Steam Greenlight to enlist users in approval process

Steam members will soon get a say in what games appear on the digital distribution service as part of Steam Greenlight. The system, which will allow developers to put up Kickstarter-like pitches to jockey for favorable ratings from users, is set to be implemented August 30.

"Making the call to publish or not publish a title isn't fun," said Valve's Anna Sweet in a press release. "Many times opinions vary and our internal jury is hung on a decision. But with the introduction of the Steam Workshop we realized an opportunity to enlist the community's help as we review certain titles and, hopefully, increase the volume and quality of creative submissions."

The new community service is a move to both increase exposure for the games and lessen the bottleneck for Steam listing approval. Those competing for listing can be playable builds or just concepts and will be selected not only by overall score but by relative interest from the user base. They must at least run on PC, have a video trailer and four screenshots, and "must not contain offensive material or violate copyright or intellectual property rights" to be considered.