Steam a Conflict of Interest for Valve

Honestly Steam & Valve have done such a huge service to the PC gaming industry its hard to complain. They are the only service I've see that no only manages games for you, no true windows installs required, no patching needed, but also fully supports modding, which Direct2drive doesn't -__-
 
Yeah its been so much trouble for the small guys...steam has one of the largest libraries of indie development and support. Until he steps up and buys out steam he should stfu.
 
Hmm...I'm not sure where he's coming from. There are many small indie developers who honestly wouldn't have the market or a way to get their games out there if it weren't for Steam and such.

Look at a game like Zeno Clash. A small indie developed title that was released on Steam for fairly cheap. It sold well enough that they are releasing it soon on XBL.

I think Randy says some good things and I've been a member of the Gearbox forum community for years (since the first BIA) but since I myself have no idea what valve charges or such I can't honestly form an overall opinon on who's right.

From my perspective, I see steam as a great thing for Indie guys to get their games on a selling platform that is very well known without them having to go through a huge publisher to try and push into a brick and mortar store.
 
I love steam, but I can see his points. As an major game developer I can see how Valve can take advantage of the market and control it. Steam gained popularity since you had to have it for HL2 and now pretty much all new Valve games. If they have the most popular digital distribution app, they can possibly affect the sales of a game. If a game that happened to compete with a Valve game and had the same launch date as the Valve game, they could deny or delay its release on Steam, giving Valve's game the advantage. Not saying they would, but they could do it. Sort of like how Walmart has such a large market share they can bully the product manufactures. Since Walmart can account for 40% of the sales of a product, Walmart forces companies to reduce their prices and so the companies are force to outsource more or if they already are outsourced they start contracting manufactures with even lower human rights standards.

I also agree with his point on Microsoft on how since they own the OS they could have easily made a digital distribution model for games, but haven't since XBOX is there focus for gaming. Also people don't really want M$ controlling it.
 
JohnleMVP said:
I love steam, but I can see his points. As an major game developer I can see how Valve can take advantage of the market and control it. Steam gained popularity since you had to have it for HL2 and now pretty much all new Valve games. If they have the most popular digital distribution app, they can possibly affect the sales of a game. If a game that happened to compete with a Valve game and had the same launch date as the Valve game, they could deny or delay its release on Steam, giving Valve's game the advantage. Not saying they would, but they could do it. Sort of like how Walmart has such a large market share they can bully the product manufactures. Since Walmart can account for 40% of the sales of a product, Walmart forces companies to reduce their prices and so the companies are force to outsource more or if they already are outsourced they start contracting manufactures with even lower human rights standards.

I also agree with his point on Microsoft on how since they own the OS they could have easily made a digital distribution model for games, but haven't since XBOX is there focus for gaming. Also people don't really want M$ controlling it.
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I think most manufacturers are moving towards this tactic. Although, Steam/Valve developed a much better system. It's you games and a game browser all in own, how convenient.

But i can see how this could really stifle healthy competition. And their prices for games, unless they're on sale, aren't any better than any e-tailer. And personally, I'd prefer to have a physical copy of a game.

As for Walmart, yeah it's a huge corporation. Hell their annual income exceeds a lot of countries. I think they're becoming too big for our good.
 
OmegaSupreme said:
I think most manufacturers are moving towards this tactic. Although, Steam/Valve developed a much better system. It's you games and a game browser all in own, how convenient.

But i can see how this could really stifle healthy competition. And their prices for games, unless they're on sale, aren't any better than any e-tailer. And personally, I'd prefer to have a physical copy of a game.

As for Walmart, yeah it's a huge corporation. Hell their annual income exceeds a lot of countries. I think they're becoming too big for our good.
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I prefer owning a physical copy of a game too, also I think when 1.6 counter strike came out through steam it totally ruined the game for me so I am still hating steam to this day.
 
If I don't have a physical copy of a game, I prefer Steam over any of the other digital vendors.
 
Kowan said:
If I don't have a physical copy of a game, I prefer Steam over any of the other digital vendors.
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I agree. Makes it hard to pass games onto your friends after you're done with em though unless you make an account for each game.
 
I also prefer Steam over other digital vendors. As for me, if I like a game so much then that's the only time I'll buy a box for it (and most likely it's the collectors or special edition box).
 
What steam needs is a decent competitor to drive their prices down to be competative with real stores, they need to sort out the stupid bullshit with late releases for the EU and the UK.

I like steam for a lot of reasons but I certainly dont buy new games on there, I just grab the older games at discount to balance against the increase price. The UK pays over the odds for everything anyway which is bad enough but then to pay a mark up on that is just stupid.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
What steam needs is a decent competitor to drive their prices down to be competative with real stores, they need to sort out the stupid bullshit with late releases for the EU and the UK.

I like steam for a lot of reasons but I certainly dont buy new games on there, I just grab the older games at discount to balance against the increase price. The UK pays over the odds for everything anyway which is bad enough but then to pay a mark up on that is just stupid.
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Agreed. Steam becoming a monopoly when digital distribution is being increasingly seen as the more lucrative platform to release games through is more of a danger than any Steam/Valve conflict of interest, IMO.

Why are prices so high on Steam anyway? I see games on there like Red Faction Guerrilla going for US$69.99 and there is no outcry, despite people crying blue murder over the PC version of CODMW2 going for $59.99 in stores.
 
I'd like to know what share of the money from a game sale on Steam goes to the developer and what share goes to Valve. I suspect they either price games too high or give the developer too small a share of the money (or both). I agree with the Walmart analogy, there needs to be real competition so that a developer can choose to sell their game somewhere else for better profit margins, without shooting themselves in the foot by making themselves obscure.

BTW I've used Impulse in the past and it seems like a very nice platform to me. Not as huge a range as Steam though.
 
The only thing steam is missing is an aution function, so you can legally sell used games through steam accounts.

That would be amazing. In fact, i'm applying for the patent lol
 
I can certainly understand where he's coming from with the potential for conflicts of interest but I would have thought that would be more of a factor for developers who make the same kind of games that Valve makes. I don't see a Valve making a lot of indie $5-10 games.

I have bought more games over the last year on Steam than I have in my 15+ years of gaming and I've bought a heck of a lot more indie games when I would have never considered them before.
 
Plague_Injected said:
Agreed. Steam becoming a monopoly when digital distribution is being increasingly seen as the more lucrative platform to release games through is more of a danger than any Steam/Valve conflict of interest, IMO.

Why are prices so high on Steam anyway? I see games on there like Red Faction Guerrilla going for US$69.99 and there is no outcry, despite people crying blue murder over the PC version of CODMW2 going for $59.99 in stores.
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wow where do you live? I bought red faction guerilla for $40 off steam and i got red faction 1 and 2 with it
 
P4rD0nM3 said:
I also prefer Steam over other digital vendors. As for me, if I like a game so much then that's the only time I'll buy a box for it (and most likely it's the collectors or special edition box).
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steam is good don't get me wrong but I actually like D2D better because I get to download an exe or whatever and save that file on a hard drive or dvd and have the backup of it. It doesn't matter if I have a service or not and an internet connection. I can then install that game any anytime.
 
Bigbacon said:
steam is good don't get me wrong but I actually like D2D better because I get to download an exe or whatever and save that file on a hard drive or dvd and have the backup of it. It doesn't matter if I have a service or not and an internet connection. I can then install that game any anytime.
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I backup all my steam games, just copy the common folder, piece of cake
 
k1pp3r said:
I backup all my steam games, just copy the common folder, piece of cake
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this right here, I have a copy of my common folder on my back up-hard drive. It takes me a whole of 10 minutes to "install" all my games on steam after a new OS or any kind of failure and it requires no interaction beyond ctrl+v. Steam also lets you back-up your games to dvd if you want.

I like having physical copies for two reasons,
1 i live in canada so I have a download cap (60gb/month) so i cant buy a whole bunch of games at once lol,

2.It looks awsome when you have your entire collection of games neatly organized on disply for people to see your true geekness!

but I like steam alot more for no hassle patches, easy managment and easy to back up
 
Rofl-Mic-Lofl said:
Anyone else besides me who hates physical copies and loves Steam?
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I used to not, but tbh, at this point, I buy almost everything through steam. It's simply easier to deal with.

as long as they don't cap downloads, I'll keep using them.
 
What a bunch of BS.

They need to get over the fact that they didn't think of it first. If they have so many problem why bother using it? They could have gone GFWL Impulse or D2D or something instead. but..
OH THAT'S RIGHT! STEAM IS THE BEST DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM ON THE MARKET!
 
this was posted at Shacknews also. Derek Smart chimed in on the comments section with a very informative post. For those that dont know who he is look here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Smart


Here is the comment from Shacknews:

By: dsmart[3000ad] x Show Full Post

I read that same article when I got my copy of MPC and my response was "wtf?".

Either Randy has no fucking clue what he's talking about or he's just jealous.

I have been in the industry for more than twenty years, shipped fourteen games and have had my games on ALL of the top digital distribution sites - including Steam. As such, I can say with 100% certainty that Valve is no more "evil" than Direct2Drive, Stardock, RealNetworks, Gamers Gate or any other portal that sells games.

The perception is that Steam is so huge that Valve can do whatever they like. The reality is that the notion is complete.utter.bollocks. Just because they have North of 20 million subscribers, does not mean that all of them are buying other games on Steam with any meaningful regularity. Thats like saying that Best Buy, Frys et al should close up shop because of GameStop. Fact is that there are people buying games from Best Buy, Walmart - and GameStop. In much the same way that there are gamers buying games from all the other sites - including Steam. So if you go by the numbers alone, Direct2Drive, Gamers Gate, Impulse etc should all be out of business by now and just give up. Fact it, that is not the case. At all.

Steam does command the largest number of subscribers to date but that does not necessarily translate into sales for third parties. Especially when you consider that the Steam subscriber base was seeded off Valve's own highly popular games which you cannot install or play outside of Steam.

So the question becomes. If someone bought HL2, TF2, L4D etc on Steam, do they consider Steam more convenient and so they buy other games through Steam - or do they only buy Valve's own games due to the fact that they need Steam?

Even when you buy Valve's PC games at retail, all you're doing is saving yourself some download time and getting a box. You need Steam. There are some games - which use Steam - and which do the same thing.

From the development and business standpoint, I haven't seen any difference in dealing with IGN' Direct2Drive (owned by Fox) over Valve. The process is very simple and straightforward. You pitch your game. If they like it, you get a contract in which you set your price and they take their cut of the proceeds.

In fact, from all the sites out there, Valve offers so much more (how about real-time sales tracking - the real-time reporting system alone is a sales/accounting wet dream) that is not even funny.

And guess what, they don't take any larger cut than the other sites do. In other words, they are in line with industry trends. I can't say how much, for obvious reasons, but what I can tell you is that :

a) Valve's entry into the digital distribution scene actually helped INCREASE royalties paid to developers. I know this how? Because one site that I am with was taking a 50% cut for selling our games. Once we got on Steam and saw what their [smaller] cut was - we were able to have that other site match Valve's cut or we would pull our titles from the service and not give them our new games. The end result was that we got an amendment with the reduced cut. So now ALL the sites that we have our games on are taking the SAME cut as Valve.

b) the cut that Valve takes is in line with industry standards. In fact, from what my industry friends have told me, ALL the other sites (except for RealNetworks and some others which do White Label partner business and thus it becomes a percentage of a percentage) are now matching Valve's royalty cut. But in order to have that leverage, you have to be on Steam.

c) The cut that Valve takes is not exploitative AT ALL. In fact the developer gets almost 4x what they would get from any retail publishing deal - assuming they can actually get one.

Like with all business ventures, not everyone is going to get rich by being on Steam. Thats just a ludicrous fallacy. There is a reason why you still see indies putting games out at retail e.g. Tripwire just recently released Killing Floor at retail and are about to release Zeno Clash for those guys as well. Retail is still king and if you can get into retail, the extra cash can't hurt. The issue is GETTING INTO RETAIL. And thats where digital distribution helps.

To wit, Valve is no more exploitative than Microsoft is over XBLA or XBCG (or whatever the frack they're calling it these days).

Valve runs a business and obviously apart from the fact that indie devs can get their games on there - if Valve likes them enough to sign them - other publishers realize the potential and draw of their install base. Which is why even the bigwigs are getting on Steam - something they never would have otherwise considered. Are they (e.g. EA, THQ, Ubisoft etc) getting a better deal (by Valve taking a smaller cut) than us indies? I have no clue - but considering that Valve doesn't need that business and thus can't be coerced into making concessions, my guess is that their cut is standard regardless of who you are. Again, I could be wrong and maybe the likes of EA gets to take a bigger cut than others, but I dunno.

Anyway, Randy's commentary - assuming MPC didn't take it out of context - is the sort of alarmist bullshit that our industry thrives on. So its just another day at the farm. By the time the news scrolls off the headlines, we would have forgotten all about it and moved on to the next one.

Not that they need any defending, but I love working with Valve and have no complaints. My guess is that you'd be hard pressed to find anyone with games on Steam with a different opinion. And as everyone knows, if there was anything to bitch about it, I'd probably be the one nominated to start with the bitching. ;)
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Ragenrok said:
I found this takes almost double the time on my computer compared to just copy/pasting the common folder yourself, of course YMMV
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sure, but you have individual backups - you don't have to do all of them.
 
cpt.whistlepants said:
this was posted at Shacknews also. Derek Smart chimed in on the comments section with a very informative post. For those that dont know who he is look here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Smart


Here is the comment from Shacknews:
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Thanks for that post as I missed it with in the almost 300 comments on shack. I never thought Steam was this evil and this pretty much confirms that.
 
"I'll tell you what. Steam helps. As a guy in this industry though, I don't trust Valve... I, personally, trust Valve. But I'm just saying, honestly, I think a lot of the industry doesn't."

"It would be much better if Steam was its own business,"

"There's so much conflict of interest there that it's horrid. It's actually really, really dangerous for the rest of the industry to allow Valve to win."

"Valve is taking a larger share than it should for the service it's providing. It's exploiting a lot of small guys,"

"For us big guys, we're going to sell the units and it will be fine."
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Lets at least mention that there's a "Conflict of interest" taking this guy's comments as a representative of the video game industry versus Valve. After all, Gearbox is a development studio that started out doing almost exclusive work for Valve. They worked on Counterstrike CS:CZ, half life expansions, etc...

Now they don't do any work for Valve. You'd think if there was some bad blood between Gearbox and Valve, or at least a strained relationship, the CEO of gearbox might not have a lot of praise for Valve right?

At least, given they're history with Valve, you might think that Randy Pitchford isn't the most objective voice in the video game industry when it comes to Valve.

I will say that I agree with his comments on achievements.
 
Rofl-Mic-Lofl said:
Anyone else besides me who hates physical copies and loves Steam?
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I agree with you, i always end up losing things like CD keys for example, steam is the best form of copy protection ever conceived. Along with Impulse and sites like Gamersgate its also the future of gaming on even on consoles.

I personally prefer this as the future of copy protection as opposed to things like securom or other DRM garbage.
 
Gearbox whining about steam??

Didnt valve pretty much give them life?

Dont bite the hand that feeds you IMO.
 
Plague_Injected said:
Agreed. Steam becoming a monopoly when digital distribution is being increasingly seen as the more lucrative platform to release games through is more of a danger than any Steam/Valve conflict of interest, IMO.

Why are prices so high on Steam anyway? I see games on there like Red Faction Guerrilla going for US$69.99 and there is no outcry, despite people crying blue murder over the PC version of CODMW2 going for $59.99 in stores.
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Red Faction Guerrilla is $69.99? I just bought it a few days ago for $39.99... Maybeyou live in CA or something?
 
Plague_Injected said:
Agreed. Steam becoming a monopoly when digital distribution is being increasingly seen as the more lucrative platform to release games through is more of a danger than any Steam/Valve conflict of interest, IMO.

Why are prices so high on Steam anyway? I see games on there like Red Faction Guerrilla going for US$69.99 and there is no outcry, despite people crying blue murder over the PC version of CODMW2 going for $59.99 in stores.
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Its showing $40 for me... unless you're not in the US?

edit, oops didnt see the above post before posting.
 
Well, the guy's not saying Steam has made any disservice to the users, and he'd be crazy to do it. I myself love Steam and use it way more than D2D and GOG, because I think they are trustworthy, fast and have tons of stuff for me to get. I think it's their deals that keep me coming back for more. D2D, on the other hand, is nice and all, but has tons of restrictions on the content they deliver on a worldwide scale. GOG is another story altogether.
Maybe the guy's jealous, maybe he thinks his work is worth more. We can't just go and judge him crazy :/ Also, this is good exposure for him and Gearbox!
 
Kanaric said:
I agree with you, i always end up losing things like CD keys for example, steam is the best form of copy protection ever conceived. Along with Impulse and sites like Gamersgate its also the future of gaming on even on consoles.

I personally prefer this as the future of copy protection as opposed to things like securom or other DRM garbage.
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Don't have to worry about swapping discs in and out, or keeping up with CD keys. Also, a few simple clicks and I can download/install all of my games while I sleep. And as you said, copy protection for the dev while not being harmful to us like other DRM can be.

win/win
 
normally i like going to the store to buy my games but lately ive bought a couple of games off steam and its quick and painless. as someone stated above as long as they dont cap downloads ill keep using them.
 
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