Has Steam Greenlight had its day?

[Administrator]

In 2012 Valve launched Greenlight, a corner of Steam where developers could try (with the help of the public, press and anything else they could lay their hands on) and woo Valve into letting them flog their game.
If that sounds kind of ridiculous, it's worth bearing in mind that before Greenlight popped into existence, developers were finding themselves in a bit of a pickle. A number of stores were floundering, the public were increasingly adopting a 'no Steam key, no sale' attitude on the PC and developer's pleas to be allowed onto Steam appeared to be falling on deaf ears. Something needed to change and Greenlight offered up at least a partial solution to some of these woes.
Whilst initially welcomed with open arms, Greenlight never the less got off to a rough start. It launched as a free for all (cue a gazillion Half Life 3 entries, a scenario surely no-one could have seen coming) and within a week, plenty of bans had been issued and a controversial fee instated to try to stave off the worst of it. A couple of months down the line and folks were beginning to question whether it was working well. In under a year it was clear that no, it really wasn't working out so well. Reading back over Valve's ideas for what Greenlight would achieve for developers and for games, they seem faintly naive now.
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