Regarding Greenlight, I later remembered there's data that usually it only gets around 15.000 votes per month, that's from the entire Steam userbase, so it makes sense that only the votes from a single country wouldn't be enough. Plus, we have no idea how many votes are needed, or even if it's the same for every game.

From what you say Steam really sucks there. Are you mainly a PC gamer? Where do you get your games from then? Most seem to require Steam activation even when you a physical copy, and then you'd miss the Steam discounts.

Is Desura also region locked there? I don't have an account there so I don't know how they work, but I hear they have plenty of indies.

I don't recall them all - as I was going to bed at the time, but I remember the Hairy Tales dev blogged about pulling their game.

Actually, as some devs keep posting screen shots of GL data, we do have some small idea of how many votes are needed to get Valve's interest. Right now it's somewhere around 600,000 to 1,000,000. Considering the number of people bothering with Greenlight has dropped off, it's a rather stupid amount of votes required for an indie game, unless of course you're an indie who already has a huge following -- the sort of indie that doesn't even need Greenlight.

Most will never get that as they are left with having to do all the promoting. A task that most companies either have specialised staff for, or seek a publisher for. And Valve have made it quiet clear now indie devs are not allowed to seek publishers or be approached by publishers if they are already on Greenlight. Thus, making it even harder for them.

I get most of my Steamworks games from other sites without restrictions, importing, or asking people overseas to gift them. IP blocks don't stop me as I, like most here, long since learnt how to get past them.

As for Steam discounts, heh. Valve have a new trick of increasing the prices of games a month before a sale, so we don't get the discount. Or, they remove the game from sale during the discount. So again, I ask people to help via gifting.

Is there any particular reason that Western publishers and distribution services seem to hate Japan so much?

I heard about masking your IP to get through the region locking, that its "not quite legal" or something (heavy quotes there), I thought about doing it before. But in reality then, there's no risk in getting caught?

Sorry for the interrogation. It's just that I'll be spending a year in Japan through a college student exchange program and I was planning that whatever gaming I'd do would be on the PC, since I'll need a laptop one way or another and it would be very cumbersome bringing my console and games, plus they and a tv would occupy too much space in a small dorm room.

It's not really that Western pubs hate Japan. It's more that certain big-name Japanese pubs hate the PC. Some are known to have purchased PC distribution rights in the past solely to prevent games being released. A lot those rights have since expired and the games are now available (although very expensive).

It also doesn't help that most such services don't have anyone on their staff who speaks Japanese. Most Japanese devs/publishers don't have people on their staff who speak English.

Lets put it this way, yes the SSA says you can get your account restricted. But the only time I know that people have had their accounts disabled/restricted is when they either purchased from Steam while using a VPN or when they flaunted their use of a VPN on Valve's forums or when contacting support.

Add to that that a Valve employee once hinted that I should just bypass a region lock in a PM, and I've long since stopped caring. It takes less than a minute to bypass a lock - just use a reliable VPN.

If you do come here for a year, bear in mind you won't be able to buy from Steam - not without contacting support first. What you will need to do too, is to double check before buying anything. You will most likely be told to use a browser so you can buy from the store for your current region, but you will be bound by Japanese release dates. So on the plus side, you'll be able to buy without most of the restrictions we have; but on the downside, you'll face potential delays to play those games of several months.

My biggest problem with Greenlight is with many games being greenlit still are not on Steam.

I mean, there should be some limitation - you either deliver a game in 6 months or you loose your approval.

Why the hell do I vote for stuff that will still take years to come? I hoped Project Zomboid will be on steam at least after they introduced Alpha Funding.

Right now, just because of this, Greenlight is a waste of time.

That may be, but it is not too bad. 62 games + software have been greenit, and 35 of them have been released. Out of the 62 games and softwares, 5 of them was from yesterday and still need a little time to be released, but they are finished (Inquisitor, for example). This places the proportion to something like 3/5 of greenit games have been released? There is now started a slow trickling in of previous greenlit games.

Introducing a time limit will in the end just make someone rush a game and deliver a half-finished product? I have always prefered to let developers take as long as it takes to get a good enough product as possible.

I thought it would discourage people who have nothing even remotely close to the release. And they wouldn't have to rush anything, because they would release their alpha or beta build on alpha fund after greenlight as well.

I don't vote on things I might want to buy in next 3 years - I vote on a thought what I would like to play today. I'm pissed at people from Black Mesa project for example, they submitted themselves to greenlight and when they got accepted - they decided they will not release unless it's finished what would take another few years? So why the hell they submitted in the first place?

The same with Project Zomboid. They know on what stage of development their game is, and yet they decided to go on greenlight. When got accepted, they said it will take few YEARS to release? What the hell...

It pisses me off. It's not kickstarter. I'm not voting on a promise of a game, I'm voting on actual games that can of course be still in development, but not on a sketchboard.

We are different there then :)

I see it as a good incentive for an indie developer to know they have secured a steam release in the future. Steam seem to have no problem finding new releases.

Another "Valve is evil". The whole process is obscure, but it's better than nothing. Hell, I go to Greenlight page to look whether there are or will be games which might interest me. Surely, I vote for some games, but I might as well just keep an eye out for them even if they don't make it to Steam. It certainly informed me about some projects I had no idea about before.

For some instances it may turn out to be extremely bad thing. Before greenlight there was some sort of quality control, even though not perfect.

Now, Valve being "forced" to release a game that 3 years ago was approved based on some vague info and colorful screenshots? It may be a way through for a lot of turds.

Well, before there was some random people somewhere in Valve deciding what does or does not deserve a release. It still is, but there is now also a backdoor for those games that slip through.

Is there maybe a need for some quality control? Maybe. Does a lack of one invalidate greenlight? Not sure about that.

Thanks for making me smile before my morning coffee, have a sip of rep :)