Steam Greenlight: Big boost for indies, or popularity contest?

"Greenlight is scary as hell. Great games not getting the attention they should is always a problem, and asking the crowd what's good usually results in 'that thing everyone else likes'!"

- Colin Northway, the developer behind Incredipede. While Colin Northway is using Steam Greenlight for Incredipede, he's concerned that the service may devolve into a popularity contest which only hurts developers who aren't aiming for me-too games. "The skills required to make good games are very different from the skills required to dominate a 'vote for my game' contest, so I'm worried good games will be lost in the shuffle," he notes. "On the other hand, look at how many games are on Greenlight. That's how many games Valve used to get in its inbox every day. So in a choice between 'lost in the shuffle' and 'I don't have time to even open the email containing your trailer', I guess I'll take Greenlight," says Northway. His quotes come from a new Gamasutra feature -- Steam Greenlight: Developers Speak Out -- in which a host of indies share their thoughts on the newly-debuted service. It's live now on Gamasutra.