Gearbox Boss Says It's "Dangerous" to Let Valve Win

[Filtertip]

Microsoft is possibly the worst developer and publisher i know about, save Atari, obviously.

this is my vision of steam if Microsoft took over.

-everything would be green and white, text included, which would make Steam lose it charm.
-prices on free updates and patches.
-higher prices, MUCH HIGHER.
-worse customer service.
-no weekend deals.
-friend system fucked over to resemble XBL.
-price for owning Steam, just like XBL.
-360 advertising all over.
-more developers, including the ones that have made shitty games.
-no porting of older games, KOTOR for example.
-Halo adversiting all over.
-no Valve games, because Microsoft is a bunch of greedy clusterfucks.
-fake Metacritic scores for Microsoft games.
-no "Add non-Steam game" option.
-no downloadable mods, like Zombie Panic or Zombie Master.
-do i need to continue?


in short, Steam would be fucking horrible.

Did you just come and steel all my fears of what would happen if microsoft took over?

I see the guys view but omg no microsoft have given up on the pc market for the 360, let steam handle it and maybe one day years down the line ill get the choice of playing on windows or my fav linux distro.

 

[The Bandit]

Can someone explain, please? Why is this bad? How is Valve exploiting the "little guys?" What are the conflicts of interest?

 

[Slycne]

A lot of you are not actually reading the complaints he is leveling, he isn't addressing Valve as a game developer but as the single owner of the Steam service. Valve's game quality has little to no bearing in this discussion. Take a minute, read what he has to say san the rose tinted glasses and then comment.

That said, I really enjoy Steam. I think it rides the fence well between giving me value in return for giving up some software rights. However I can see how the conflict of interest is actually holding the service back. Game developers want to put their games on Steam because it's popular, but this means that they are directly financing their competition. This would be akin to say, Wall-mart selling TVs at Best Buy. Sure they are still making money, but they are also having to pay are share of that off to someone who also sells TVs.

I'd be interested in finding how how much of a cut that Steam takes, Apple for instance takes 30% on iTunes app sales.

 

[Rednog]

Well, there's also Direct2Drive. They don't have an auto-update system (yet), but they generally carry the same catalog as Steam.

Sometimes I prefer buying from D2D because I can share a purchase with my boyfriend since it's not tied to a player account, and I can download the game in OS X and only boot into Windows to install and play it. But even for people who don't need that sort of thing, at least there is competition. Valve hasn't won.

The problem with D2D is piracy, just like in your example, it is piss easy to share with another person. Back in college my friends would just share games from D2D back and forth, its like piracy for dummies, one person buys it and gives it to 10 others for nothing. Having plunged in pirate waters myself (mostly due to me living in a country where games cost almost double sometimes, but that is another story) a lot of piracy comes from D2D and if I was a developer I'd avoid them like the plague.

 

[Rednog]

I'd be interested in finding how how much of a cut that Steam takes, Apple for instance takes 30% on iTunes app sales.

I'm willing to bet it is quite a large sum, since they seem to chop down prices often and quickly going for the quantity of sales, they hurt the company who owns the game but steam still gets their cut at a discounted price.

 

[Eldarion]

A lot of you are not actually reading the complaints he is leveling, he isn't addressing Valve as a game developer but as the single owner of the Steam service. Valve's game quality has little to no bearing in this discussion. Take a minute, read what he has to say san the rose tinted glasses and then comment.

That said, I really enjoy Steam. I think it rides the fence well between giving me value in return for giving up some software rights. However I can see how the conflict of interest is actually holding the service back. Game developers want to put their games on Steam because it's popular, but this means that they are directly financing their competition. This would be akin to say, Wall-mart selling TVs at Best Buy. Sure they are still making money, but they are also having to pay are share of that off to someone who also sells TVs.

I'd be interested in finding how how much of a cut that Steam takes, Apple for instance takes 30% on iTunes app sales.

This

The man is criticizing valves DD monopoly, not Valve as a game developer. If Valve is the single owner of the most successful DD service it monopolizes on aspect of the game industry, gets a profit off of everyone and makes it harder for small game developers to get started.

Valve fanboys need to pull their heads out of their asses and actually read the article.

I'd be interested in finding how how much of a cut that Steam takes, Apple for instance takes 30% on iTunes app sales.

I'm willing to bet it is quite a large sum, since they seem to chop down prices often and quickly going for the quantity of sales, they hurt the company who owns the game but steam still gets their cut at a discounted price.

Thank you, yes.

Steam is hurting the industry doing just that.

 

[Capt.DeSoto]

Hmmm...Steam, or Games for Windows...Ill stick to the industry compromising, evil competition beater that is Steam to the broken, money grabbing, waste of time that is Microsofts 1/2 assed attempt.

The guys from Valve came up with the Steam idea. It is working because both are great and now it could be dangerous? I'll trust Valve/Steam anyday before ever trusting a copycat company with a string of lawyers behind them like Microsoft. Look what EA has come up with to counteract Steam, it blows and it's never cheap, now they have to sell their stuff via Steam... It's just the market (we gamers) that speaks and those moneygrabbing fatcats are scared of it!

 

[hamster mk 4]

Steam is helping valve break from the Publisher/Developer relationship that has stifled so much innovation in the industry. It is the equivalent of a popular musician saying: "Screw record labels, I am rich and popular enough to start my own label. While I am at it, I might as well give some other guys a shot that you wouldn't give them."

I can see Steam's popularity threatening to monopolize the PC gaming industry and giving valve an unfair advantage over its competitors. However this is the PC and the Internet. It isn't like the oil and railroad barons that controlled America because they owned miles of rail road or incredibly expensive pumping equipment. Any one with a few thousand dollars and a decent technical background could put forth a competing service.

What I am hoping is Steam's success inspires other companies to self publish on the internet and the big money factories like Activision and EA loose out.

 

[Xanadu84]

I think he forgets the good the free market is capable of. Valve is on top because it doesn't screw people over. They just provide the service. Hell, the publishers set the prices, Valve just distributes and takes the piece of the pie that otherwise would have gone towards making and shipping the physical disc. And what conflict of interest? They sell a game, they make money. They have a robust library, and more people buy from them. If Valve acted on a conflict of interest, they would lose money in the long run, and Valve knows this. And I really think that he has no basis for saying that it hurts smaller developers. Smaller developers are going to have a ***** of a time makeing a physical disc, shipping it to stores that want to buy, and advertising in order to get people to want to buy it. Its a huge hump to get over. With Steam, indie developers are greatly benefited. Steam puts it on there new releases, every one gets the chance to see it, and a trailer, and a description, etc. Instead of idling its way into obscurity on a shelf somewhere, thousands of people buy it out of interest, and the developer get's a huge amount of name recognition. I can think of nothing that could benefit indie games more then Steam, and ive read as much from a few indie developers. Personally, I can name 15 indie games I have presently installed on my computer, that I bought through Steam because I saw it on the new releases, watched the video, and thought it looked good. I never would have even heard of these games were it not for Steam. I only name the ones I have installed because including the ones I don't have installed would take too long to count. Even if Steam takes a piece of the pie, they make the pie exponentially bigger.

 

[Contun]

Valve is amazing and I love Steam. This may sound fanboy-ish but it's true.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Microsoft really are not as evil as everyone makes them out to be, fact is, they've got a lot of idiots using the Xbox 360 and they would be foolish to not try and exploit that fact.

No offence to anyone who owns an Xbox 360.

 

[WickedArtist]

I can see what he's talking about. Having a game distribution system at the hands of a game developer does create a potential conflict of interests. Even if I'd like to believe that Valve will continue with their consumer-friendly attitude, the danger of exploit is out there. Yeah, it might be better if Steam had been at more independent hands, but no one can guarantee it will create an environment that is more consumer-friendly and risk free, and it might be even worse.

I like the idea of a digital distribution system. There is certainly room for refinement and minimization of the risks involved with digital copies, which is why I personally prefer hard copies, but I like having the option out there. Buying L4D on Steam for 15$ - a 50% sale that Steam recently made for the game - was a lot more worthwhile for me than buying it in disc format that would cost the equivalent of 50$. Steam is great for continually running such deals, which make the service very appealing at times, and support it as a viable alternative to the disc format.

And seriously... MICROSOFT? Did someone check the back of this guy's neck for Microsoft's Trademarked Mind-Controlling Microchip? Whether you agree or disagree with my take on Valve's current consumer-friendly attitude, can you really say Microsoft are any better? They are the epitome of monopoly. I definitely, definitely do NOT want to see something as appealing as Steam fall into their hands.

 

[Left4Meds]

He said he'd like to see Steam spun off from Valve as an independent entity, adding that it would be "much better if Steam was its own business."

What good would it do? It would still sell PC games to everyone, its only the companies who don't want Valve to showcase their games to thousands of users who think of actually buying the game rather then have it sit on a shelf because they didn't want to give Steam money for showcasing.

Pitchford admitted that Steam helps sell games but said he thinks the service creates an unavoidable conflict of interest for Valve and that the studio is using it to take unfair advantage of other developers, particular the smaller players.

Taking advantage sounds like Valve making 9$ while the developers of the game make 1$.

Anyone else thinking they're making Valve sound like some sort of power crazed Nazi?

 

[spuddyt]

Power corrupts
Absolute power Corrupts absolutely.

 

[somekindarobot]

I use Steam and love it, I don't really see an issue with it. If somebody has an issue with it, why not make their own online distribution center to compete? It's a free market, after all?

 

[CrysisMcGee]

Valve got lucky with steam, and they know it. They were taking a huge risk when they launched it with Half-Life 2. They had several problems with it, which they eventually got working. In the beginning, people hated it because it was a huge problem. Myself included. Now, everything works great, and the delivery system is excellent.

Microsoft may nickel and dime us if they try something similar, but I don't see them being that bad about it. Just don't let Activision try it.

 

[CrysisMcGee]

Power corrupts
Absolute power Corrupts absolutely.

It also Rocks absolutley too.

I wouldn't worry about it too much, because Valve depends on its customers, and keeping them happy. As for Developers, they get a chance to release indie games on a large scale. But I'm not sure if they have a lot of choice.