Getting the "green light" in the service GreenLight: tips and tricks

1. Introduction

Hello! Not so long ago we started MBT of our new online project Metal War Online. Over time, we wanted to enter the global market through Steam and, like most colleagues, we carry out this venture through the Greenlight service. The material will be devoted to our experience of passing the device.



Immediately make a reservation that we do not pretend to any discoveries and innovative approaches. On the contrary, there is a certain lack of simple accessible information on Greenlight and I would like to put together items familiar to all, showing their importance for the final goal - to get the "green light".







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The material involves two parts, each of which will be published as they are implemented. The first is appruv itself (tips, errors, etc.). The second is access to early access (selection of technical resources, preparation costs, types of work, results, metrics). Now we offer to get acquainted with the first part and we hope that the work done will be of interest to colleagues.

2. Is there any way to do without Greenlight?

Let's be realistic. If you are not a major publisher or you don’t have someone familiar with the top management of Valve (yes, yes, they are still there) in intermediaries, then you can forget about direct access to the service. Even if you contact the regional managers directly, they will in every way praise your project, tell you how glad they are to see you among potential partners (which may well be true, but even if not, the conversation is exceptionally pleasant) and will be asked to go through a modest procedure in Steam Greenlight.



Do not be upset and take it personally. Simply, the scale of the service did not leave such a large choice: either maximum closeness, or attempts to form certain procedures for self-regulation and filtering incoming requests. You can certainly turn away from the passage of an appruv, but we will consider this as a little justified complexity for small companies and leave it outside our material.

3. What does the playground like?

A favorite question from many developers: what needs to be done to get on Steam? In the literal sense: what a project. We can immediately say that this question is so erroneous that it pulls a string of dangerous consequences for developers. Do not try to please the platform. Access to Steam can not and should not be an end in itself. You can flirt with the audience, you can manipulate the perception of your project, but you definitely don’t have to try to “repeat the game that has received the light in a week and is waiting for release”. Let us briefly explain the reasons:

• First , it’s not a fact that the site needs a second such game.
• Secondly , you do not know how this game will manifest itself in combat conditions. The “game access” service is not the entire store. You can not be completely sure that with the perfect passage of Greenlight, the project will bring together excellent reviews and serious money "in battle". And vice versa, it’s not a fact that a project that has passed with a creak does not rush into space. GreenLight is just a slice of the entire Steam, perhaps the most active, but also the most aesthetic, i.e. expressing a certain subjective spirit within the GL community itself. This group of users has taken the time to look at the cards of the games, some of which will never come out, even after receiving the green light, to rate them and leave comments. These and a number of other actions they act as orderlies of their favorite “social network”, protecting the remaining 90% of the garbage (in their subjective opinion) information.
• Thirdly , when you try to repeat the approach of any successful product, you will quickly be cast aside with comments like “ downward after another ... ”.

We do not think that conceptual issues should be considered in more detail. Everyone has already decided for his product whether he should claim a place under the sun or not. The main message is to dispel some stereotypes with which developers are beginning to prepare for Steam.

4. Card preparation

So, you intend to submit your game to the Steam public court. To do this, you must go through the registration process, making a symbolic $ 100 and filling out a simple questionnaire. We divide the filling process into several basic theses and try to describe in each of them possible mistakes, because the first days in the catalog of new products are the most active. After a couple of weeks, even finding a source of additional votes, you can hardly maintain the same level of interest in the game and find yourself in a situation of balancing on the verge ...

Thesis 1. Media materials

Creating a card for the first time, we decided to place some of the most beautiful screenshots and our Launch-Trailer - a rather stylish and dynamic movie, especially for the F2P project (Fig. 1). As it turned out, the first catch immediately awaited us ...







Pic1

Error 1, which in the end was not an error ...

The trailer was completely in Russian: voiced by Russian actors, contained a text in Russian. We thought that this would be the first signal to the negative from the players, they say, they did not bother to launch the trailer. In fact, we simply decided to apply very spontaneously and, on the wave of enthusiasm, did not want to waste time on re-recording. We have already prepared for the flow of negativity, when suddenly, after confirming the questionnaire, we heard joyful comments: “finally normal Russian speech”, “tired of corrupted words”, “it is clear that the game is cool from the Russians!”. Some players simply thought that we were keeping the style of the Russian military negotiations and reliably transfer it to the players, which turned out to be much more important than understanding what these military men are talking about.



In fact, we do not recommend repeating this experiment. The reaction to it can be very different, incl. "Did not bother to translate." If you have a certain flavor of Russian dialogues, then underline it with an English-language frame: subtitles, translation of everything else, so that the players understand, you are trying to give them this style, this is not the result of your laziness or poverty, just the decision to preserve the original appearance and atmosphere.

Error 2, a real miss with localization.

If the enthusiastic players stopped on the video, then the more meticulous proceeded to the screenshots, because this is generally the only demonstration of a live game at that time (which is bad, but more on that later). They saw on them: Russian in chat, Russian interface elements, Russian indicators on the speedometer. And already these facts were not accepted for charming authenticity ... Users were not slow to search the questionnaire in search of information about localization languages ​​(which they did not find). More patient clarified their questions in the comments, but less so - they immediately unsubscribed about the down-voices (Fig. 2).









Figure 2.



This small slip cost several thousand downs. A little later we corrected by uploading screenshots without an interface. They look even more atmospheric and do not contain provocative information (Fig. 3). But even localization fake screenshots would be a fair decision. It is worth considering as a promotional material. There is no deception here, but even this approach seemed to us superfluous, so the Russian-language interface was simply turned off, and the screenshots were retaken.





Figure 3.



Moral: You go to international service, attend to at least an English version, and even better: German, Spanish and French. There are not so many words and replicas in our project, so localization can be done quickly and inexpensively. Realizing our mistake, we promised (and really did it) localization in 4 more languages ​​except for native Russian.

Error 3, where is the live gameplay?

The point is probably the most important, but not the first place is given to it for one simple reason: not every project on GreenLight has a suitable video build. Players have seen so many times first-class screenshots, which later turned out to be nothing more than promotional fakes that they do not trust as a display of gameplay. Even less, they trust the CG-trailer, which, of course, adjusts to the desired mode, but can be infinitely far from the real situation (Fig. 4)







Pic.4



Without a gameplay video, users will feel a slight distrust of you, suggesting that there is nothing but a couple of screenshots for the developers' souls. Of course, such projects also get the green light, but there are already a lot of "flaws" about the F2P MMO in the eyes of the GreenLight community, so you shouldn’t aggravate the situation. Try to shoot at least some fragment of the video. Often in the cards of games there are straight demo scenes from the engine. This is at least something, some kind of progress that shows where you are going. From the point of view of the developer, such a scene can cause a negative, because it is clear how much effort it costs to build, what complexity has been done, etc. - it is even faster to assemble another demo scene than to draw a good fake screenshot. But for ordinary users this digging in details is alien. It is important for them to understand whether the project has a chance at least to come into this world. If you can’t create any kind of “video” at all, perhaps, it was your last Steam issue - is this your last problem, and should you focus on more vital things?

Error 4, only windows?

Do not underestimate the multiplatform, especially if its support is kindly provided by the creators of the engine. Take, for example, Unity3D. It is not perfect, but a good specialist can still make a version of your game for any of the platforms. Having such an opportunity in hand, it is foolish to ignore it and the whole category of users. Moreover, some of them react to the absence of their favorite system extremely sharply:





Pic.5



We do not urge to promise players everything. In the end, you can grab red-handed, and break promises on Steam - not the best tactic. Soberly assess your resources and capabilities of the selected technology. If the engine is multiplatform, consider launching at least a Linux version. If the technology or resources do not allow you to crank it as quickly as you would like, inform the project card that your plans are to release a version for a number of platforms within N months from the moment you start the game on Steam. Most likely, after this, it will be possible to indicate the platforms in the card itself, thereby obtaining several hundred or even thousands of Upvote in their piggy bank.

Thesis 2. Title and description

The description is a typical promotional text. Everyone sees an effective promotional text in his own way, and attempts to share experiences in this area hardly fall under the topic of our article. When you make a description, you should follow a few simple rules and, most likely, you will have no problems:

• If the project is in development, indicate the dates of all key stages - closed alpha, open alpha, PTA, MBT, etc., build a visual schedule, if necessary ... Least of all, people want to "pay" for the unknown.
• If the project is in closed testing stages, refer to the site where there is detailed information about it. Suppose that the users themselves will not be able to get to this stage, but the realization that “it somehow works,” will already have a positive effect on the opinion about the project. In addition, no one can prevent you to triple the small distribution of keys.
• If the project is launched in at least one region (in our case, Russia), be sure to report it on the card, tell us about the number of players, the places where the game is running (for us it is also social networks).
• Give the system requirements. Despite the fact that nowadays rarely someone looks at the system requirements before starting the game, their presence somehow calms the users, apparently being such a link with reality. “If these guys know which machine their game is running on, then tests have been conducted and there is a lot to test.”
• The most important!!! Provide the text of your description in all those languages ​​that you stated in the game card. Inconsistency of statements and discrepancies of languages ​​causes dissonance among users. A confused user is probably not your client anymore.
  
  
  
  Also, by filling out the “title and description” section, you will be prompted to select an icon. Our opinion is that you should not abuse GIF-animations. In the list of new products, in any case, you are “poked”, even if you do not dazzle with all the colors of the rainbow and do not play with cool animation. Simply select a good large logo to intrigue users. We stopped at a variant where, in front of our intelligence machine, Chimera looks like the head of a humanoid robot:

Pic.6



After filling in all the data you will no longer be separated from the publication of the project on Steam Greenlight. Surely accept all the agreements and opens the game for everyone to see and criticize ...

5. Work with the community

Having downloaded the game card, you were only at the beginning of a long and sometimes extremely difficult journey. Now you have to be alone with the players, each of whom has his own opinion on almost any component of your project. Immediately get ready to criticize the most unexpected aspects - from dub-step in the video to disgust for F2P. Seriously, people are ready to say no to the work of the last months or even years of your life just because they don’t like the style of music in the trailer! This is a harsh world)





Fig.7



Fig.8



Do not despair. You have done nothing wrong. Alas, most likely you will not succeed in persuading opponents. They exercise their right, given to them by the service, to subjectively judge all the content, and also try to exclude from it any irritant. If they don’t like dub-step, the best thing you can do is throw off a couple of other tracks from the game, if there are any. But again, your efforts in most cases will be wasted. Do not flirt with the "capricious", try to make a dialogue with those who go to meet you. Consider several areas of dialogue that may arise (and most likely arise) during your stay on Steam Greenlight.



The first thing is to patiently discuss the features of your project. Due to the fact that for all MO games where the technology is involved, there is now one ideological inspirer - many players have suggested that they are just a futuristic clone. It took a lot of time and negotiations to discuss with users those features that have already led them to completely different, more convenient and correct thoughts for us:





Fig.9



This does not mean that we should argue with the obvious or try to criticize the compared projects. This is an erroneous path that will quickly lead your wall of comments to flood, disassembly and mutual insults. Such an environment will create a negative feeling and will greatly affect the opinion of passing players about your project.



Another frequent manifestation of trolling: to shower you with so many accusations that you will reluctantly start making excuses. And the person being acquitted is already half the guilty. Always hold your position firmly and do not try to play good and bad cop all rolled into one. If necessary, emphasize that the team sizes are not so large, and you simply cannot satisfy all large-scale requests. But if the project gets to Steam, then the team will have more resources. Conducting such a line of conversation is somewhat more difficult if you simultaneously launch a fundraising campaign on any of the crowdfunding platforms, but this is a completely different story ...



Remember, whatever happens, do not delete comments. The illusion of ideal reviews seems pleasant to inexperienced CMs and should scare away both experienced developers and those who know the service of players. Let the comments be and criticism, and positive, and disputes between the players. It is necessary to restore order in those rare cases when a squall of haters has fallen on your group, for example, from a group or card of a competing (in the players' opinion, at least) project. In all other cases, how would you not want to just silently remove the negative response, take a breath and ignore the negative.

6. Driving traffic

Gradually, the amount of organic traffic GreenLight almost disappeared:





Pic.10



The screenshot is in Russian, so we will briefly decipher: the yellow line indicates the number of visitors (less than 50 per day), less than 40 of them vote, and only half are in favor. But these subtleties are not so important, because the number of visitors in general is very unpresentable and at this rate the cherished 17-20 thousand Upvote does not dial. There was a need to bring new users to the vote, which we did, having collected a number of annoying errors, which we will tell about a little later.

Error 1. Involvement in voting unfamiliar audience

The most obvious way to attract new users is to place inviting banners on game resources:





Figure 11



We cannot say that such a placement did not at all give an increase in visits, but it was rather dismissively small. Then we remembered the social community of our social games, which is much more active and numerous than the forum one. We have placed the box with an appeal to vote for our project in the main news page:





Fig.12



The mistake crept in that the appeal was regarded almost as an advertisement and caused a lot of negativity. The number of views of the questionnaire has greatly increased, the number of votes has increased with it, but the ratio has remained the same (a slight preponderance).In fact, a stable preponderance of positive voices is already a guarantee of success, but all such moments strongly delay the receipt of the “green light”.

Was it possible to better attract social traffic? Of course.It was enough to include in the news feeds information about the project, to attract users to play the social version, and only then to offer transitions and polls. It was also worth more clearly to emphasize that we are talking about the projects of one team, and not about custom posts.

Later, we realized this, conducted a number of explanatory work, and the quality of the traffic coming from our other project groups really improved, and the preponderance of positive votes became much noticeable.

Error 2. "The administration spoils the game - Downvote"

The second mistake was the attempt to motivate the social players to unmotivated voting. version of "Metal War". The fact is that only players who have bought something on Steam at least once can vote. This greatly limits the ability to cheat and makes a certain slice of the audience, which is able to influence the opinion of your project. As soon as we called the community to vote, the traffic jumped up, but in the social group itself. version began easy mess. Almost all haters (from among those who actively play, however) began to be threatened with "overheating" and with others "we will incite the crowd of our fellows - they will make you think so." Threats are set in motion with any activity unpleasant to the haters, i.e. in general, with any activity)

Fearing this too much is not worth it. There is rather a negative side for the group and its moderators. A couple of times one could notice a certain imbalance in the voices and regard it as the result of those very threats, but they do not deserve special attention.

Mistake 3. “We are not ready to vote yet!”

In our project, as in many others, there is a kind of digest of the latest news. It is shown to players at the entrance. As soon as he appeared in the game (this happened later on being placed in the Greenlight), we were not slow in adding the news of the vote there ... There was only one problem in all this. The digest was shown to everyone, incl. newcomers who just came into the game. They either were not ready for voting and got used to close the digest as a source of unnecessary noise, or were unhappy with the project and ignored the vote, which is even worse: they could vote against. No wonder that mobile game developers ask you to rate the application after successfully passing a couple of levels. Thus, they exclude the user's negative as much as possible and do not wash their eyes with their requests. We didn’t think about it immediately, and some of the audience profukali ... However,quickly came to their senses and made the issuance of a proposal to vote after 2-3 new player wins. The latter significantly improved the state of voting and, in general, marked the right path to the successful completion of the apprüv. We went to a few hundred votes a day, with 70-90% of the votes in favor!

7. Conclusions

Due to the errors outlined above, we missed the start-up traffic quite well, having received a large amount of Downvote, which greatly complicated our lives (with each passing day the traffic is getting less and less) and strongly delayed the receipt of "Green Light". The distribution of votes on the completion of several days on which we stuffed cones looked like this:





Fig.13



On the very first day, out of 1,700 voters, only slightly less than half were against (845 people), which, in general, is not very comforting. The next day, the situation completely changed in the direction of Downvote, and at the same time the traffic began to fall. Already after about 4 days, the number of views fell below 1000, and the preponderance "against" continued to grow. Only after a week and a half the situation has leveled off.

When discussing mistakes in project positioning, it is important to understand that we have never seen the habit of “re-voting” for GL users, so there is almost no one to persuade them there. You just correct the mistakes so that new users do not find a catch and vote "FOR". Thinking users do not put Upvote or Downvote, but “Ask me later”, and such users are always the overwhelming minority. Even if you can actively persuade them, which is unlikely, it will practically help you in no way. Always try to surprise a new audience: those who pressed at least one of the three buttons under the card of your game, almost exactly delivered their verdict and, most likely, forgot about you.



If the votes are already lined up, then the matter remains small. At the time of the passage of the GreenLight our project was enough to collect 18,000 votes for. Their receipt gave access to the TOP 100. In turn, the TOP 100 is almost a live queue, which shifts down with each selection of projects. For a few such selections you will find yourself in the top ten, which will receive the long-awaited “light”:





Fig.14



After successful completion of the second phase begins - admission to the "open beta test." For a successful placement, it is necessary to prepare the integration of the payment system, authorization, select a CDN for distribution of the game client, prepare a promo site, implement the Achievement system and much more that we are still doing. Immediately after being placed in the Steam, we will prepare a continuation of the material, which will tell about the technical (what you should pay attention to, what not to waste time) and business aspects (results, expediency of launch, etc.).

In the meantime, we have shared the experience that we already have. We hope that you have found in our observations something interesting for yourself and your projects!



PS

the author of the translation is also the author of the original article, but since the material is written by agreement with a foreign resource - I can only bring the translation to Habr, leaving the corresponding tags.



Original: Going Through Greenlight: The Approval Process