DigitalNoob

Valve, not content with just being the largest online distributor of video games, has stepped it up and is going to give their userbase a Mighty Voice of Great Influence. Coming August 30th, Valve will be introducing ‘Steam Greenlight’ into their Steam software.

As they’ve put it:

Over the many years that Steam has been selling games, the release rate of games on Steam has continued to grow significantly. But given Steam’s existing technological pipeline for releasing games, there’s always been a reliance on a group of people to make tough choices on which games to not release on Steam. There are titles that have tied up this internal greenlight group in the past, and we knew there had to be a better way.

So, their solution? Put the power in the hands of the community. Users will have the capability of voting on what gets released. I don’t think I could say it any better than they have:

The community should be deciding what gets released. After all, it’s the community that will ultimately be the ones deciding which release they spend their money on.

Finally, a company who is selling games understands that we want to use more than just the faces of dead presidents to do the speaking for us! [Does that terminology really apply, since it's all digital? Does virtual currency have a face? Perhaps we should visit this concept later on...] I, for one, am very happy about this news, and I look forward to seeing it in action.

Find out more on the Steam Community Greenlight page: http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight/