The much-vaunted Steam Greenlight opened for business last week, and immediately there was a strong response. After only a day there were already 2.3 million votes registered for the 622 games submitted to the service, giving us a glimpse of the monumental task Steam’s approval team has been faced with in the past. A pair of problems also emerged pretty quickly.
Discoverability was a major issue — it’s more challenging than it should be to find the best Greenlight has to offer. The other problem is that not every submission has been a legitimate one. For days it wasn’t difficult to stumble upon listings for Half-Life 3, Left 4 Dead 3, or something equally fake but far more offensive, like WTC Plane Simulator. Users have been called upon to report submissions that don’t belong on Greenlight, but Valve has now implemented a more effective, albeit controversial, method for stopping these games from ever getting onto users’ screens: all submissions now require a $100 donation to the Child’s Play charity.
