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Battlepillars devs draws community anger trying to usurp Steam Greenlight process

Did you know that Battlepillars is now on Steam Greenlight? Well, now you do! The game was previously available on iOS and Android. On those platforms it was a Free To Play game, with various In-App Purchases available to buy. That’s not the story here though.

After the developer originally put the game on Greenlight back in 6th December 2013, and seemingly having not yet reached enough yes votes to be made available on Steam, he has chosen to seek other means to try and accelerate the number of yes votes coming in.

Vote ‘Yes’ on Battlepillars and get a free copy of the game when it’s released,” says the dev in the latest update to Greenlight.

For supporting our games and building our community, we’re giving away our game to members of the “Who’s Gaming Now?!” Steam group! By being a member of the “Who’s Gaming Now?!” Steam group and voting ‘Yes’ for Battlepillars on Steam Greenlight, you’ll be eligible for a free copy of the game when it is released on Steam!

Whilst this process in not necessarily against Greenlight rules, it has led many to feel such a contest goes against the spirit of the Greenlight process. As a result,  the promise to offer the game for free to people that give enough yes votes has caused some ire amongst the Steam Greenlight community – and other communities too.

Disgusting Steam Greenlight practices like this should be against TOS,” comments Avalon_  on Reddit.

Voting no out of spite. Thanks,” says Taco_Human of NeoGAF.

The games own Greenlight comments page is not too friendly to the idea either.

“Vote no. This is gross,” responds Steam user BIRD BIRD KILL IT to the idea.

Don’t vote yes for this. Vote No instead. This type of shady behavior doesn’t deserve to be on steam.” is another reply from Phatmac.

Paying off Steam users to get your game Greenlit? That feels pretty scummy and killed [any] interest I may have found in the actual game,” comments spacemonkeynation.

In fact, a quick glance over most recent comments suggest a wholly negative reception has developed.

Regardless of the bad reception, it seems the dev will soldier on with the idea.

I wanted to explain that we will absolutely make every effort to make sure everyone who votes gets a key. While we are giving them away through steamgifts.com, it is not a typical raffle. We’ve projected 10,000 votes and will be giving away at least that many copies upon release,” says his latest update.