Code Avarice had a Steam Greenlight campaign, and like.. abandoned it when they started talking to Adult Swim for publishing. Adult Swim then went to Valve to pitch the game, 'Paranautical Activity,' and Steam said no.

Shortly after opening their Steam Greenlight campaign for the game Paranautical Activity, the two-man studio Code Avarice got a phone call that would have made any indie's day: It was Adult Swim, offering to publish their game on Steam. Yeah, well, not so fast.

As Code Avarice's Mike Maulbeck and Travis Pfenning explain in that video above, when Adult Swim—taking a chance on a PC title after dealing mostly with flash and mobile games—went to pitch Paranautical Activity to Steam, they were told no dice. "[Steam's] response was basically, 'We don't want to send the message that indies should seek out publishers to get around Greenlight,'" the duo recalled.

Valve, through spokesman Doug Lombardi, confirmed the gist of the statement to PCGamesN. "Our message to indies regarding publishers is do it for your own reasons, but do not split your royalties with a publisher expecting an automatic ‘Yes’ on Greenlight.'"

Maulbeck and Pfenning are not happy.

Kotaku: Steam Sends Indies Who Got Publishing Offer Back to Greenlight

This would be Adult Swim's maybe-first PC title, apart from their many Flash and mobile games they already have. The game looks awesome as is, and ripe for DLC and mods and stuff. And it'd be totally awesome to start seeing a bunch of Adult Swim games on Steam, but it doesn't seem like any of that is gonna happen ever.

That sucks but I can also see where Valve is coming from.

I haven't heard much that I like about Greenlight...

So Greenlight is essentially mandatory for indie developers now? Doesn't that needlessly limit them and go against what I have to imagine the original intent was (offer indie devs an alternative that makes it easier to publish their games)? If it's a quality control thing, doesn't the fact that a publisher picked it up (or wanted to) act as some sort of vote of confidence?

"[Steam's] response was basically, 'We don't want to send the message that indies should seek out publishers to get around Greenlight."

Can't really blame Valve. From what I've heard Greenlight hasn't been too great, but the purpose is for people who are making games on their own to have a way to get their game out there. Having a publisher sort of defeats that purpose.

I think Valve's point here is that they submitted to greenlight then backed out and had a publisher step in. I think had they not created a Greenlight campaign in the first place Valve would have been okay publishing them but because they initially tried the greenlight route then got picked up by a publisher was the issue.

Sounds like Adult Swim being dicks.

And so Greenlight continues to be fucking retarded.

@demoskinos:

So they essentially feel like they're being undermined, or the process is?

yeah seriously. Seems to be making things worse not better.

That would be too logical.

@video_game_king: I'm assuming that is their angle. Yeah.

Wow Valve, way to completely miss the point of independent game development - the freedom to choose how your game comes out.

So I'm confused did Adult Swim come to these guys while on Greenlight or did these guys go to Adult Swim while on Greenlight?

Because if it's option one, then it seems a bit uncool of Valve. If option two then it's a bit more understandable that Valve would do this (still seems pretty uncool though).

It's just crazy, Greenlight should be simply another option. Instead it's this controlling mandatory process that kills your chances of making it onto Steam if you don't have enough buzz to generate a strong Greenlight campaign. And once you sign up for it? That's it, you're either greenlit or you're just about barred from Steam for good. Completely ridiculous.

Valve providing a way for indie developers to make it onto Steam where they might not have before seemed like such a great idea. But at this point if you're an Indie developer I'm not even sure you'd bother with the way it limits your options.

Has anything good ever come as a result of greenlight? It seems to me like it only causes problems and isn't a good solution to the problem it's supposed to solve.

Every time I hear Gabe talk about how he wants Steam to work it when it comes to people selling their games - vendors designing their own shop and choosing which of their goods are sold and at what prices - it sounds so contradictory to how Steam actually operates. Why can't this stuff be more open, and why not right now? I feel that the Greenlight process needs a fundamental rethinking or discarded completely.

Dave Lang had a good tweet about Greenlight the other day:

"Whew...I was really hoping another Slender Man game would get Greenlit today.Thank goodness."

Well, whoever had the job at Valve to look at all the indies being submitted probably has a lot more free time now to play DotA2.

You know, Valve acts in good intentions, however Greenlight is a problem and they know it and are hopefully working on fixing it. I can totally see where they are coming from, but it is still a problem that they themselves created in the first place.

Also, I have NO idea how Greenlight actually works. I'm pretty sure I never saw The Swapper or Fez or Element4l on it, yet here they are.

Devs coming to Greenlight with publishers would create a sort-of lobbyist environment. Publishers expecting preferential treatment, or feeling jilted and then taking games away from Steam. Greenlight is obviously not ideal, but Valve did the right thing here.

Man they have GOT to be annoyed at the guy at Adult Swim right now who said he could get a game on Steam just through being associated with Adult Swim.

Steam taught the publisher a lesson, but it's a shame the developer got kind of a false promise. Although making this issue public is probably a good way to greenlight a game, so hopefully this works for em.

Keeping in mind the very key point of them starting a Greenlight and backing out, this makes sense to me.

Valve won't stop an indie from bypassing Greenlight if they find a publisher beforehand.

Oh man, whoever is doing the talking on this video is NOT presenting himself in a very good light.

oh god, this rant shoulda stopped 10 minutes ago!