Valve rejects indie game store from Steam Greenlight

It turns out that Valve does pay attention to what goes on in Greenlight from time to time. This week, the creators of indie game store, ‘Itch.io', were trying to get an app for the store pushed through Steam Greenlight but they were stopped in their tracks last night after being contacted by Valve, who informed them that they don't support certain types of non-game software on Steam right now.

While Itch.io could be seen as a competitor to Steam, Valve's message doesn't make it sound like this was the main reason for it being rejected from Greenlight. Valve's official notice on the matter says: “This item is incompatible with Greenlight”. The message was shared by one of Itch.io's creators over on Twitter. 

“Hello, Thank you for your interest in Steam. We'd like to be able to continue supporting a variety of types of non-game software on Steam, but the reality is that we're finding that we just don't have the tools and processes to handle many types of non-gaming software very well right now.”

The letter then goes on to say that currently, Valve only supports a few valid categories for non-game software on Steam, including: “Animation & Modeling, Audio Production, Design & Illustration, Photo Editing and Video Production”.

“We'd like to accept more kinds of software on Steam, but right now we need to focus on a smaller scope until we have better tools and processes in place.”

KitGuru Says: It isn't too surprising to hear that Valve doesn't currently support additional stores launching as apps on Steam. Perhaps one day Steam will embrace platform inception but it won't be happening too soon, if ever. 

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