Already infamous for entirely the wrong reasons, the Greenlight process has long been singled out as a major shortcoming within Steam. The original plan for the process was to serve as a popularity contest, with the community voting on which game they would want to see eventually released onto the platform, and then to put support behind it. This is an idea which works on paper, but it only takes a brief moment to see how easily the system can be abused or even outright broken. For example, the R-rated title Bonetown (yes, it's exactly what you think it is) only achieved being Greenlit thanks to a joke made by a presenter on The Game Station Podcast, rather than genuine interest from gamers. What's more is that more than once the system outright contradicted itself or counteracted the very thing it was supposed to do, denying studios access after finding success. Easily the most infamous example to date is the fiasco surrounding Paranautical Activity which was initially barred from Steam for supposedly trying to bypass the system. How were they trying to bypass it, you ask? By successfully striking up a contract with an established publisher weeks after starting on Greenlight. Members of Valve itself later admitted that Greenlight was not working as they had hoped, and opted to pursue another approach. It was at this point Steam went from one extreme to the next, creating an even bigger problem for the community. See the previous point to realise the massive problems caused by Valve opening up the proverbial floodgates and letting effectively anyone through. While the Greenlight has seen some improvements in recent years, it's questionable whether or not it even remains neccessary following Valve's change in attitude. Rather than being reworked into a more effective system, it instead seems more like a holdover from a previous - now failed - approach, which Valve has yet to get around to removing.
A gamer who has played everything from Daikatana to Dwarf Fortress. An obsessive film fanatic valuing everything from The Third Man to Flash Gordon. An addict to tabletop titles, comics and the classics of science fiction, whatever media they are a part of.
