The press have been kept out of Valve’s Steam Dev Days, despite our hunger for news. But that hasn’t stopped us trawling Twitter for any and every titbit generously being thrown out there by excited developers (they all got a free Steam controller, so who can blame them?)
Consider this a repository of knowledge and tweets relating to the event, which we’ll contine to update throughout the day.
#SteamDevDays 75 million active users?! Holy crap
— tinyBuildGAMES (@tinyBuild) January 15, 2014
Big numbers, but not totally surprising.
Also says that Greenlight will fade away as the blocks between development and publishing on Steam are removed… #SteamDevDays
— Tomas Rawlings (@TomasRawlings) January 15, 2014
"Our goal is to make Greenlight go away. Not because it's not useful, but because we're evolving." #SteamDevDays
— El Oshcuro (@DaveOshry) January 15, 2014
Has it really been all that useful, though? Greenlight initially seemed like a great way to knock down the impenetrable walls of Valve’s selection process, but it instantly devolved into chaos, with great games being rapidly buried under a pile of absolute crap. It’s big, unmanagable, and according to a lot of developers, very difficult to make an impact on.
The lifecycle of Greenlight has been one of mainly criticism, and scouring it now is like delving into a cesspit. Arguably, Early Access has been much more successful in generating interest in indie games, yet the process for that is not nearly as transparant as Greenlight. One expects Valve to have an alternative waiting in the wings, but if that’s the case, it’s not clear what it will be. Evolution is extremely vague.
Alienware Steam Machine shipping in September #SteamDevDays
— AndreElijah (@AndreElijah) January 15, 2014
Valve wants other properties such as TV, music, and Software on Steam Machines. #SteamDevDays
— Becky (@omglazerkittens) January 15, 2014
Valve’s obviously serious about making Steam an integral part of people’s living room, directly competing with Microsoft’s bloated multimedia route.
VG24/7 got their hands on a pie chart breaking down regional sales, revealing a pretty even split between North America and Western Europe at 41 and 40 percent respectively.