It was my understanding that anyone could release on Steam until greenlight came out. All these years I was tricked into thinking how cool and awesome Steam was, and yet it's nothing I thought it was. Apparently it charges about 30-40% for each sale too which is pretty steep for a company that I hear is built by indies for indies and innovation.
Valve was built by two millionaire ex-microsoft employees. Dunno where you got the idea that it was "built by indies for indies", but it's wrong.
And 30-40% is pretty standard for this kinda thing.
Why do they need to charge? greatness in a pool of garbage will rise to the top by votes from users. That's how iphone/android work, and that's how kickstarter works.
It may be how android works, but it's certainly not for iOS. There's a $99 a year fee to register as an iOS developer, and then Apple still have to approve your app before it gets on the app store.
I think the overall issue I have with it is that when I spend money on something I want something in return. I'm paying 100 dollars for.....a tiny icon to click on greenlight in hopes that people will upvote and then after all the upvotes have second hopes that Steam will let me through? Pretty lame for 100 bucks.
Well, the alternative is to pay nothing and definitely not get on Steam. It's up to you as to whether the potential of getting your game on the largest digital distribution platform on the pc is worth $100 risk.