News Valve looking to ditch Greenlight

Valve is planning to drop community game voting system Greenlight.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2014/01/16/valve-looking-to-ditch-greenlight/1

 

And still nobody sees the complete control and absolute domination of all gaming on the PC by a single company as a problem?

 

How exactly do they have 'complete control' over PC gaming? Steam's digital distribution is not the only way to get games. I bought my copy of 'Skyrim - Legendary Edition' on Amazon for less than it was on Steam and I received an actual disc and everything. Ok, so I concede that it installs Steam but so what? I don't need to use Steam's online features to play the game.

 

^This^
While Steam maybe the dominate digital distribution platform on the PC they are a long way from complete control of all gaming on the PC. In fact due to the open nature of the PC it would be all but impossible to exercise complete control over it.

EDIT: More OT i never did like greenlight my self, i voted on some games when it was first introduced but i soon lost interest in voting.

 

If Valve turns the servers off (or someone turns them off for them)....your retail copy won't work, and that disc you've got will be worth nothing. That's the problem.

 

The same could also be said about Origin and UPlay.

 

The same IS being said about Origin and UPlay...just not yet, in this thread, because it's a post about Valve.

 

And that is Valves fault how exactly ? Its the developer or publisher of the game that makes those decisions, Steam is just a distribution platform.

 

Wow...argumentative for the sake of being argumentative!

Nobody is saying it's Valve's "fault". The statement in question was "And still nobody sees the complete control and absolute domination of all gaming on the PC by a single company as a problem?"

Valve will do, of course, exactly whatever they can do to dominate the marketplace - and what a superb job of it they've done! Full credit to them.

 

Someone on reddit asked steam support what would happen if Steam was to shut down. The response was "measures are in place to ensure users still have access to their games.

Link to screenshot.

http://i.imgur.com/4sa1Ln6.jpg

 

Not argumentative, just correcting the misinformed.

And the answer to the statement in question of "And still nobody sees the complete control and absolute domination of all gaming on the PC by a single company as a problem?" has already been shown not to be correct and all but impossible for any company to achieve, for all the reasons given in previous posts.

Its not a matter of one single or any other company having complete control, its about company's like Activision withdrawing titles from digital stores, or even worse when Square Enix decided to shutdown its servers and remove Order Of War: Challenge from customers library.
If a company isn't going to support a game anymore they should issue a patch to remove any online DRM checking, something that a digital distribution platform cant do.

 

I'm a little glad that they've decided to turn away from the public voting Greenlight system, some of the games getting approved were questionable.
It's a shame for some of the good projects on the waiting list, hopefully in Valve's new 'evolution' they will have worked out some more suitable system for approving new projects.


On the subject of the risk of Valve shutting down the servers.
It's always a very real risk that it could happen (as said the same can happen to Origin, UPlay, GMG, GOG and the others out there) but Valve is the largest so has the biggest potential to cause any real damage.
As scott_chegg said, the team have stated that they have a contingency plan in place if for any reason the servers would go offline.

I have a little back-up of my own in place (as you never know if Valve's other arrangements won't work, or they could change their stance on the matter), which is simply keeping a written directory of all my games with the details of the developers & publishers... so if anything went wrong with Valve's plans, there'd be the option of contacting them to see if they can provide any alternate solutions.

 

XXAOSICXX - Good points well made

 

Complete control/domination? I think that's going a bit far. There are still plenty of other competing platforms out there, and the PC is still the most open gaming platform around - look at Star Citizen, a game that hasn't made it anywhere near Steam and has already made $36 million over a year before it's due to be released.

 

As long as other companies like EA, MS, and Ubisoft have something to say about it, Steam will never take complete control. But honestly, I don't see it as a big deal. Steam's community and sales are generally better than what you get on consoles, so far Valve doesn't look anywhere near as greedy as most of their competitors (for various reasons), and on PC you're allowed to boycott a company and get away with it.

While I would fear the consequences of a "monopolizing" DRM for the PC platform, I would much rather have 1 DRM to play all my games than install a new one for every other game I own. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem all publishers are willing to let Steam take care of everything, but Steam has reduced the amount of 3rd party software we were otherwise forced to install.

 

Pc games have had no resale value for at least a decade due to the nature of online serial keys even before valve launched its steam store.

Most even amazon brought games all require some activation online or on uplay steam origin. Microsoft even had a activation thing at one point for games.

I can't name a game I've brought and played that would actually make the disk it came on have some value.

Look at mmos people have paid blizzard at least £1000 if you played since launch of wow for example.

If steam did close tommorow 90% of most peoples steam lists would still function as they are not reliant on the steam servers for backbones of there games.

For example borderlands 2, football manager any version. Sins of up solar empire, PA, list goes on and on really

Only valves own games require steam to function. The rest use it for activation purposes but once activated all the above will work in offline mode.

 

Until your hard drives dies, or you buy a new pc, and want to put install/activate those games again...and you can't download the Steam client...goodbye 200+ games from my library.

 

Until pigs fly, or we get struck by a meteor. Valve have already said that if Steam closed they would remove the need for online checking every 30 odd days. Its not like you cant backup your games or wouldn't be able to DL a copy of Steam, or remove the need for online checks your self.

Like it or not physical media is quickly becoming a thing of the past, and its about time to.

 

Oh...well so long as they said they'd do that I'm sure they will! :/

 

Sorry i just don't get what you are driving at, is it that you think a digital distribution platform can work without having to activate the software online ? or that you think publishers should just take your word for it that you are not using an illegal copy ?

Maybe you can come up with a better way of distributing software that doesn't involve wasting valuable natural resources ? And as i have said previously even if Valve go back on their word its not like it matters, or do you think people wouldn't be able to remove the online checks from software no longer being developed ?