14 DAY TRIAL // The Greenlight service for Steam has been a success since Valve initially introduced it, allowing a variety of gamers to get acquainted with new indie titles and choose which ones will be officially launched via digital distribution.
Now, a developer who has worked on Greenlight tells CVG that the concept will not survive for more than one year as a new way of launching indie games is being planned internally, one that makes it easier for gamers to get access to interesting gaming experiences.
Jonathan Biddle from Curve Studio says that during the Game Developers Conference the main talking point from Valve was that it was moving towards a more open model and was planning to eliminate Greenlight because it was too restrictive in many ways.
The company wants gamers to have the options to create their own stores, filled with the content that they find appealing, and use them to convince both friends and members of the community that they should buy particular products.
Gabe Newell, the leader of Valve, said earlier in the year that his company was evolving fast and that Greenlight was only planned as an stopgap measure to deal with the high number of indie titles that sought to be released via Steam.
The digital distribution service remains the biggest on the PC, although it is facing some competition from Electronic Arts’ Origin, uPlay from Ubisoft, Gamersgate and Green Man Gaming.
Recently, Microsoft has claimed that it will soon show off its long-term dedication to PC gaming, suggesting that an improved replacement for Games for Windows Live will be announced and then launched, perhaps drawing inspiration from the user interface of the Xbox One.
This year, Valve also has plans to launch its SteamOS and a dedicated controller that uses haptic feedback and has recently received an important re-design.
Both will work with a host of Steam machines that are created by hardware partners and the new tech is designed to allow Valve to move into the living room and directly compete with the PlayStation 4 from Sony and the Xbox One from Microsoft.
At the same time, Valve has dabbled into the development of a virtual reality headset, but recently explained that it was more interested in supporting the Oculus Rift than in creating its own hardware.
That decision might be re-evaluated after the announcement that Facebook bought Oculus Rift for 2 billion dollars (1.55 billion Euro).