Gearbox Prez Calls Valve out on the PS3

John Funk

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Gearbox Prez Calls Valve out on the PS3



Randy Pitchford, the outspoken president of Borderlands developer Gearbox Software, thinks that Valve's refusal to work on the PS3 is "foolish" and fanboy-esque.

You know, it feels like at this point you could be forgiven for thinking that Randy Pitchford has a bone to pick with Valve, despite what he has to say to the contrary. Last month, Pitchford said he thought the increasing popularity of the Steam platform - and letting a competitor essentially control one's products - was worthy of concern. To be precise, he said that it was "really, really dangerous for the rest of the industry to allow Valve to win."

Now, Pitchford is taking another potshot at the prominent PC developer. It's no secret that Valve's relationship with the PS3 has been slightly rough much in the same way that Gordon Freeman is a little bit soft-spoken. In 2007, Valve boss Gabe Newell flat-out called the PS3 to explain that [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/77826-Gabe-Newell-Calls-PlayStation-3-A-Waste-of-Time] the company didn't feel it could produce the level of quality on the system that it was accustomed to without devoting disproportional resources to that platform in particular.

That mindset doesn't sit right with Randy Pitchford, who in speaking to the UK's Official Playstation Magazine likened Valve's shunning of the PS3 - and Lombardi's statement in particular - to that of a fanboy in the console war:

[blockquote]"I noticed something on the net not too long ago. Doug Lombardi (Valve's VP Marketing) had to take a swipe at the PS3 again, and I thought it was foolish. I read it the same way I read fanboys. Like there's a guy who bought the Sony platform and he's a Sony guy, so he decides he's going to spend a certain percentage of his time bashing Microsoft. And there's a guy on Microsoft doing the same thing. Those guys are childish and narrow minded, it's the same kind of thing."[/blockquote]

Pitchford thinks that ultimately, Valve's reticence to hop on board the PS3 train may come down to simple selfishness and pride thanks to the Steam platform. "Valve think their [sic] own stuff is the only stuff that matters, to the point where they have their own distribution platform. It's like, I don't care about retail, about Marketplace, or PSN, I'm going to have Steam. It's cool, it's good, and they're doing a good job but at the same time they're reliant on the rest of the world. They had to do that [Left 4 Dead] deal with EA. When I see the L4D ad on the television I don't see a Valve logo, I see an EA logo, and when I bought it, I bought it at a store".

Nor does Lombardi's excuse about not wanting the PS3 to get the short end of the shaft fly with Pitchford, who points to the disparity between the PC version of Team Fortress 2 and its Xbox 360 brother as evidence that the company has no problem treating one of its markets better than another.

On the one hand, it's hard to say that Pitchford doesn't have even a single point, because he does. But on the other, Valve is an autonomous developer that has the right to develop for whatever platform it damn well pleases. If Gabe Newell were to suddenly announce that all future Valve titles would be programmed for the Atari Jaguar, then would anyone have the right to tell the developer that it couldn't?

(Via GameInformer [http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2009/11/05/news-randy-pitchford-likens-valve-to-fanboy-for-hatred-of-ps3.aspx])

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Dyp100

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Man, I thought those two companies used to be good friends?

What the HELL is up with Randy waging war now?

Did Gabe sleep with his wife or something? Jealousy of there successes? IDK, it's kinda odd.
 

Croaker42

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CantFaketheFunk said:
Valve is an autonomous developer that has the right to develop for whatever platform it damn well pleases. If Gabe Newell were to suddenly announce that all future Valve titles would be programmed for the Atari Jaguar, then would anyone have the right to tell the developer that it couldn't?

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This exactly this.
All im hearing from Pitchford is his own brand of fanboy crying. Valve will do whatever Valve will do but im sure crying will help when you dont like it.
 

Swaki

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"People Who Live In Glass Houses Should Not Throw Stones"

Fix the multiplayer for borderlands on the pc before criticizing Valve, screwing over all the pc gamers in such a degree is no better than what valve did whit the ps3.
 

hansari

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WTF is Randy's problem?

Valve's expansions were the first games Gearbox Software ever did? Seriously
 

ROBO_LEADER

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Where did all this tension come from? Until recently I thought Gearbox and Valve had a pretty good relationship, with Gearbox making the Half-Life ports and the phenomenal expansions...
 

oliveira8

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Dyp100 said:
Man, I thought those two companies used to be good friends?

What the HELL is up with Randy waging war now?

Did Gabe sleep with his wife or something? Jealousy of there successes? IDK, it's kinda odd.
He is butthurt cause Gearbox used to be Valve's bitches.

"Who is Gearbox?"
"Those dudes who made the Half Life expansions cause Valve didn't care."
"Ah right thanks!"

Now they want to be:

"Who is Gearbox?"
"Those dudes that cry about Valve every week so they can look cool."
"Ah right thanks!"
 

Jumplion

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CantFaketheFunk said:
On the one hand, it's hard to say that Pitchford doesn't have even a single point, because he does. But on the other, Valve is an autonomous developer that has the right to develop for whatever platform it damn well pleases. If Gabe Newell were to suddenly announce that all future Valve titles would be programmed for the Atari Jaguar, then would anyone have the right to tell the developer that it couldn't
The problem is, though, that VALVe (more specifically Gabe Newell) badmouthed the PS3 for no real addequent reason because they never had any experience with it. And don't say Orange Box on Ps3, EA ported that.

VALVe can do whatever the hell they want, I agree with that. But ever since Gabe said "it's a waste of time", the PR Department have been desperately trying to scramble up the mess that he made. Everything from "It's just 'difficult'" to "we love you, that's why we're hurting you" to "we don't want to give PS3 owners the short end of the bone, so we won't give them a bone at all" and all that crap.

What Pitchford sees when he says "It's all very fanboyish" is that it's like an X-bot bagging Uncharted 2 when he's never played a single second of it in his life, or a Sorny guy mouthing off on how Natal is a piece of shit when he's never even waved a finger in front of it. VALVe is saying "Oh, it's too hard/complicated/time consuming to work with!" when they've had no experience with the damn platform.

If VALVe want to ignore the PS3, fine, just say "We don't have any plans to work with the PS3." That's a perfectly valid excuse. The problem is that they keep on muffin topping that excuse with more bullshit excuses like they have something to prove for some reason. And when they did say "We don't have any plans to work with the PS3" some idiot journalist brings up the damn topic again and the ride starts all over again.
 

LazyAza

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Man Pitchford likes to *****. Yeah Valve should be more willing to do ps3 versions of their own games but when you consider that some developers simply don't have the time and resources to do just that you can hardly fault them for it.

Valve specializes in pc gaming, always have, always will so its only natural porting to 360 is easy and porting to ps3 is hard if not out right impossible. Gabe has said that they would need to hire new staff just to make ps3 versions of their games, that's more time and money being spent just on porting instead of making their products better. I'm a pc gamer and a ps3 gamer and I personally would much prefer more great games from them as apposed to lesser games that more people can play. Ps3 owners have plenty of great exclusives and multiplatform titles available to them, not having one companies titles isn't hurting anybody in the long run. Besides Valve games are suppose to played on PC anyway.

Pitchford needs to just shut up honestly, I was going to buy his game until he started bagging one of my all time favorite developers and my main platform of which I acquire my games these days (steam).
 

Camarilla

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Gearbox? The company that releases lazy, buggy and sometimes downright god-awful PC ports of their games is complaining that Valve won't do the same for the PS3? Sorry, I think I need to leave before I catch a case of the stupids.
 

Skizle

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Furburt said:
Dyp100 said:
Did Gabe sleep with his wife or something?
That....Image...will never leave my mind.

Although I though Gabe was a bit of a slacker for laying off the PS3 because 'it's too difficult to program for' I think Randy is just being petty.
Wasn't Newell a programmer for Microsoft or something before he made Valve?
 

Credge

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swaki said:
"People Who Live In Glass Houses Should Not Throw Stones"

Fix the multiplayer for borderlands on the pc before criticizing Valve, screwing over all the pc gamers in such a degree is no better than what valve did whit the ps3.
You know, I would agree with you if I had ever had a problem with Borderlands on the PC... but so far it is the >least< buggy game I've played in years. Comparing this to L4D, which still has a plethora of the same bugs that have existed since launch and... well, I think Pitchford is on to something here.

Valve's knocking of the PS3 has always been fanboyish and not developing on the platform is childish. "It's a waste of time." Yeah, I'm sure it is. I think Naughty Dog and Insomniac agree with those sentiments too, what with the amazing games they make on the waste of time.

The bottom line is that Valve has been doing a lot of things very poorly over the last year and a half and is functioning similarly to how EA functioned before Mirrors Edge/Dead Space. You don't release bug filled games, barely patch the same game, and then announce the sequel for it not even a year after it's been released and then release what you announced 6 months later.

Oh wait, EA does that with Madden.
 

ZombieGenesis

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Wate of time? Funny how everyone I know around here vastly favours the PS3 over the 360...
But that's not the point. Since the ps3 is a system and as such has a market capable of selling to, any refusal to do so really is pure fanboy-ism. I could go so far as to say discrimination but that's a strong word for what is essentially picking ones favourite toy.

Really though, these 'exclusive' developers really need to recieve a big shoeful of reality to the face. You make games, there's more than one platform you can profit from, why are you throwing a sulk and avoiding it? Do you fear profit?
 

gothaggis

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Having developed a game for both the 360 and PS3, I can assure you that it is way more of a pain in the ass to develop for the PS3 - and yes you need to throw more resources at it.

Pitchford seems to have a beef with Valve lately.
 

The Youth Counselor

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Skizle said:
Furburt said:
Dyp100 said:
Did Gabe sleep with his wife or something?
That....Image...will never leave my mind.

Although I though Gabe was a bit of a slacker for laying off the PS3 because 'it's too difficult to program for' I think Randy is just being petty.
Wasn't Newell a programmer for Microsoft or something before he made Valve?
Correct. He and VALVe co-founder Mike Harrington worked for Microsoft for over a decade beofre jumping ship inspired by id Software programmers to form a game company.

However
CantFaketheFunk said:
Nor does Lombardi's excuse about not wanting the PS3 to get the short end of the shaft fly with Pitchford, who points to the disparity between the PC version of Team Fortress 2 and its Xbox 360 brother as evidence that the company has no problem treating one of its markets better than another.
That's excactly one of the reasons stated by VALVe why they don't wanna develop for the PS3. They are already having enough trouble developing for two systems and trying to meet quality assurance. And the 360 is supposedly easy to program for, compared the PS3 which they had to reach a third party to port for them. To add a third system into the mix would be chaos.

I would rather have a great game for one platform than to have a mediocre game on all three.
 

Chipperz

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Jumplion said:
CantFaketheFunk said:
On the one hand, it's hard to say that Pitchford doesn't have even a single point, because he does. But on the other, Valve is an autonomous developer that has the right to develop for whatever platform it damn well pleases. If Gabe Newell were to suddenly announce that all future Valve titles would be programmed for the Atari Jaguar, then would anyone have the right to tell the developer that it couldn't
The problem is, though, that VALVe (more specifically Gabe Newell) badmouthed the PS3 for no real addequent reason because they never had any experience with it. And don't say Orange Box on Ps3, EA ported that.

VALVe can do whatever the hell they want, I agree with that. But ever since Gabe said "it's a waste of time", the PR Department have been desperately trying to scramble up the mess that he made. Everything from "It's just 'difficult'" to "we love you, that's why we're hurting you" to "we don't want to give PS3 owners the short end of the bone, so we won't give them a bone at all" and all that crap.

What Pitchford sees when he says "It's all very fanboyish" is that it's like an X-bot bagging Uncharted 2 when he's never played a single second of it in his life, or a Sorny guy mouthing off on how Natal is a piece of shit when he's never even waved a finger in front of it. VALVe is saying "Oh, it's too hard/complicated/time consuming to work with!" when they've had no experience with the damn platform.

If VALVe want to ignore the PS3, fine, just say "We don't have any plans to work with the PS3." That's a perfectly valid excuse. The problem is that they keep on muffin topping that excuse with more bullshit excuses like they have something to prove for some reason. And when they did say "We don't have any plans to work with the PS3" some idiot journalist brings up the damn topic again and the ride starts all over again.
Thank you! I'm so glad someone else got this! VALVe could have very easily just said "we don't want to work with the PS3's architecture at the present time" and nothing more would have been said on the matter until some time after the world is destroyed. It's the fact that everything VALVe says about the PS3 is bitching about it. Now, I like VALVe. I do. I still won't deny that they sound just like whinging fanboys when they talk about the PS3, though.

Now, I have to go back to Borderlands. Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains.......... Geeeeeeeeeeearboooooooooooox........
 

SaintWaldo

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Jun 10, 2008
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CantFaketheFunk said:
If Gabe Newell were to suddenly announce that all future Valve titles would be programmed for the Atari Jaguar, then would anyone have the right to tell the developer that it couldn't?
No, but everyone would still have the right to say it's a dumb and self-limiting move, and that crowing about it might not have the intended effect.

It's the prejudice and hypocrisy that's my issue with Gabe. If he were honest and just said they don't like PS3 it wouldn't be a big deal. But Gabe himself is serving other masters who know that ignoring or outright badmouthing ~30% of your potential market isn't what makes money...