Steam arguments, Garry'sMod sales figures

[Mess]

In a recent interview with MaximumPC, the head of Gearbox Randy Pitchford has spoken out against Valve, and Steam in particular. He argues that a digital distribution service cannot be run by a games developer without an inherent conflict of interest, and that Valve exploit the smaller developer;

Steam isn't the answer. Steam helps us as customers, but it's also a money grab, and Valve is exploiting a lot of people in a way that's not totally fair...Valve is taking a larger share than it should for the service it's providing. It's exploiting a lot of small guys. For us big guys, we're going to sell the units and it will be fine.

Since this outburst, Garry (of Garry'sMod fame) has responded on his blog arguing for Valve and for Steam. He claims that whilst Valve take perhaps a larger commission than they should, they offer the best service and independent developers can do very well out of publishing through Steam;

Should Steam get competition? Yeah sure competition is always good, but I can’t imagine anything will ever overtake Steam now. Steam is doing everything right, there’s no need for an alternative... 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.

Garry has even gone so far to release sales figures for Garry'sMod to back up his points, in a debate that's sure to escalate in the coming days.

[zombie@computer]

GEARBOX FTW! > Valve ftl!

Sorry for the rant below, but it took soo long to type i didnt want to delete it.
I agree with both sides in the post above. Steam offers lot of functionality (dunno about the dev site), for a price thats way to high. Read the rant below if you want to find out why i find it WAY to high.

RANT:
If i take a look at the steam pricing (especially on the european main land) steam games are usually overpriced ($=€, wtf). For the normal steam price i can get a boxed version in a store as well. Why bother with steam if i can get the real deal for the same price without the need for another "hey i see you got some useless cpu cycles and empty hdd space lets fill it up with some service you never gonna use but are forced to use because you cant play your games without it"-piece of shit software.

Im not sure how its like for the latest generation of games, but i can remember pirated games having higher fps and far faster loading times than their steambased counterparts, simply because of the removal of steam. Im not saying 'go pirate' or something, but it does bring up an interesting point: WHY do we need this crap? Some people like to IM in their games, ok, but i dont. Why do i have steam friends crap? For IM i have MSN. Some people like to have the latest updates every friggin second, i just want to play the games and be done with it. Why do i need constant steam updates? (which, when i disable them, cause steam to reenable them at the oddest times (why does steam think its more important than uTorrent in bandwitdh allocation?) or to crash certain things (odd how sourcesdk can start crashing and bugging if i dont update it... One would say that a winning team can never loose if you dont change it). Why cant i disable certain steam options i never, ever, gonna use? To me, the largest part of steam is somewhere between the google toolbar every friggin IE plugin tries to install and a tracking cookie in terms of usefullness... Dare i say steam is bloatware? Yes, to me it is. I need a steam light. Just a single dll that does the filesystem, and a single exe that lists games and updates them when i tell it to. Is that too much to ask?

Does anyone here remember hl modding before steam? you just installed worldcraft, and everything worked. If you wanted some options the newer version has, you downloaded that one. If that crashed for you, you just simply reinstalled the previous version and everyone was happy. Now we are stuck with a system that seems eager to break all functionality in every update, not even counting the fact that it takes sourcesdk allmost a minute to set up some paths and stuff. The equivalent of what a batch file can do in mere milliseconds.

Yes, i hate steam. Those that dont know that of me yet, do so now. So, again, i fail to see why i should pay so freakin much for it. Im sure some people simply love its functionality and are happy to pay for it, but i dont. If a game i want is 'steam-only', no matter how cheap, ill get my version from the Swedes. Steampublishers, burn. Burn in hell.

[Blink]

You make some good points but I have disagree with the below:

Does anyone here remember hl modding before steam? you just installed worldcraft, and everything worked.

Before people started creating tutorials, setting up WC for HL was like a black art of config settings and other options. I do like how you literally choose your game in Steam and load WC and you're set. Things like that have helped people get involved in editing without the stress of Hammer options.

[BaRRaKID]

You make some good points but I have disagree with the below:

Does anyone here remember hl modding before steam? you just installed worldcraft, and everything worked.

Before people started creating tutorials, setting up WC for HL was like a black art of config settings and other options. I do like how you literally choose your game in Steam and load WC and you're set. Things like that have helped people get involved in editing without the stress of Hammer options.

Urgh, I get sick just from thinking about it. I remember writing a tut about how to configure WC for cs-map.orgs and having to spend a couple of hours trying to remember why the hell had I set option x like that. I also remember many times when I had to read my own tutorial whenever i had to reinstall WC.

About Steam, I disagree with z@c, except for the prices of the games. Considering it's just a digital copy, most of them are indeed too expensive. On the other hand it might be possible that the game publishers are the ones who establish the price, and not Steam/Valve, which is plausible considering Valve games are cheaper on Steam than on physical stores.

About Gearbox, they can go suck cocks in hell. It's not like Valve is forcing anyone to sell their games on Steam, in fact Steam started as a Valve only platform, and later allowed other studios to publish their games using it because they had shown interest in the concept. It was the studios that wanted their games on Steam, not Valve. If the studios like Steam, and are having success selling games trough it, what's the problem that it's owned by Valve?
I also would like to know how much Valve earns from each copy that it's sold trough Steam, comparing to how much regular distributors get for GearBox to be so outraged with Valve.

[stoopdapoop]

Hmm, Zombie you got me thinking, is it really that bloated? It uses like 60 megs of ram, which seems wayyy too much for a list of games, but beyond that is there any concrete evidence that it lowers your FPS and lengthens load times considerably?

[Dionysos]

...

I also would like to know how much Valve earns from each copy that it's sold trough Steam, comparing to how much regular distributors get for GearBox to be so outraged with Valve.

THAT I'd really like to know. To me it seems Valve took their opportunity to monopolize a certain part of the marked, digital distribution. It was a smart move, but I find myself agreeing with most of what zombie has said. We *do* lose options buying and running games through steam, more options than we gain through steam. Auto-update is nifty, but that's something any game could integrate itself. The prices are too high, because people are used to the prices of material copies of the games. We don't have the option to play it without steam, and we have to validate it first.

We don't even get a steam light, which now that I've thought about it, is a little outrage in itself; at least for a service that is the umbrella for a lot of the games you have. I guess it's the same draw back you always get when you streamline something into the same "infrastructure"; you lose independence and choice.

I'm not saying Valve isn't smart, I'm certain they know just what they're doing. I just don't think it's all beneficial for the customer.

[mat_de_b]

Valve are able to take a large cut because compared to normal retail it probably still works out around the same

Steam: Bandwidth + Valve Tax
Retail: Transport + CD + Case + lots of organisation

The ability to switch games between computers with only a login is very useful and the ability to run without a CD saves alot of problems, but i do agree that the overall price is too high, the idea is that it is meant to be cheaper and easier. Like in the mega sale a while back where old games were going for about £2. Bioshock was going for something like £4, that would never be plausible with normal retail and it shows the potential of the distribution service, the stats for Garry's mod also show that there are still a consitent amount of purchases over a long period which is also another benefit over retail. I think the market for very cheap slightly older games (TK Max style) has not been capitalised, crappy games that are forgotten in a week would have a good chance of securing extra money online if they sold for a £5...

[The Wanderer]

Is it just me or does this sound like childish banter by gearbox because valve made a system which they are using.
Sounds more like a jealous outcry and a weak attack at Valve than anything else imo.

I mean, i've read from several small developers they adore steam due to it being so easy and cheap for a small company to get their games to the masses everywhere on the globe.

Ofcourse perhaps Valve is taking more than what gearbox thinks they should be paying, but does it outweigh the needed organisation, costs and advertisements for a global retail release for a small company? I think not...

[srredfire]

Steam I think is a win/lose situation in all aspects. Like any major, well, anything, there's going to be very heavy pros and cons.

Distribution wise, Steam has done a lot for itself. When Steam first started up it was pretty exclusive to Valve, but if you look at it all, it's pretty damn huge. There is a DAMN lot of games on it, including Indie ones. I'm thinking maybe sure Valve may take a bigger portion than what the should, but in all honesty in a sense, they're doing a lot of good. For instance, just go in the Indie genre on Steam, and look at some of the games. Without Steam, these products would have NO chance in the market, and would just be on some random domain floating in the space of the internet, with a Paypal button pleading you to buy it.

Now these games have their own page, a nice setup, on a respectable and well known platform. Valve has done that for Indie devs and pretty much given them the chance to get into the market a lot easier.

As for Garry, he's a different spectrum. He pretty much got the acclaimed mod of the century mostly, so his sales are just a given. If I recall correctly people were estimating he got over 80k in cash. In a week. Eighty fucking thousand dollars in one week.

He's hardly suffering, so I doubt his argument, whilst plenty valid is too valuable, since he's been independently extremely successful as a developer.

I'm more curious as to how the really small Indie devs are doing, say, like, the guy who made "Blueberry Garden" and the likes. Whateverz.

[stoopdapoop]

it's funny you ask srred.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i ... tory=25595

So, is Valve exploiting independent developers? In short: absolutely not. Without pulling any punches, I can say with certainty that if it weren't for Steam, there would be no Tripwire Interactive right now.

Sounds like the small developers really love steam.

[srredfire]

it's funny you ask srred.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i ... tory=25595

So, is Valve exploiting independent developers? In short: absolutely not. Without pulling any punches, I can say with certainty that if it weren't for Steam, there would be no Tripwire Interactive right now.

Sounds like the small developers really love steam.

Yay!

[infernox3470]

The issue I have with Steam is the fact you don't actually own any of the games you buy through the service. You own a license for the game but Valve can delete your account if they want and you can't do anything about it.

Tbh, Steam is nearing the point of a monopoly. Impulse's game selection is hardly competitive, Direct2Drive is decent but their prices copy Steam more often than not: there's no real competition. Their epic $5 sale these past few weeks has been amazing (Picked up a few games myself) but without an external client to serve as a HUB (download manager doesn't count) it can be a pain to login and download all of the games I purchased off there. The EA store is a bit of a joke, the EADM is a horrible piece of software and downloading + Installing takes even longer than it should because it has to decrypt the game files.

I've had a theory for a while now that Valve puts their own games on the Top sellers list intentionally. They don't release actual sales numbers for public viewing and whenever they release a game it remains consistently in the top 10 sellers. Does anyone really believe that Counterstrike is still selling at top 10 levels? At some points there's been 6 valve games in the top 10 (usually when there's no sales going on) including the original CS and CSS both of which I highly doubt are selling better than some of the current AAA titles or even the AA titles.

It's a closed system and it has a monopoly on digital distribution, there's so much potential for abuse in the system and the service is very restrictive. There's plenty of games on Steam that cost significantly more than their retail counterparts (Battleforge comes to mind) and Steam doesn't have any quality control. Most recently they put up the old Jedi Knight games, Mysteries of a Sith even asked me to input the CD when I launched the game. For some games they also take a notoriously long time to implement patches. When the Witcher 1.5 patch came out it took them almost 2 weeks to finally get it up on Steam.

They're getting big enough that they're going to start abusing their customers because they have a large enough user-base that alienating a few hundred people won't hurt them too much. We can already see this with the ridiculous Euro pricing.

[stoopdapoop]

The issue I have with Steam is the fact you don't actually own any of the games you buy through the service. You own a license for the game but Valve can delete your account if they want and you can't do anything about it.

About that, you never ever own any of the software you buy, you only have a license. If you've ever read the EULA when installing something it lets you know what your limitations are.

[no00dylan]

Also, Valve has stated if for any reason they have to close their doors, the games you buy/bought on steam will be available to you.

Just thought I'd add a little. heh.

[RobQ]

Also, Valve has stated if for any reason they have to close their doors, the games you buy/bought on steam will be available to you.

Is it in writing so the next owners of Valve have to stick to it? And as I said somewhere else before, if Valve starts going down the drain and has to sell out, the last thing they will be doing is paying someone to release all those games. If they were serious the unlock key would already be in escrow with a 3rd party.

I hated steam when I bought HL2. Now I don't care. It's been innocuous enough that I've just let it slide. I have bigger problems to worry about. The advantage of not keeping media around, and having the games on all my computers... it's just too convenient.