Valve has introduced a new area to Greenlight where developers can upload concepts and get feedback from the public.

Concepts are free to post for feedback but won’t be distributed. The idea is to get opinions from the community. Examples of concepts already uploaded are Portal expansion Afterword, Elevator Engineer, Savegame Explorer, first/third-person logic shooter B.R.I.S.k, Vertex Wars and more.

This is a good place to see how a game idea would do out on the market which can be invaluable information. It can stop you working on a part of a game that might not be so popular with the paying public, giving you more time to concentrate on another part that is popular.

In addition Steam now allows software to be submitted to Greenlight. It follows the same rules as games do on Greenlight. That is, there’s a submission fee ($100) and the community votes whether they want to see the app/software released on Steam.

Steam Greenlight has been generally updated to show friends’ favourites and recent news on the home page, plus some other minor extras.

To date, thirty games have been ‘greenlit’ by Steam including the Half-Life mod Black Mesa and Project Zomboid. The only game to have been released from the service so far is McPixel.