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[Purple Cheeto]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelthomsen/2015/05/12/a-more-robust-valve-is-evil-hypothesis/

Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s Minister of Finance who briefly worked at Valve in 2012 and 2013, described Steam as an “economist’s paradise,” something that was “much bigger than video games.”

The cost of participating in Valve’s digital economy is born almost entirely by those producing content for it, with only the promise of a larger theoretical market reach made possible through Valve’s centralization as incentive for this debt displaced to workers. Paradoxically, four of the five best-selling PC games of all time—Minecraft, World of Warcraft, Diablo III, StarCraft—are not available on Steam, so the fundamental argument Valve makes about the benefits of a centralized marketplace are questionable, or at the very least redundant of search and filter functions already provided by the searchable Internet.

Valve has located a communal practice that is by definition too broad, social, and experimental to fit within a consumer economy and forced it into a marketplace where the rules of profitable consumerism overwrite the visible landscape, flooding a pre-existing community with a consumerism that’s alien to it.

Evil is not an especially helpful concept for thinking about epochal social structures, but it’s worth noting that Newell introduced the term in the Reddit session, not his critic. It was Newell who retreated to hyperbolic rhetoric in order to make the criticism of the company’s equitability seem cartoonishly immature and unfounded.

It’s become a cliché to joke about the absence of a third episode to the Half-Life 2 games, but the reasons for its absence and the kinds of games Valve has made since the last episode was released in 2007 reveal a lot about the company, foreswearing the limits of single-player design for a vision of games as multiplayer services whose value are largely dependent on the energy and creative participation of players.

The last quote is something I've been saying about Valve for awhile, they're more interested in services and making money than they are on game development. I'm not saying this is evil or wrong or anything but the Valve of today is not the Valve of my youth.

 

[Compsiox]

I feel like I'm reading a conspiracy.

 

[Fisty]

They really found some alternative revenue streams in their titles, but to say they most likely won't be making a Half Life 3 is silly. Its a no-brainer for their VR push, they just arent in a rush (there's no need to be)

 

[CrunchyFrog]

lol mods beat me to it, but we really need to stop labeling Forbes contributor articles as legitimate Forbes articles.

 

[1st Course]

Contributor not Forbes.

Edit: already fixed.

 

[Chairmanchuck]

The last quote is something I've been saying about Valve for awhile, they're more interested in services and making money than they are on game development. I'm not saying this is evil or wrong or anything but the Valve of today is not the Valve of my youth.

Gabe said something like that himself IIRC. And actually if the games are good like Dota2 or TF2, then I do not see any problem.

I would want Valve to hire people just for SP content though.

 

[Arkage]

I'd bet the largest part of Valve's money making is taking cuts off of other people's work (hats@75%, games@30%, soon to be mods) and cosmetic items.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but Valve does love chasing the money while their customer infrastructure remains, for the most part, shit.

 

[Compsiox]

Gabe said something like that himself IIRC. And actually if the games are good like Dota2 or TF2, then I do not see any problem.

I would want Valve to hire people just for SP content though.

With their work structure that's not guaranteed to be a thing.

 

[Robot Pants]

I'd bet the largest part of Valve's money making is taking cuts off of other people's work (hats@75%, games@30%, soon to be mods) and cosmetic items.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but Valve does love chasing the money while their customer infrastructure remains, for the most part, shit.

It sucks that this is true.
I used to really love valve

 

[NotoriousPUG]

Even if they are are service orientated, I'm finding a lot of enjoyment out of both their new and old titles/services. I don't know that it's necessarily bad, it's just different.

 

[Suzushiiro]

Paradoxically, four of the five best-selling PC games of all time—Minecraft, World of Warcraft, Diablo III, StarCraft—are not available on Steam, so the fundamental argument Valve makes about the benefits of a centralized marketplace are questionable, or at the very least redundant of search and filter functions already provided by the searchable Internet.

Well, yeah- three of those games are made by Blizzard, who was arguably the biggest player in PC gaming before Valve was even a company. The fourth is Minecraft, which hit the big time back when the barrier to entry to Steam was much higher (and is arguably the main reason why the greenlight and early access systems exist- so the next Minecraft can be on Steam.)

The devs who primarily benefit from a centralized marketplace (well, aside from the dev running the marketplace) are ones who are too small for setting up their own storefront to be viable or companies who are big but don't give enough fucks about their PC ports to run their own storefront (Ubisoft, Activision, Squeenix, etc.) If you're a big company and the PC platform is a significant part if not the entirety of your business, you're better off just running your own storefront rather than giving that ~30% cut to someone else.

Blizzard and Mojang aren't going to lose any sales by not being on Steam. EA might lose a little, but not enough to care. To your average indie developer, on the other hand, being on Steam can be the difference between life and death for your company.

 

[Compsiox]

It sucks that this is true.
I used to really love valve

This person isn't an actual writer for forbes.

 

[Zia]

This person isn't an actual writer for forbes.

Forbes is paying the writer to write for Forbes, so...

 

[Krejlooc]

Forbes is paying the writer to write for Forbes, so...

wtf is contract work???

 

[Compsiox]

wtf is contract work???

Hey now tiger. Put them claws away.

 

[Zia]

wtf is contract work???

If people on GAF only posted articles written by staffers, you'd see half the links to Eurogamer, EDGE, none of the links to The New Yorker, etc. I'm not sure why Forbes always gets called out for this. Guessing because the pieces posted are particularly hyper-opinionated and in blog format, but it seems a weird exception that ignores the realities of publishing in 2015 (not getting on you specifically, Compsiox; it happens with every Forbes thread and the mods perpetuate it).

 

[Spider_Jerusalem]

Great job with the prompt title change, mods. This should be made in some sort of forum rule: Forbes.com isn't Forbes as we commonly intend it. It's just a network of random bloggers, so just stop starting topics with "Forbes:".

Going back to the topic, yeah as someone who loved the Valve of the past, I feel a little betrayed by their push towards services rather than story-driven games. And as a detractor of VR (I really don't like it, and I tried the Rift many times), I'll feel even more betrayed if they'll finally make HL3, but only exclusively for StamVR.

 

[Spider_Jerusalem]

Forbes is paying the writer to write for Forbes, so...

Not all. Just the ones with more posts and community engagement: "For paid contributors, the arrangement requires a certain number of posts per month and a specified level of audience engagement through our commenting system."

They're just random bloggers, where Forbes acknowledges the value of the harder working and hits-generating ones, paying them some sort of sum.

More here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/lewisdv...r-contributor-payment-plan-yes-we-pay-people/


Edit: sorry for the double post, don't know why but I thought the forum would automatically join two subsequent posts by the same user.

 

[ashecitism]

The next HL is not going to be VR exclusive. Don't know why people are entertaining that idea. It would shut out many fans. Now will it have a big MP component and service things? Probably.

This person isn't an actual writer for forbes.

lol did you quote him by accident?

 

[Riposte]

What's the difference between this blogger's opinion and Brian Crecente saying Nintendo needs to pull the trigger on consoles? The latter sometimes kicks up press releases to the public?

 

[Dr.Acula]

That is incredibly flowery language.

 

[Heavy's Sandvich]

Personal opinion, before I become a flamegrilled whopper, Valve's output since The Orange Box hasn't been up to their own standards.

The Valve now wouldn't make Half-Life 2

 

[Fantastapotamus]

I was confused about the title, I thought it was supposed to be read as "A more robust Valve is evil - Hypothesis"

 

[ashecitism]

Title lacks the apostrophes. A more robust 'Valve is evil' hypothesis. The blogger also uses hyphens, but maybe that's not necessary.

 

[Tagyhag]

So even though we have seen files for both L4D3 and HL3, people still assume that Valve will never release a single player game again?

 

[Catshade]

So even though we have seen files for both L4D3 and HL3, people still assume that Valve will never release a single player game again?

I blame Kotaku for that.

 

[Nzyme32]

It’s become a cliché to joke about the absence of a third episode to the Half-Life 2 games, but the reasons for its absence and the kinds of games Valve has made since the last episode was released in 2007 reveal a lot about the company, foreswearing the limits of single-player design for a vision of games as multiplayer services whose value are largely dependent on the energy and creative participation of players.

I don't see the problem. This blog post undermines the fact that the creativity of others in a community is always there for games and communities they enjoy. The monetisation of that and the ability to earn, sustain it and make it a more valuable thing for those creators, is not being done else where yet. The success of it is tied to the interest and enthusiasm for the game. Even with the cut in valve's favour, it's debatable how valuable a hat should be vs the creation of the game and its continued work. Eventually competitors will come along with similar systems and compete for content creators with lower cuts. If you don't like the cut or the system, don't use it. The only way it works for valve is with the complicity of the creators and the willingness of users to engage in with it.

The games that have this are immensely popular in comparison due to having more depth and longevity as well as room to evolve, in part due to such sustainable income but obviously also will hold interest due to profitability. While obviously people want single player games, they are finite and short lived. I'd bet a future HL will still be narrative driven but also have such systems and monetisation to keep it going.

 

[Compsiox]

lol did you quote him by accident?

I believe he edited it cause it used to say if it was true.

 

[ashecitism]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2015/05/14/is-valve-evil/

oh god lol

 

[EmSeta]

An Interesting take on the situation. I recommend at least reading the whole thing.

 

[Brakke]

So even though we have seen files for both L4D3 and HL3, people still assume that Valve will never release a single player game again?

L4D3 wouldn't be a single player game though...