this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2026
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Steam should add a $150k game listing surcharge so there’s no market for crapware.
That would kill literally all indie games
A way less extreme fee was once proposed for steam greenlight, the process that was once supposed to filter new games released on Steam.
Principle was the game studio would present their game (in various states of completion) with a video, a couple screenshots and a blurb, maybe a demo (rare) and Steam users would check their page and vote on them if they wanted it on Steam.
For lots of reasons, it didn't work. Like now, one problem was that no barrier to entry meant anyone could half-ass a page for their asset-flip or even other people's work, eclipsing real games that had a hard time being approved (even a few that had a reasonable following outside Steam already).
At some point Steam tried going the fee-to-entry route, even making it a payment to charity so they were not accused of making money from the situation. It was way less than 150k, and it was already seen as rather unfair. Especially for people living in countries where the average wage was lower than in the US.
Greenlight finally imploded because it made nobody happy, and we ended up with the current situation of "anything goes, and the algorithm will recognize real games over the crap". It's always been a shit show, and it only became worse with genAI slop.
Regarding the fee you proposed, something that high would make it basically impossible for an indie to get in there without a publisher deal, and even then would make their relationship to said publishers even more one-way, if by chance they get one to absorb the risk. Have you read about small studios being conned out of their work by their publishers? Prepare for more.
And more expensive games (who do you think will pay the 150K in the end ?) and a goodbye to Indie studio or solo developers.
Doesn’t have to be $150k, could be $100
Not sure that a surcharge so low could do something, you sell the game at 2 Euro and you need just to sell 50 copies to break-even, it does not seems a target that high for crapware.
A lot of crapware coming from large AAA devs these days and a lot of good games from small-time devs who put all their life's savings into starting their little indie studio... Which one do you think could better afford the 150k surcharge, Ubisoft listing yet another 5 Assasin's Creed titles or, say, ConcernedApe releasing Stardew Valley for the first time back in 2014 or whenever?