Valve, why are they loved?
- Thread starter Orks da best
- Start date
You do realize that's a load of bollocks, right? There have been numerous patches for many games that "broke" the games. Skyrim and Street Fighter anyone?Suki_ said:
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/17/patch-breaks-street-fighter-x-tekken-in-new-and-exciting-ways/
Hell, even Microsofts patches "break" things. Even their own consoles and peripherals:
http://consumerist.com/2011/12/mandatory-xbox-360-update-breaks-some-consoles-microsoft-claims-coincidence.html
http://forums.xbox.com/xbox_forums/xbox_support/f/9/p/274225/1437854.aspx
If freezing the game as in the article in Vigormortis post isn't considered breaking the game I hate to see what you would consider "broken."Suki_ said:
Heres the link again so that you can read it.
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/17/patch-breaks-street-fighter-x-tekken-in-new-and-exciting-ways/
Valve engenders customer loyalty by sometimes doing things that appear to be for the benefit of their customers. I like valve because I feel they like me. This isn't true of course, but they certainly do things that benefit me, along with their other customers. They give out free dlc, they make popular games free, they give sweet deals on their products on steam.
With other companies, It is fairly obvious that every action they take is to their benefit, and if it hurts their customers well that's just too bad. If they do something that helps customers along with the company, it's just a pleasant side-effect.
Long story short, Valve is doing unto others what they would have done to them, and are reaping the benefits of a customer base that actually likes them. See, they told you the Golden Rule was important.
With other companies, It is fairly obvious that every action they take is to their benefit, and if it hurts their customers well that's just too bad. If they do something that helps customers along with the company, it's just a pleasant side-effect.
Long story short, Valve is doing unto others what they would have done to them, and are reaping the benefits of a customer base that actually likes them. See, they told you the Golden Rule was important.
Mostly because they made some good games and people like Steam. Valve hasn't yet done anything to make everyone here hate them the way some other companies have. They still have time to make some decision that inspires untold rage though. Personally, I think at some point every company will be in deep shit with gamers mostly because gamers are very fussy and very slow to forgive.
TF2 is enough for me to hold Valve in high regard. It's been years since it's release with tons of additions and updates yet the game still stays balanced, that's INCREDIBLE. All the classes regardless of equipment (Besides Demoknight) does what they're supposed to do and any combination allows you to be viable. Half Life is great and Portal serves as a good, albeit overrated distraction.
i thought skyrim being on the top 2 was silly, vanilla skyrim is good but hardly goty material.
i wonder how many votes some people put up to get those 2 in the top.
every time i hear gabe speak, he says things i agree with. its refreshing to hear someone that runs a game company still talk like a real human being and a real gamer, and understand that the people that work for him are people.
course gabe can get away some of that simply because valves entire future is not dependant on their next game release. them diversifying themselves with steam was simply brilliant, it meant that they could take years on any given IP and not be rushed, they could tell their employees to go home early, not work so long, take a break etc, because their entire future was not hanging on portal 2 or hl2 epi 3.
i like valve, but let me say i never played hl, hl2 epi 1 and 2, portal, tf, or any of valves games. i think the first thing i had to do with valve at all, was buying bioshock off them. i had not picked up a single valve title until i think 2 years ago when i got a itch to experience half life for myself since i had never played it back in the day at all and hl to this day still makes best games of all time lists, and i had played a ton of those games. but that was the first i played hl which i found ok, hl2 was sheer brilliant IMO, portal good fun very funny etc, portal 2 more of the same.
only one time have i had to deal with customer service on steam and the matter was taken care of in 2 business days.
know how many times i have been on the phone, im, w/e with EA customer service? and guess how many times i got a resolution to my problem in a timely manner? zero. Heck if i had gotten a resolution at all to any of my problems with EA games over the years lest i could have given them some credit.
as long as gabe is at the helm, i have high hopes for valve, the day he leaves will be interesting to say the lest. but i dunno how anyone can just hate on valve, you can hate on steam, except there are companies that do DD way worse.
the old EA direct dl system, a system so great and well thought out that they could not even bother to carry your own games over to their new origin service. you have to find your proof of purchase to prove you owned the games you bought directly off EA. what?
why as a customer is on me to prove i bought something off a company, if said company is doing something like phasing out their DD service and redoing the entire thing, while your at take all those databases from your old service and transfer it into the new, or just goto my games page on my EA profile that say i own the bleeping games i am on my customer service about because it is not in my origin games list. i even linked the page of my account to the service person only to tell me we cannot take that as proof of actual purchase, what? that my game was bought from EA, registered to EA, and clearly shows up on my EA games owned page, lest before i think they removed those pages entirely i think i had heard, so you could not go see the EA site says you own x y and z but origin says you own nothing, and customer service says the same without a sales receipt or an order number from 4 or 5 years ago.
or the nice fact that EAs DD service made you dl the whole game dvd to your hard drive and then install it so games took 2x as much space, when compared to steam, or think even D2D did it in a steam like decode installer type way and not just rip the game dvd like a pirate group and have you dl the thing.
until valve starts gutting its customers, making garbage games, and treating gamers like criminals, then i will be happy to call them out on it. but until then valve is one of the best companies top to bottom in the industry IMO. especially when compared to bliz/activision, bioware/EA, all the great studios that got swallowed up by the industries heavy hitters and have clearly lost the magic they had before they were swallowed up by greedy mega corps.
the day EA bought bioware i knew it was a looming disaster. i would have been doing cartwheels if CD projekt had somehow bought them or valve.
i wonder how many votes some people put up to get those 2 in the top.
every time i hear gabe speak, he says things i agree with. its refreshing to hear someone that runs a game company still talk like a real human being and a real gamer, and understand that the people that work for him are people.
course gabe can get away some of that simply because valves entire future is not dependant on their next game release. them diversifying themselves with steam was simply brilliant, it meant that they could take years on any given IP and not be rushed, they could tell their employees to go home early, not work so long, take a break etc, because their entire future was not hanging on portal 2 or hl2 epi 3.
i like valve, but let me say i never played hl, hl2 epi 1 and 2, portal, tf, or any of valves games. i think the first thing i had to do with valve at all, was buying bioshock off them. i had not picked up a single valve title until i think 2 years ago when i got a itch to experience half life for myself since i had never played it back in the day at all and hl to this day still makes best games of all time lists, and i had played a ton of those games. but that was the first i played hl which i found ok, hl2 was sheer brilliant IMO, portal good fun very funny etc, portal 2 more of the same.
only one time have i had to deal with customer service on steam and the matter was taken care of in 2 business days.
know how many times i have been on the phone, im, w/e with EA customer service? and guess how many times i got a resolution to my problem in a timely manner? zero. Heck if i had gotten a resolution at all to any of my problems with EA games over the years lest i could have given them some credit.
as long as gabe is at the helm, i have high hopes for valve, the day he leaves will be interesting to say the lest. but i dunno how anyone can just hate on valve, you can hate on steam, except there are companies that do DD way worse.
the old EA direct dl system, a system so great and well thought out that they could not even bother to carry your own games over to their new origin service. you have to find your proof of purchase to prove you owned the games you bought directly off EA. what?
why as a customer is on me to prove i bought something off a company, if said company is doing something like phasing out their DD service and redoing the entire thing, while your at take all those databases from your old service and transfer it into the new, or just goto my games page on my EA profile that say i own the bleeping games i am on my customer service about because it is not in my origin games list. i even linked the page of my account to the service person only to tell me we cannot take that as proof of actual purchase, what? that my game was bought from EA, registered to EA, and clearly shows up on my EA games owned page, lest before i think they removed those pages entirely i think i had heard, so you could not go see the EA site says you own x y and z but origin says you own nothing, and customer service says the same without a sales receipt or an order number from 4 or 5 years ago.
or the nice fact that EAs DD service made you dl the whole game dvd to your hard drive and then install it so games took 2x as much space, when compared to steam, or think even D2D did it in a steam like decode installer type way and not just rip the game dvd like a pirate group and have you dl the thing.
until valve starts gutting its customers, making garbage games, and treating gamers like criminals, then i will be happy to call them out on it. but until then valve is one of the best companies top to bottom in the industry IMO. especially when compared to bliz/activision, bioware/EA, all the great studios that got swallowed up by the industries heavy hitters and have clearly lost the magic they had before they were swallowed up by greedy mega corps.
the day EA bought bioware i knew it was a looming disaster. i would have been doing cartwheels if CD projekt had somehow bought them or valve.
I have a minor question before I continue into my own 2 cents: Why was ResonanceHD, or however their name was spelled, banned for their post on page 1? I didn't see anything gratuitously inflammatory, nor did I see anything that hasn't been repeated by other posters later on. Did the TC just report him for disagreeing?
Anyways... about the topic:
For a long time I didn't like Steam. I felt it was intrusive and I disliked having to be connected all the time, back before I discovered you could go offline so that all my single player games continued to work in case of a internet hiccup - which I still get occasionally. Then one day, I discovered the joy of Steam sales, and how frequently I could find games I was genuinely interested in for great prices. The fact that Steam is pretty much ALWAYS having a sale means I'm likely to see something interesting quite often, whether or not I have the money is a whole different matter. Most of the games I own via Steam have been through sales or things like the Humble Indie Bundle.
But you know what? I liked Valve before then, just because I never heard people bitching and complaining about the company the way I've heard others talk about EA (which I personally experienced with SPORE), or Nintendo which frequently disregards the fans' feelings on subjects, even though I grew up on Nintendo and loved them to death as a child in the 80's and early 90's.
If you still have to ask "why are they loved?" then clearly you're not reading all the myriad examples people have offered. I think someone mentioned GOG, and to be fair it IS a great company and I enjoy going there for older games, but GOG has kind of been changing lately and doesn't seem to offer the same kinda values/sales that Steam does. I love the lack of DRM and being able to put my games on a disc for back-up purposes.. but I still go to Steam when I see they have a game cheaper, and vice versa when GOG has some really nice bonus items.
Anyways... about the topic:
For a long time I didn't like Steam. I felt it was intrusive and I disliked having to be connected all the time, back before I discovered you could go offline so that all my single player games continued to work in case of a internet hiccup - which I still get occasionally. Then one day, I discovered the joy of Steam sales, and how frequently I could find games I was genuinely interested in for great prices. The fact that Steam is pretty much ALWAYS having a sale means I'm likely to see something interesting quite often, whether or not I have the money is a whole different matter. Most of the games I own via Steam have been through sales or things like the Humble Indie Bundle.
But you know what? I liked Valve before then, just because I never heard people bitching and complaining about the company the way I've heard others talk about EA (which I personally experienced with SPORE), or Nintendo which frequently disregards the fans' feelings on subjects, even though I grew up on Nintendo and loved them to death as a child in the 80's and early 90's.
If you still have to ask "why are they loved?" then clearly you're not reading all the myriad examples people have offered. I think someone mentioned GOG, and to be fair it IS a great company and I enjoy going there for older games, but GOG has kind of been changing lately and doesn't seem to offer the same kinda values/sales that Steam does. I love the lack of DRM and being able to put my games on a disc for back-up purposes.. but I still go to Steam when I see they have a game cheaper, and vice versa when GOG has some really nice bonus items.
It's ResonanceSD and his words may have been unnecessarily harsh, even if true. Well, harsh enough to warrant reporting. Also, you shouldn't call other people "trolls" outright...that's a bit iffy, but you can report a user just for that.Hiroshi Mishima said:
Microsoft fouled up far more than once. I recall several "required" updates that broke quite a few features and functions on my 360 until they released a hot-patch to address them.Suki_ said:
And the bugged patches for Skyrim and Street Fighter, as I mentioned before (and linked) didn't just "unbalanced" the games. They caused game-breaking bugs. In SF case, it caused the game to literally crash every time a character used a particular move.
That's not just a balance issue. That's a severe, game-breaking bug. One that came about because of a "carefuly monitored" patch that Microsoft allowed to be released.
I'm not saying they don't have a "vetting" process for patches and updates on their console, but it's FAR from what you seem to think it is and it certainly isn't much different than similar processes on other platforms.
All platforms have their issues. Especially when it comes to updates. The only reason it may seem worse to you when it comes to Steam is because the patching process for PC is a far more complex procedure. Almost no PC environment is going to be the same, so it's hard to take into account all factors that might effect a game before and after an update.
On consoles that's not really an issue. The environment is almost always the same.
Which begs the question: Why then do we still have so many game-breaking patches and updates for our consoles games?
Valve is indie with no stock holders, it's very much a ppl company, both to it's fans and most importantly it's dev teams and it shows in their games.
Video games are creative projects which is something most AAAs have lost sight of when they don't foster growth in their devs. Instead they treat their devs like a factory production line.
Ie employ some poor guy to do nothing but make the textures of brick walls for 1 or 2 years, long hours. crunch times then unemployed as soon as the game is finished when the publisher folds the company and opens up a new studio with the same name in a country with lower overheads.
Been indie isn't everything however, Epic are still Indie and look at the crap games they make.
Video games are creative projects which is something most AAAs have lost sight of when they don't foster growth in their devs. Instead they treat their devs like a factory production line.
Ie employ some poor guy to do nothing but make the textures of brick walls for 1 or 2 years, long hours. crunch times then unemployed as soon as the game is finished when the publisher folds the company and opens up a new studio with the same name in a country with lower overheads.
Been indie isn't everything however, Epic are still Indie and look at the crap games they make.
Not that I want to start some stupid retarded Germany vs .... fight, but I feel I must point out that much of Germany's economic strength today is down to the US rebuilding the economy after the war, same with Japan. And also partly the same with the UK too after sending its economy into meltdown with a dodgy loan then doing a U turn when it found out it needed an help in the cold war.Dagda Mor said:
Been a Brit i'm not one for nationalistic dick waving, best to leave that sort of stuff for football
Anyway I feel you are most likley trolling so it's best to leave the discussion there
Well there are still stronger countries. Like the U.S.A who kicked their asses both times.Dagda Mor said:
They make money by making us happy which encourages us to give them money to make us happier. It's a vicious cycle where everyone wins.
Calling Valve a monopoly isn't incorrect, but the reason why monopolies are bad is because they will take advantage of their position at some point to screw people over and make them unhappy. Valve's business model is directly opposed to that practice, so there is little to worry about. Should they abuse their power, you will see a massive shift away from them and they will lose that monopoly.
Calling Valve a monopoly isn't incorrect, but the reason why monopolies are bad is because they will take advantage of their position at some point to screw people over and make them unhappy. Valve's business model is directly opposed to that practice, so there is little to worry about. Should they abuse their power, you will see a massive shift away from them and they will lose that monopoly.
let us not forget left 4 dead 1 and 2, the only 2 co-op games that seem to bond people against a common threat: zombies, tons and tons of zombies! and hooded rapists that pounce on you from 50 feet away.Ljs1121 said:
...
but yeah, seriously, i think l4d 1&2 are valves best games, because they can unite people, and its the one series that all the people i know [me included] have yet to have a bad experience on. that being said, the portal and half life series are both amazing, and special in their own way. heres hoping HL 3 is on source 2.0 !
actually, if my WWII history is correct, the only reason germany lost was because they were running out of supplies, and could not keep fighting, making them weak enough for defeat. i may be wrong though.The_Lost_King said: