this inflated ego or something? the only absolute way i could see somebody arguing this kind of thing is if they grew up or were conditioned in an area in which they never had to worry about finances. in other words, privilege. and of course, duh, there’s gonna be privileged people in just about any profession.
but the absolute sheer amount of people advocating the exclusion of their fellow developers for being unwilling to invest in a complete financial gamble was too staggering for me to ignore. and as i began to follow more and more developers and words they’ve said, i can’t help but get this disgusting whiff of capitalism trailing off of everything they say. money, money, money. wow notch is so great!!! jon blow #1!!! double fine kickstarter!!! let’s find the best way to monetize our players!!! if your game isn’t “profitable” it’s garbage!!!!! i had always felt odd about the way my “peers” in game development acted, that it’s strange that they would cheer for the big dogs getting bigger while they, themselves, still continue to break their backs just to get page views. it never really occurred to me that this was capitalism and classism at work.
even now, as i meet more developers and watch others, it feels like so many of them are getting so much closer to this toxic mindset that things should stay the way they are because we should be Working Our Bones To Dust For Our Art, and that if our games aren’t financial successes, they’re garbage, worthless, and probably shouldn’t have been made. these people don’t want change. money isn’t a problem for them, so it shouldn’t be for anyone else. they don’t think their toxic systems are harming anyone, because they themselves aren’t being harmed by it.
i want to get a little personal here for a sec.
i’ve been developing video games since 2008. in the last 5 years, i’ve designed about fifty games. 15 of those games have gameplay systems in place, and 2 of those have been released. i’ve worked my ass off almost nonstop ever since i decided to pick up this profession. i knew game development was never going to be a profitable thing as someone who just started out (because the system wasn’t designed for people like me, and for the most part, it Still Isn’t), so in order to make enough money to move out and get my life started, i took up commissionary pixel art jobs. naturally, i had to do a lot of these so i could pay my bills, because art was the only real Job i have. i spent so much time doing all this paid work, that i never got the opportunity to actually focus on my games, which is what led to most of my projects being canceled.
between the 2 games i’ve released at the time of this post, i’ve made about $150 since 2011. $100 of that, i will literally never see in my life, because Desura has a $500 minimum requirement before payment can be claimed and sent to you. the other $50 was spent as soon as i got it in order to continue being able to eat. so don’t tell me there’s nothing wrong with the ecosystem in place right now.
any money that i’ve made that wasn’t a result of commissionary work has been mostly from friends playing and liking my games, or buying my music. i literally have not taken a vacation since i started working 5 years ago. the only “days off” i’ve taken are days in which i was too depressed to work, or too burnt out from consecutive working. and even then, i’ll usually only take 1-2 days off, max, a month. i take my work everywhere i go. if i’m not at home, i have my laptop with me. i bring my work with me to my friends’ house, and i bring my work with me whenever i spend time with my family.
i don’t have the benefit of a “fanbase” like a lot of these big name developers do. i don’t have the privilege of being able to say “i’m making a video game” and have 500 preorders in a day. i make stuff that i want to make when i have the time to do so and i put it on the internet in the hopes that someone will like it enough that they’ll be willing to chip in for my dinner for that night so i don’t fucking starve. i don’t have $100 to spend. i don’t even have $50 to spend. people like me can’t just look at $100 and go “it’d be cool if this got me on Steam,” because a lot of us actually NEED that kind of exposure so we can continue doing what we love to do without staring straight down the shotgun of capitalism. why the fuck would i, or anybody in a situation like mine (because trust me, that’s most of us), throw $100 towards something that is more likely going to do absolutely nothing except cause me additional mental stress, when i could throw that $100 towards making sure i have a roof above my head for another month?
does that really mean that i’m unworthy of being a developer, or that i don’t care enough about my ideas or my profession to literally murder myself over it? i sure hope not, because making games is something that i really love doing and it’d be really great if i didn’t absolutely have to be a rich white guy in order to be successful doing it.
i guess all i can say is, thanks, Greenlight, for opening my eyes and showing me that indie communities and AAA communities really aren’t that different, after all.
