Is $100 too steep for indie devs for a chance at Steam Greenlight?

Steam Greenlight is the latest addition to the Steam platform that lets users up-vote games they think they’ll be willing to pay for. Over the short course of time that Greenlight has been available, there have been many ripoffs, spoofs and just plain nonsense showing up. Half-Life 3? Really?

In an effort to curb the onslaught of rubbish, Steam has implemented a new rule that requires any submitters to make a one-time donation of $100 to the Penny-Arcade-created charity Child’s Play. This puts Greenlight right alongside other one-time fee distribution models like the App Store and Xbox Live Indie Games. What does this mean for aspiring indie developers? Probably time to scrounge up some spare change.