Indie, you see, has the airy pretension of a certain innate right to call itself art. And there are basically two metrics by which art is allowed to consider itself successful. The first is commercial success, but never too far, because anything that makes enough money loses the second metric. The second is suffering.
The artist - at some point, I'm not quite sure where - became tied up with the idea of suffering. By enduring suffering, your "art" is "validated". I could make some calls to social issues (where a certain 'noble savage' paradigm is both true and horribly insulting to everyone involved), but in this case it's art imitating life and not for the better. Through stoicism you are granted legitimacy, because reasons, and those reasons are the waffling wisps of hot breath after a long pull of something something. Of course, herein lies the rub: You suffer, and then you get the success. Or mostly you just starve, but you starve for your haughty artistic ideals, or you starve as a coping mechanism. Maybe you don't anything at all. Maybe your work is garbage. But when the long march of the day winds down and you cuddle up to your lover and or pillow and or the smell of farts, you can whisper in their ear 'but I am an artist'.
But indie games want the success, because living is expensive, and starving to death is a noble death but a bit too far for all but the most dedicated artists. Indie games have wildfired through many means of kinda illicit financial success of late. The kickstarter. The early access. The bundle. But the greenlight, it's the holy grail of them all. Because greenlight must be endured. The kickstarter and SEA are actually more work, you see, but greenlight is an unjust punishment.
You see no matter the benefits of greenlight - the advertising platform it puts you on, the gimmick you can hook people with, the so on and so forth and no matter how many games have gone through it - greenlight is constantly portrayed as something Good, Upstanding Artist slash Programmers must slog through. They must fight their way through the dregs and the dross - the minecraft clones, the zombie slash survival slash flashlight slash slenderman clones, the clones of clones - until Steam finally allows them after eons in purgatory. No matter the scenario or the success of previous games, Greenlight is not so much the villain but the epic quest.
It really isn't, no more than you need to advertise your game to succeed. Greenlight is not the promised land of easy access dollars, insert game, reward infinite money bux - But then that's some ridiculous dream to begin with. It has to be worked through, but all the efforts to work through it are just another layer of advertising that is and of itself advertising. Replace the turtles man, advertising goes all the way down. Except there is a game, your game, at the bottom.
Greenlight is, admittedly, not a perfect system. But a perfect system probably costs more unless truly utopian, and Greenlight's upfront cost is supposedly about a hundred bucks. A hundred dollars to advertise on Steam and to be able to use "my game is on greenlight get a key!" and all the noble, noble sacrifice it entails is a small price. A hundred dollars is nothing compared to that huge circuit covered cross on your back. Yeah, he's heavy. He's my greenlight game.
I have all the respect in the world for the people who strike out on their own and make the game, or at least try to make the game, that they went people to play. It's more than run of the mill art in effort, because it represents something infinitely complex to manage something ultimately very simple. It's risky and scary and they need all the help they can get, but Greenlight man, it's just so perfect. Greenlight in spite of being probably the best hand dealt to indie devs since steam first came into existence - And let's not pretend humblebundle isn't explicitly married to its steam keys - is constantly portrayed as painful, frustrating, brutally unfair and a timeless adversary to indie teams.
It has become a badge of honor. Games are eternally marked with "I went through greenlight man, you don't understand" and really that's the true legitimacy of art.
Or you know, not really, but at least your pillow appreciates it I guess. Greenlight is going away sooner than later, so let's all celebrate it for what it is - an oft complained about excellent first stab that will, without a doubt, be replaced by something that indie developers will be left huddling and sobbing, pining for the days of greenlight.
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