Steam Boss Blasts Idea of Digital Sales Charts

[brazuca]

Translator:

"The less they know about our real numbers, the better."

Sun Tzu in his purest form.

Yeah! Not a war thought! It's a business! I see they want to preserve their pie. On the other hand would you invest in any shady activity? Put your life savings into the unknown is pretty dam stupid. I know Valve makes tons of profit, what do not know is why seclude yourself when you can expand.

For those saying that steam hasn't sold anything:

50,942 65,292 Portal 2
16,241 58,065 Counter-Strike: Source
15,982 63,963 Counter-Strike
14,321 15,905 Team Fortress 2
13,162 15,239 Sid Meier's Civilization V
9,795 26,157 Call of Duty Black Ops - Multiplayer
8,383 11,453 Left 4 Dead 2
6,757 32,432 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer

First number = currently playing
Second number = max played today
Then the game, obviously

That's for steam. And currently it's off peak. On peak, you get the second number list. In total, off peak, 2,000,000 people are on steam. And just remember, I think that <50% of the people who play games on the PC own steam.

Thanks for the statistic, it helps a lot. What I do not want to agree is to that men position. I'm an investor. I put money on varius projects. What this men wants is to privatize those information (sales). Soo people who invest pay for them. Soo that competition is not allowed to know how well the other guy is going. Also so that his company (steam does statistic on lot of things it's just there to anyone look) becomes more influent on that market.
Don't get me wrong I like steam, but I love free information.

The data also isn't Valve's to release. Are you going to provide us with a complete list of your investment activities? No? Would you allow a third-party to do it? No? Then why would these companies agree to allow Valve to release all of their sales data?

Of course I would not tell, you are more than right on this one. But let's say you buy a theater and a cinema. Would you not tell you customers what is eveyone watching and why? What is pop and cult? What is visionary and same oh. People who gamble with their money are either stupid or very clever. I prefer the first

 

[danhere]

He's completely right though.

Giving access to the bigger picture means more people looking at the most successful games and attempting to imitate them. Game X sold well? Let's make a game just like Game X so that we could sell plenty too. Screw innovation.

 

[RvLeshrac]

Translator:

"The less they know about our real numbers, the better."

Sun Tzu in his purest form.

Yeah! Not a war thought! It's a business! I see they want to preserve their pie. On the other hand would you invest in any shady activity? Put your life savings into the unknown is pretty dam stupid. I know Valve makes tons of profit, what do not know is why seclude yourself when you can expand.

For those saying that steam hasn't sold anything:

50,942 65,292 Portal 2
16,241 58,065 Counter-Strike: Source
15,982 63,963 Counter-Strike
14,321 15,905 Team Fortress 2
13,162 15,239 Sid Meier's Civilization V
9,795 26,157 Call of Duty Black Ops - Multiplayer
8,383 11,453 Left 4 Dead 2
6,757 32,432 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer

First number = currently playing
Second number = max played today
Then the game, obviously

That's for steam. And currently it's off peak. On peak, you get the second number list. In total, off peak, 2,000,000 people are on steam. And just remember, I think that <50% of the people who play games on the PC own steam.

Thanks for the statistic, it helps a lot. What I do not want to agree is to that men position. I'm an investor. I put money on varius projects. What this men wants is to privatize those information (sales). Soo people who invest pay for them. Soo that competition is not allowed to know how well the other guy is going. Also so that his company (steam does statistic on lot of things it's just there to anyone look) becomes more influent on that market.
Don't get me wrong I like steam, but I love free information.

The data also isn't Valve's to release. Are you going to provide us with a complete list of your investment activities? No? Would you allow a third-party to do it? No? Then why would these companies agree to allow Valve to release all of their sales data?

Of course I would not tell, you are more than right on this one. But let's say you buy a theater and a cinema. Would you not tell you customers what is eveyone watching and why? What is pop and cult? What is visionary and same oh. People who gamble with their money are either stupid or very clever. I prefer the first

On the flip side, remember that the game developers are *completely free* to release their sales data. So the real question is: Why is the onus on *VALVE* to release information that they don't feel belongs to them in the first place?

Valve releases just as much data, effectively, as a theatre. They show what the top games are, which is all most laymen are interested in. Valve isn't interested in investors, because they're a private company. Gabe doesn't want investors, doesn't need investors, and doesn't care about what information investors want.

 

[brazuca]

And now you answred.
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2010/09/03/valve-software%E2%80%99s-philosophy-becoming-publicly-traded-company
Legit, even tough not the way I would have done.

 

[Ickorus]

I think what he may be getting at is this:

Make a game and see how well it does instead of looking at what other people have made and copying them.

I agree with that opinion.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

Translator:

"The less they know about our real numbers, the better."

Sun Tzu in his purest form.

Yeah! Not a war thought! It's a business! I see they want to preserve their pie. On the other hand would you invest in any shady activity? Put your life savings into the unknown is pretty dam stupid. I know Valve makes tons of profit, what do not know is why seclude yourself when you can expand.

Business is war. More like a cold war, say in the face of your enemy that you respect him then try shoot in the back (Fable 3 on Steam is the best example).

I'm not trying be offensive but, the second part of your post make no sense. Valve isn't open, it's a private company. You can't invest.

 

[brazuca]

Translator:

"The less they know about our real numbers, the better."

Sun Tzu in his purest form.

Yeah! Not a war thought! It's a business! I see they want to preserve their pie. On the other hand would you invest in any shady activity? Put your life savings into the unknown is pretty dam stupid. I know Valve makes tons of profit, what do not know is why seclude yourself when you can expand.

Business is war. More like a cold war, say in the face of your enemy that you respect him then try shoot in the back (Fable 3 on Steam is the best example).

I'm not trying be offensive but, the second part of your post make no sense. Valve isn't open, it's a private company. You can't invest.

Most of companies with that capital are public. What I don't get is (and not get) why remain private. I'll give you an example. Do you know what Publisher has the biggest international share market? If you answerd Activision you got it wrong. It's EA. But EA is not capable of marketing in all countries. Heck not even Coca Cola was capable of doing it. Sooo EA opens it's capital. Hire capable personel from multiple regions of the globe to make it for EA.
Sometimes that's what people complain of becoming blend. Let's say I was an russian investor when the COD MW2 came out. Off course I would say to give the option to cut out the airport level. Before you make any complain in the US you can make a game that an aircraft collides with a tower and explode.
It's not just market research it's also about having an office to make all legal aspect of your product being take care of. Go to steam forums and see people who lives in EU zone. They like steam, but they constantly feel like left out of the bargain that is steam. Public companies with open data becomes harder to this kind of thing to happen. Why? Because there will be EU citizen (yeah I know what I just typed ) participating in the business decision.
And for information (sales figures). I get why they are doing what they are doing. This would not be my MO (modus operandi) tough.

 

[Wrds]

Didn't extra credits have an episode about this type of data and how its stagnating the industry?

 

[pokepuke]

I like the way that guy thinks.

My opinion is that sales charts are useless and also very misleading. The same crap happens for movies and it gets annoying to hear about these charts all the time when what matters most is what critics and consumers thought of the product. Hype can sell tickets but it can't make the movie better.

It's also annoying to hear about ratios of pirates to real customers, which is also an incredibly inaccurate speculation based on specious data from things like sales charts. If a lot of people play the game, good! We don't need to be coming up with ways to hold a portion of them in contempt for something they may or may not have done. The companies can try to figure out if something like piracy is actually a problem to be dealt with.

Any company that wants to release sales figure info will do it; we've seen it plenty of times with the recent indie outfits, often in blog posts. Personally, I still don't care; all they have to say is "we did well" and get the same effect. What matters is if they're going to make the next game.