Valve now asks $100 to submit games to Steam Greenlight, donates fee to Child’s Play charity

Valve software is now asking for a $100 fee to submit games to its Steam Greenlight program in an effort to clean up submissions. The fee will be donated to Penny Arcade’s Child’s Play charity, which brings games to sick children in hospitals.

The change comes after sexually explicit and bogus games started filtering in and disrupting the purpose of the contest. There are currently over 700 submissions to the program, which was launched late last week in an effort to let the Steam community choose which indie games got made.

“Two things we’ve noticed so far. First, there are a ton of legitimate submissions that people want to see,” says Valve’s Alden Kroll. “Second, there is unfortunately a significant amount of noise and clutter being submitted, either as a joke or by fans not fully understanding the purpose of Greenlight. ”

The fee will not apply to past submissions, but will help to ‘cut down on the noise’ in the system.

They are also changing the way that games are displayed to program visitors:

The second part of this update is to improve your window into Greenlight and help you find “your kind” of games. The next time you visit Steam Greenlight you’ll be shown a smaller, manageable list of games that you haven’t rated. This view is a mix of popular games and new games to Greenlight.

A game called Seduce Me, an adult title that has you seducing women through a variety of game mechanics revolving around card and board games, raised a ruckus earlier this week. Valve issued a statement to Kotaku that said it was not a ‘leading destination for erotic material’ and rejected the game, presumably under the rule that games must not contain offensive material.

In the end,” says Kroll, “we’re very interested in maintaining an environment that is fair and beneficial to everyone involved, and one that fun and rewarding to join.”

That still doesn’t mitigate the fee, which will have to be paid by the indie game developers who are submitting their games to Greenlight specifically because they don’t have the money to finish it.

Image Credit: Jaysin Trevino