No surprises with Steam Greenlight's first approvals

It's been nearly two weeks since the debut of its new Greenlight platform, and already Valve Software has announced the first 10 user-submitted titles that will join the Steam marketplace. The selected games include Black Mesa, Cry of Fear, Dream, Heroes & Generals, and Kenshi, all of which are among the community's top ranked choices on the Greenlight platform. In fact, other than the omission of Slender: Source, Valve's initial approval list is identical to the top 10 games currently on Greenlight. While the service is still very much in its infancy, it seems Valve is selecting its games based primarily on community votes. When Valve announced the service in July, it did not detail how it would select its games, noting only that community votes would help bring popular titles to the studio's attention. Now that Valve has approved of these community-selected titles, they will move onto the new 'Greenlit' section within Greenlight, where they will exist until they are ready debut on Steam. Some of these titles will become full-fledged, purchasable games, while others will be available as free downloads. Valve pointed out that many of these titles are still in development, and thus will not become available on Steam for another several months. The full list of these approved Greenlight titles is as follows: - Black Mesa - Cry of Fear - Dream - Heroes & Generals - Kenshi - McPixel - No More Room in Hell - Project Zomboid - Routine - Towns Since its launch in late August, Steam Greenlight has received tons of game submissions from users and developers all over the world. It's received so many submissions, in fact, that Valve chose to charge a $100 entry fee to limit spam and joke entries on the service. Valve says it will donate the proceeds of that fee to Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity. Developers on the service, while optimistic, have voiced concerns about Greenlight's limited discoverability options, though Valve has said that it is working to smooth over these issues and make the service more friendly for both developers and users.