Half-Life 3

[sclpls]

I mean, if Brad gets to work on DOTA I gotta imagine that's a win for him.

[Dewar]

Oh yeah, not begrudging his choice at all, just sad that it's not likely we'll see something that's uniquely

[mikemariano]

On Twitter Muir is emphatic that he is there to make and release a game.

 

He will not.  Valve will crush him.

[sclpls]

Sure, you could make a game... or you could have an opportunity to swim in the money pit by making more hats!!!

[Bjorn]

On Twitter Muir is emphatic that he is there to make and release a game.

 

He will not.  Valve will crush him.

 

That optimism, it's impressive. 

[gavku]

He does seem to have a contagious optimism and joy so hopefully that takes root there....

[Merus]

Why would Valve release a game? It's far more profitable to build a platform for their users to make content for them, and then they sit in the middle and claim 30%. They're like the Uber of games, in that I hate their business model.

[osmosisch]

Why would Valve release a game? It's far more profitable to build a platform for their users to make content for them, and then they sit in the middle and claim 30%. They're like the Uber of games, in that I hate their business model.

The percentage they get on stuff like hats is apparently even higher.

[Joewintergreen]

As high as 93% in TF2. https://twitter.com/joewintergreen/status/651879114169696256/photo/1

[Professor Video Games]

Why would Valve release a game? It's far more profitable to build a platform for their users to make content for them, and then they sit in the middle and claim 30%. They're like the Uber of games, in that I hate their business model.

 

Is your problem with the size of the cut they take or with the service existing at all? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of a lot of the gamification crap they've layered on top of the base service, but saying they just sit in the middle is selling them a bit short.

 

I'm aware this is probably a huge derail, but it's not like HL3 is actually coming out so why not...

[Twig]

I like the gamification crap!

When it works, anyway.

[Merus]

The service existing at all. With Uber, it's much more clearly rent-seeking, because most municipalities already have a taxi service and while it's usually arthritic it's also more aware of the demographics of the market. For instance, pensioners often rely on taxis, and it's people on fixed incomes that get fucked over by Uber. Valve aren't as predatory, but they are predatory, as the way they conduct their Steam sales attests. In the case of their games, their incentive is not to make a great game but to make a profitable platform, and while they enjoy touting how much money the various content providers make, they're shackled to Valve's whims and don't have the freedom to take that hard work elsewhere. Valve gets to look like good guys for paying people for doing work, instead of employers, while Valve doesn't have to contribute anything other than a stamp of approval. Gabe Newell's even talked about outsourcing everything to their customers, which he claims is because they're better than Valve but that doesn't mean Valve's going to treat them better than an employee.

 

Essentially my beef with them is a) they used to be cool, and coolshades) Valve's business model plays into the disconnection of labour and capital over the last decade, where because capital has the money, anyone making any money at all is instructed to feel grateful for the opportunity.

 

Most of what I like about Valve - the Steam client (cards excepted), Portal 2, Half-Life - are in their past, and their role in the robot dystopia is their future.

[mikemariano]

The service existing at all.

 

This is all very good.

[Professor Video Games]

Isn't that downplaying the infrastructure that Valve provides? I don't think it's fair to say they just sit there. Hosting games, pushing updates, and providing a marketplace isn't nothing. That said, I'd agree that their market dominance is unsettling and also that they should be more proactive about keeping the Steam marketplace healthy and discoverable. The whole offloading of that work onto end users via things like greenlight and curators is pretty weak.

[Vasari]

Valve just posted a file called hl3.txt onto the Dota 2 git repository. Here's a link and Here's a pastebin copy. I'm normally the last person to pay any attention to Half Life 3 theories but this text file makes alot of references to friendly NPCs, citizens, dialogue and linear levels.

Of course this could just be an old file from Half-Life 2 that slipped into the new revision of the source engine. But if it isn't? Holy crap!

[Twig]

That Happening Bunker is gold.

[Erkki]

Interesting to see how Valve's image has changed to more negative over the last few years. I still view them as kind of the cool guys who are keeping PC gaming alive, but I don't pay that much attention to them other than using the Steam client for almost all my gaming and looking forward to receiving the Steam link and Steam controller in mail soon.

 

Indeed I agree that the 30%+ cuts that Valve takes are worrysome and can't be part of a long term healthy economy. But the Steam platform really can't seem to make a competitor, because the competitors probably aren't willing to come together and merge their platforms (into a new legal entity?) to defeat Steam. They seem more likely to keep their own smaller services, which have no chance of becoming as big as Steam.

 

Maybe Steam will one day be seen as a Monopoly and then appropriate institutions can look into the unhealthy market situation around it?

[Twig]

In my experience, the people who hate Valve/Steam today are MOSTLY the same people who hated Valve/Steam five years ago.

 

I'm pretty much with you. They are cool, and they do cool things, and I have some problems with the cuts they take, but they also don't just sit on their asses all day, but also they don't necessarily do as much as I wish they'd do. They aren't perfect, but they're still on the whole good, and DEFINITELY better than the rest. Maybe one day GOG will give 'em a run for their money. GOG is for sure profitable, obviously, but they're always lagging behind. On everything except DRM-free, anyway. But that's unfortunately why most (big) games won't ever go there right away. ):

[Bjorn]

Indeed I agree that the 30%+ cuts that Valve takes are worrysome and can't be part of a long term healthy economy....

 

I have never understood this line of thought.  Typical retail markup for physical goods can run 25 to 50 percent of retail price (my current business averages about 45 percent, a new business I've been working on will be very similar).  Both my current business and my future business bypass traditional distributors, which would otherwise be taking a cut of the total price.  Bandwidth is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of what shipping physical merchandise costs, costs which are figured into the prices you're paying for physical goods.  Traditionally, retail markup on video games was 25 percent, but then you had these other costs on top of it.  Compared to the physical market, Steam's cut should, in the majority of cases, be a better deal. 

 

Edited to add: I guess one could argue that Steam's employee base is much smaller, so as far as we all know, they are making much, much, much more per employee than any traditional physical peddler of games.  But, eh, I guess that doesn't bother me.  From a business standpoint, I think a variable cut makes a lot of sense.  Small games take a smaller cut (15-25 percent), which makes small devs more financially viable, which in turn makes them more likely to continue to make more games to sell. 

[Twig]

Yes, I was going to bring that junk up, but opted not to.

 

The, uh, "up to 93%" stuff on TF2 items is bunk, though. Major bunk.

 

...Though I've seen some screencapped conversations that seem to suggest that's the fault of the butt-faced people who organized that community update, and less so the fault of Valve themselves. It's all hearsay to me, though, so I don't really want to take sides. 

 

Regardless, I still think Valve takes maybe too much money on that stuff. But then they did MAKE THE GAME, so I don't knooooow.

 

They for sure take way too much money off Compendium sales for The International...

[Erkki]

Ok, yes, maybe I'm wrong, I know nothing about retail, I might actually agree that maybe 30% isn't that much, for providing this whole platform and accessibility.

[Dewar]

I have never understood this line of thought.  Typical retail markup for physical goods can run 25 to 50 percent of retail price (my current business averages about 45 percent, a new business I've been working on will be very similar).  Both my current business and my future business bypass traditional distributors, which would otherwise be taking a cut of the total price.  Bandwidth is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of what shipping physical merchandise costs, costs which are figured into the prices you're paying for physical goods.  Traditionally, retail markup on video games was 25 percent, but then you had these other costs on top of it.  Compared to the physical market, Steam's cut should, in the majority of cases, be a better deal. 

 

Edited to add: I guess one could argue that Steam's employee base is much smaller, so as far as we all know, they are making much, much, much more per employee than any traditional physical peddler of games.  But, eh, I guess that doesn't bother me.  From a business standpoint, I think a variable cut makes a lot of sense.  Small games take a smaller cut (15-25 percent), which makes small devs more financially viable, which in turn makes them more likely to continue to make more games to sell. 

 

I don't disagree with you, I'm fine with Valve as a marketplace, a bit more snide about Valve as a developer these days but, to play devils advocate for a second:

 

If a company produces a healthcare treatment that costs them $500 and sells it for $600 and then they pioneer a new way of treating the same illness for $200 and sells it for $500, it's a net gain for the consumer, who pays $100 less, and it's a net gain for the company, who makes $200 more. That seems more or less fair, but there are certainly people who would scoff at the business making more money and think they should sell it for $300 or $400.

 

Now take those numbers to extreme. What if the business learned how to make the treatment for $50, but was still selling it for $500. There's still a net gain for the consumer, but I think most people would scoff that they're making almost 10x as much profit as cost. 

 

Now obviously we have no way of knowing how much money it really costs Valve to sell something on their store, and video games are much less critical than health treatments (I only used it because there's been some news about it recently and it's on my mind.) I still think there's a prevailing opinion that Valve is getting 30% for doing basically nothing. There are times, when I look at the mess that Steam has become, that I agree.

[Twig]

Also, in the end, capitalism blows, burn it all to the ground.

[Bjorn]

I don't disagree with you, I'm fine with Valve as a marketplace, a bit more snide about Valve as a developer these days but, to play devils advocate for a second:

 

If a company produces a healthcare treatment that costs them $500 and sells it for $600 and then they pioneer a new way of treating the same illness for $200 and sells it for $500, it's a net gain for the consumer, who pays $100 less, and it's a net gain for the company, who makes $200 more. That seems more or less fair, but there are certainly people who would scoff at the business making more money and think they should sell it for $300 or $400.

 

Now take those numbers to extreme. What if the business learned how to make the treatment for $50, but was still selling it for $500. There's still a net gain for the consumer, but I think most people would scoff that they're making almost 10x as much profit as cost. 

 

Now obviously we have no way of knowing how much money it really costs Valve to sell something on their store, and video games are much less critical than health treatments (I only used it because there's been some news about it recently and it's on my mind.) I still think there's a prevailing opinion that Valve is getting 30% for doing basically nothing. There are times, when I look at the mess that Steam has become, that I agree.

 

Yeah, I could get down with an argument like that about the fairness of pricing if ultimately Valve's cost to provide the service was crazy low.  If someone ultimately leaked documents showing that Steam's actual cost to run Steam was like 1 percent of the total revenue it took in, I'd definitely be more critical.  Even from a business standpoint, maximizing profits at the cost of your suppliers (devs) and customers (gamers) is not necessarily the best practice if fairer pricing will result in more overall sales and product for everyone. 

[mikemariano]

Also, in the end, capitalism blows, burn it all to the ground.