I've been working on a little game, (which is nowhere near completion) and wanted to know, that when I'm finished, if I would be able to release it onto Steam without having to get it Greenlit.
The reason why this is, is that I already payed for tools and editors for making my game, and don't want to have to pay another $100 in order to release my game.
Is this possible?
No
Quoting Steam's description of the Greenlight process:
Who should submit their games to Steam Greenlight? Is there another way to submit my game to Steam?
Steam Greenlight has replaced our previous submission process. Any developer or publisher who is new to Steam and interested in submitting their game to the platform should submit their game through Steam Greenlight.
The idea behind Greenlight is to do an effort to prevent very low quality games into Steam, and let in only games that users are genuinely interested in (whether or not it succeeds at it is another discussion).
In my experience, getting a game through Greenlight is hard. There are so many games with so many interesting concepts, and so many games with much larger teams and budgets, that it is very difficult to gain enough traction to get released.
In addition, making a game is very hard. Just like anything in life, making good games takes practice, and I would say it would take at minimum 4 or 5 completed games to actually start making games that people like, and therefore get voted on greenlight.
Don't despair though, Steam is not the only way to get your game known. Focus on making your game, focus on finishing the game, show it to other people, make a blog about it, sell it (or give it away) on your site, and before you know it, you will have a few games under your belt, hundreds of loyal followers, and enough traction so the next game you make will actually make it on steam.
