Valve has announced its plans to offer distribution agreements to every game which manages to earn a finalist position at the 2013 Independent Games Festival. The agreement was made between the organizers of the IGF and Valve, to cast a greater spotlight on independent game development.
All finalists of the IGF Main Competition will have an opportunity to accept a distribution agreement on Steam. This includes every single finalist in all of the jury-voted categories can bring their games to Steam for the Mac, PC, and Linux. Eligible titles include every finalist in the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Excellence in Design, Excellence in Art, Technical Excellence, Excellence in Narrative, Excellence in Audio, and the Nuovo Award.
All the games at the IGF 2013 will be voted upon by a panel of 200 judges discussing and recommending titles. The finalists will all be announced in January 2013, and the winners will be announced at the Game Developers Conference 2013 in San Francisco this March.
Previous finalists and winners include World of Goo, Super Meat Boy, Minecraft, and Braid.
Valve will be joining the supporters of the IGF 2013 including media sponsors like Gamasutra and Game Developer Magazine. Microsoft Studios and DigiPen are also on the list as platinum sponsors.
