News Garry: "Valve is not exploiting us"

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2009/10/09/valve-is-not-exploiting-us/1

Garry of Garry's Mod has dismissed claims that Valve is exploiting smaller developers.

 

Garry's position as a developer on Steam to speak may be questionable, but as a consumer he sure does have a point. One distribution system is enough. I'd like to see what other developers, big and small, have to say.

 

I'd like to see Steam having separate Stores. Maybe the big players could have store space within steam?

 

I don't think they should seperate Big devs from Small devs, that in itself would make what Gearbox said valid.

 

Greetings!

It is. Overall, and from a technical pov, Steam is the best DD platform out there.

It has the huge disavantadge of being too expensive, though. That defeats the point of having the best DD platform and then forcing players to buy the games cheaper at retail, usually Steam wants 50€, ordering from retail one spends 35€.

 

Yep the price is higher for everything that isn't sold by valve but correct me if I am wrong, the publishers set the prices not valve themselves so I'm guessing the publishers keep the price high so as not to cannibalise retail sales.

 

"Not to mention the amount of money we all have already invested in the games we own in Steam. Steam IS the PC gaming platform. As a consumer I don’t want to have different digital distribution software installed for every publisher."

Take the hint EA, M$

 

I'm sure having one Console platform for gaming would also be sufficient, except that then they would have free reign over pricing and ultimately it would be the gamers/consumers who would suffer from the lack of competition.

Having Steam as a frontrunner for DD on the PC has certainly had an impact on keeping the gaming for it alive and kicking. That doesn't mean it should be the only one to be supported, but others should learn from it - hint hint on the pricing - and improve where possible. Convenience is one thing, but improving on something excisting often doesn't fit into the "this is good enough" attitude.

So here's me waiting to see other good DD platforms making their way into the conciousness of the ever-narrowing PC gaming platform and it's users.

 

Does Steam still have to be launched/running in the background if you want to play a single player game? That big brother attitude has been a huge negative with me when it comes to Steam. I know they have an offline mode but when I've tried it in the past it wasn't always user friendly. It's like Valve made you jump through hoops to get it working. Especially if you wanted to play offline at a LAN party that didn't have an internet connection.

I was really ticked off when I bought the retail boxed versions of Dawn of War 2 and Empire Total War and entered a CD-Key and saw then Steam launched to "keep an eye" on my game purchase.

Until I'm treated like the honest customer that I am Steam and any other "intrusive" DRM is a floating turd in my eyes.

 

Steam has the least invasive DRM out there.
If you actually care about steam that is pathetic, go back to your other games with securom if you want, it may be silent, but it sure aswell isn't as safe.

Fact: Some games require steam, get over it.

 

I've never liked Steam. Most likely never will, either. I hate all such programs, they just seem like unwanted clutter to me. While easy updates are nice, I prefer to buy and install my games the old fashioned way. Couldn't be arsed by the community features either...

 

It's been a good six months since I was last forced to point this out, but as soon as steam goes offline every piece of software ever purchased through it - now presumably billions worth - will instantaneously vanish like a puff of, well, steam.

Yes yes I know, it's impossible and unthinkable and the reich will last for a thousand years, and once we've invented time travel we'll be able to send people to the year fifty million and they'll report that steam is still alive and well. Obviously, Valve are completely infalliable and suggesting they might disappear is like suggesting the sun might disappear; they will unquestionably exist forever and to suggest otherwise is anathema.

However, regardless of whether it's generally accepted, it will happen at some point, as those of us over the age of about sixteen have already seen happen several times in the gaming industry.

Even if not, I know several people who've had to rebuy their entire itunes music collections after a hard disk crash.

 

Unlike iTunes and many games I can redownload my steam games as many times and on many diffferent pcs to my hearts content.
I won't buy anything on iTunes until they implement a similar policy (or steam do it!)

 

I don't see how the old fashion way is clean and less clutter, the game installs then immediately updates, and a majority of the time it's very transparent. You don't have to download an updater or separate patches, and for the past 3 years games have been requiring them. I'll take steam over having to have Impulse, gpgnet, EA download manager, xfire, whatever bioware uses, rockstar lounge to get updates for my games.

 

I don't buy on steam unless I'm feeling lazy. I don't much care how they do business - It's clearly working sufficiently to get quite a number of big devs onboard, and quite a number of the smaller devs.

It's wonderful for convenience, and if they're screwing smaller devs so hard, why are they still using it, I wonder?

 

i like steam, its so much easier when moving to a new machine, install steam, download all your games,then play

no more looking for the cds, downloading patches, then patches for patches, with steam, you download the game, and its already at the latest version, no patching needed.

sure it might take you a few hours downloading the games, but it could take you longer installing from cd, downloading the patches etc etc

 

Sigh, another guy who talks without knowing, you do know that maintaining the servers and bandwidth needed to maintain steam is a huge expense right? it is a constant expense, where as distributing retail boxes is a one time expense.

 

Wrong, you can backup your games to DVD or CD now, and there are already ways to get steam games to work without steam, come on, take off the tin hat. Also, Valve being the company they are, I would say there is a good chance they already have a plan in place in case steam ever does go away, lets not get over sensitive here.

At the end of the day, there will be a way to play the games way after steam goes away. Like i said, there are already ways now.

 

Oh the irony

One time expense my arse. Such statement reeks of ignorance. There are countless fees and expenses pertaining to it. You know nothing about the retail model.
DD was hailed as being CHEAPER than retail, no need for warehouses to store them, no need for cases and disks, no need to print manuals, covers, etc. You honestly believe bandwidth is more expensive than all that? LOL

 

I honestly don't know where I'd be without Steam. For me it's about as important as my web browser.