Steam Direct for game developers

Valve has retired Steam Greenlight, replacing it with Steam Direct – a model more in line with marketplaces like Google Play.

Steam Direct will launch on 13 June 2017, and allows game developers to list a title on Steam for a refundable fee of $100.

One the game reaches a $1,000 in sales, the fee will be returned.

“The goal with Steam Direct is to provide an understandable and predictable path for developers from anywhere in the world to bring their games to Steam,” said Valve.

“A new developer will simply need to fill out some digital paperwork, including entering bank and tax information, and going through a quick identity verification process.”

Their game is then reviewed by a team at Valve before being listed.

“There is a short process prior to release where our review team installs each game to check that it is configured correctly, matches the description provided on the store page, and doesn’t contain malicious content.”

“New developers that we haven’t worked with before will need to wait 30 days from the time they pay the app fee until they can release their first game on Steam.”

“Developers will also need to put up a Coming Soon page for a couple of weeks prior to release, which helps get more eyes on upcoming releases and gives players a chance to point out discrepancies that our team may not be able to catch.”