As someone who enjoyed Valve's SP games (I enjoyed TF2 as well before it went F2P) I wasn't saying that Valve are no longer making games rather that I don't rate very highly the games they have made.
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Valve is the gaming industry's one true superhero
- Thread starter MutonCommander
- Start date
As someone who enjoyed Valve's SP games (I enjoyed TF2 as well before it went F2P) I wasn't saying that Valve are no longer making games rather that I don't rate very highly the games they have made.
Whatever makes you feel better. Here's hoping you were noticed and end up with an extra pack of trading cards for all your efforts today.
Canis lupus
Member
OP is saying they are influential outside PC gaming, I'm saying I've noticed very little of that. All the points in the post pertain to PC.
Getting steam credit is a fair enough reason to like them on a personal level but when calling them heroes of gaming I think it's fair to decry trading cards as many see the way it makes money as exploitative and a cancer in the gaming industry, just look at the android market if you want to see similar methods in action. Personally I think steam would be better off without them but I can understand why you support them; it gets you cheaper games.
Red Mage
Member
Valve successfully made a form of DRM popular and well-loved so I guess it takes a hero to do that. Or a villain.
Yep. The amount of hero-worship Valve gets is kind of disturbing. Almost cult-like.
MrCunningham
Member
No, I never suggested that GOG has DRM. You made a comment that there are some DRM-free games on Steam that can run independently from the Steam client but you would still be required to log into Steam to download the game. I was just commenting that you would have to log into a GOG account to download the game executable files as well. That's really about it.
Though I guess through Steam, you would have to launch the game at least once to finalize it, before the game does become a DRM-free executable.
Valve getting 5% and the devs getting 10% out a of 0.10$ is cancerous? I'm sorry but steam cards really are cheap (with a few exceptions). Out of all those I have just from playing I don't even have a card going over 0.20$
Thats what? 0.01$ money for Valve if you use the market?
I'm pretty much in love with Valve. I love some of their games, love Steam and love its company work philosophy. I mean, they made some shit like the greenlight debacle, crap like ricochet and all that, but most of the stuff they introduced into the industry became a standard, a model or the way to go. And most of the time showing respect for the user as the main flag.
Also Gabe a pretty amazing guy. Every time he said something about the future, it became truth in 4 - 6 years. Stuff like the crowdfunding is the first that comes to mind.
Really believe that Valve makes the industry a far better place, looking at EA and Koticks or stuff like that.
Also Gabe a pretty amazing guy. Every time he said something about the future, it became truth in 4 - 6 years. Stuff like the crowdfunding is the first that comes to mind.
Really believe that Valve makes the industry a far better place, looking at EA and Koticks or stuff like that.
-tetsuo-
Unlimited Capacity
I dunno Opiate. They released 4 retail console games last gen. All sold very well and were basically met with universal praise.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
If so, their superpower is clairvoyance.
Riposte
Member
It's best not to think of any one as superheroes. If you evangelize any company, you are intellectually limited on the topic of games (among other things). I praise Valve - mainly for their business sense and power over PC enthusiast space rather than their game making ability (with the former negatively affecting that latter in some cases) - but that's as far as it goes or should ever go.
Also do people really see The Orange Box as one game? Even in retrospect?
Also do people really see The Orange Box as one game? Even in retrospect?
yiepekaiyei
Banned
maybe valve didn't do much for console games because the "the only store available is ours" bullshit? Cmon people, we're talking about closed platforms.
And to drm posters: there's a bright side to this case. In the past, we're stuck with tages, securoms and GFWL. Do you want to go back at that? Or do you want a service that actually offers something in return? Do you prefer multiplayer games locked behind paywalls? What is online pass other than bad DRM for consoles that offer nothing in return? Maybe you could buy a game for ps3 on green man gaming with their on separate sales and still register through...oh wait, you can't!
Valve saved pc gaming, get it into your head! I know that for you is cool to hate the popular, but can we try to think with our heads here?
And to drm posters: there's a bright side to this case. In the past, we're stuck with tages, securoms and GFWL. Do you want to go back at that? Or do you want a service that actually offers something in return? Do you prefer multiplayer games locked behind paywalls? What is online pass other than bad DRM for consoles that offer nothing in return? Maybe you could buy a game for ps3 on green man gaming with their on separate sales and still register through...oh wait, you can't!
Valve saved pc gaming, get it into your head! I know that for you is cool to hate the popular, but can we try to think with our heads here?
Fuz
Banned
Fuz
Banned
You don't have to download, install and run a GOG client.
CDPR lost a ton of trust from me when they pulled their BS we are shutting down stunt a few years back.
Disaster Nebraska
Banned
The Gaben-worship was cute back in 2007-2010 when a ton of former console players began looking up "how 2 build awsum PC" guides and then felt like they'd become The Master Race.
But nowadays? It's annoying.
Valve is okay. Show me an original game made by Valve in the last 8 years, please. Made by them. Not bought by them. Not based on a mod. Made by them. The only one I can think of is Half-Life 2 + Episodes. What frustrates me is how Steam has a chokehold on the PC market (yeah yeah there are other options...), going completely against the whole purpose of PC gaming.
But nowadays? It's annoying.
Valve is okay. Show me an original game made by Valve in the last 8 years, please. Made by them. Not bought by them. Not based on a mod. Made by them. The only one I can think of is Half-Life 2 + Episodes. What frustrates me is how Steam has a chokehold on the PC market (yeah yeah there are other options...), going completely against the whole purpose of PC gaming.
You will find very hard to name a game not "based" on another, in fact whole gaming genres work that way. Now, disregarding a game like Portal 1 and 2 just because this, is stupid, not to mention TF2, Dota 2 and CS:GO are awesome as they are because of Valve unparalleled support which keep them fresh and innovative.
The 'they bought them' argument is deeply flawed, when someone says 'Valve' did something, or any other company, what are they really saying? Valve is the current staff, but we still credit them for games by people who left. Logically the conclusion is that 'Valve' is all the current staff, and all the previous ones. Someone could say "Valve didn't make Counter-Strike", but the people who did moved to Valve when the game did, they became part of the nebulous term 'Valve'.
SneakyStephan
Banned
Decent? haha wow
portal1-2, l4d and dota2 all qualify for game of the decade and hl2 was a technical marvel when it was first shown , YEARS ahead of anything else , even with the 2 year delay due to the alpha being leaked it was still one of the 3 most impressive games of the time (alongside far cry and doom 3 )
It's especially ridiculous when people write off Portal, which was just a mechanic Valve wanted to elaborate on. I guess Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 don't count because the previous entries in each series "weren't made by Valve." Dota 2, as well. Valve bought IceFrog. Or something.
I love Valve. Team Fortress 2 is my favorite and most played videogame of all time and I'm looking forward to the upcoming content updates End of the Line and the Moonbase update just as much as I am any other full game release.
Steam is great, I buy all my PC games through Steam these days since I want my library all in one place, plus all of my friends are on Steam and it has a lot of great features.
I also enjoy the Half Life series, Portal series and L4D series and look forward to future games. I'm not a DOTA2 fan but I really have no interest in MOBAs in general, it's not just DOTA2.
Steam is great, I buy all my PC games through Steam these days since I want my library all in one place, plus all of my friends are on Steam and it has a lot of great features.
I also enjoy the Half Life series, Portal series and L4D series and look forward to future games. I'm not a DOTA2 fan but I really have no interest in MOBAs in general, it's not just DOTA2.
Disaster Nebraska
Banned
Tell ya what. I'd be happy to admit it's flawed if we can also say that 'Valve is so creative and contributes so much to the industry' is flawed. Microsoft gets hammered for buying up 3rd party content. It's not a 1-to-1 comparison, but it does apply here to Valve.
Valve is a corporation that runs a store. Valve today is not the same Valve that made Half Life 1 and 2. If they were, we'd have HL3 by now.
Buying a game is different than buying a team, but the team I would agree with, if 343 bought CertainAffinity for example.
Valve said it would take them eight to ten years to make a Half-Life 3, I imagine they'll be on schedule, but we'll have to wait and see on that.
that1dude24
Member
Valve is a superhero all right.
this king, however, is content to let time take us
I would much rather have Steam than what we had back in 2003 when the PC gaming industry was in shambles.
I laughed at this.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
To call a for-money corporation a superhero that saves everyone is really a surprising new level of fanboyism, even on GAF.
The sad part is that what the OP states is actually true.
Louis Cyphre
Banned
I think it's pretty safe to say Valve was one of the main contributors for the resurgence in PC gaming.
Fornaximus
Member
I've soured on them a bit. Steam needs a lot of work, and it seems like they're too busy with DOTA 2 and their console to care. Also, their support is possibly the worst in the entire industry. EA runs circles around them in the support department. EA.
J'aime Fils-Aime
Neo Member
It's just the whole Nintendo/Sega wars all over again as it always is, but now it's a royal rumble: Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft/Valve.
ElectricKaibutsu
Member
Steam can be really finicky sometimes. I tried to play Portal 2 co op with a friend the other day and we had a ton of problems with disconnects. Other people in this thread seem to agree with their reliability.
But, Steam is just so convenient that I probably wouldn't be as into PC gaming as I am now if it weren't for it. I love how I can buy games that can be activated on Steam from a huge number of different retailers. That competition is great for the consumer. It feels like a walled garden without the wall.
But, Steam is just so convenient that I probably wouldn't be as into PC gaming as I am now if it weren't for it. I love how I can buy games that can be activated on Steam from a huge number of different retailers. That competition is great for the consumer. It feels like a walled garden without the wall.
They're a great studio, but I fear the damage they could do if leadership passed to less capable hands.
Yup, on a fair chunk of those sales Valve are essentially double-dipping (two cuts on one item sale).
Angry Fork
Member
Valve is proof a dictatorship of the proletariat can function effectively for the betterment of everyone.
I think a very simple litmus test of the veracity of Valve's image as pro-gamer pro-game developer is whether or not they go public or sell out. They could do petty things that'd increase their bottom line while annoying players/developers, but all of that it pales in comparison to going public. Go public and everybody with any decent cut in the company becomes an overnight billionaire. That's something that's not true of smaller companies.
The great thing about the PC market now is that there seems to be a lot of companies that are in it for the gamers and games as opposed to just money. If Steam for some reason did decide to go public or sell out then a company like GoG, for example, has the basic infrastructure setup to become Steam 2.0. They've already developed a basic client that users are free to use, or not, as they see fit.
Lastly I'd also add that Valve sees the future of gaming far differently from most. They've stated things like increasing democratization of gaming will blur the lines between consumer/developer/content producer ; they also see linux as the future of gaming. The former seemed unlikely not too long ago - they've turned it into a reality. Some people may not know that some content creators for games in the Steam workshop are earning upwards of $500,000 a year. Enabling Linux as a practical and approachable gaming platform would change not only gaming but the entire PC landscape. That sort of revolutionary change is not going to happen if Valve starts shitting on people just to make a little bit of extra money so Gabe can add a few more digits to his bank account.
The people complaining "they haven't even released Half Life 3" may not realize how much Valve is working to change things behind the scenes while working on a multitude of different projects - all with a company of some odd 300 total.
It sounds like you're confusing/conflating what Valve is doing with something like what Blizzard did and is doing. Blizzard saw there was a lively 3rd party market for in-game items and characters so they started enabling people to sell stuff through them while taking a cut in Diablo 3, or now Blizzard completely cutting players out of the equation and they themselves selling max level characters in World of Warcraft.
The stuff being sold on Steam isn't just in game items per se, but user generated content. They are enabling people to create random one-off mods ranging from stuff like simple texture changes to entirely new areas and then monetize those creations based on top of the already somewhat unprecedented feature of enabling seamless widespread distribution use generated content. Valve could take 100% of the profit for these creations and people would still put stuff out for fun or some pipe dream valuation of "getting their name out there." Instead they allow content creators to actually earn a living creating content which is just really cool and in Valve's terms a democratization of the game creation process.
Valve successfully made a form of DRM popular and well-loved so I guess it takes a hero to do that. Or a villain.
They also drastically lowered the cost of a game license. Cost / Benefit tends to be in the consumers favor there, which is why consumers bought in. I see value in a $5 license, not a $60 one though. For $60 I better own it, with everything that comes with ownership.
This is also what makes Valve drastically different than MSFT's plan, no matter how much they wanted to brush it off as the same.
ZombiePlatypus
Member
Yeah, at the end of the day, they're just pushing DRM so I don't ever see myself fully jumping onto the Valve wagon. Portal games are amazing though.
It's definitely the lesser of...well all the various evils out there. As a consumer though, I just reject the idea of a "license" as opposed to ownership. Also, MSFT's plan was/is(?) a massive, heaping load of bullcrap. Cannot be said enough.
I'm kind of conflicted on this point. Ideally I'd love to own my games on Steam and be able to trade or sell them to other users. On the other hand I love that steam enables developers to continue offering and supporting their game for years. A recent example is I purchased Galactic Civilizations 2 on Steam for $20. It was published in 2006. If people owned the games they purchased there then I likely could have obtained the game for basically free with none of it going to the developer. Instead the developer of that game just earned $14+ off me for a game they made about a decade ago and I think that's a great thing. This is all just icing on top of the fundamental technical issues involved in ensuring if somebody trades a game that they don't still have playable copies of it.
Meanwhile, Counter Strike barely ever seems to work. People get banned from matchmaking because they're servers are worse than 2K's
and they put the game up for 75% off after every single banwave. They make no attempts to fix the cheating, so the next best option is to profit from it.
Maybe because I don't play DOTA or TF I don't think of Valve as gods. My experience has been not even being able to buy games because of server issues, not being able to sell stuff on the marketplace because the daily issues and CS being playable once a week it seems.
and they put the game up for 75% off after every single banwave. They make no attempts to fix the cheating, so the next best option is to profit from it.
Maybe because I don't play DOTA or TF I don't think of Valve as gods. My experience has been not even being able to buy games because of server issues, not being able to sell stuff on the marketplace because the daily issues and CS being playable once a week it seems.