http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0228/technology-gabe-newell-videogames-valve-online-mayhem.html

Some interesting tidbits in here:

The only reason Vavle got it's biggest year ever is because companies like Bethesda with New Vegas and 2K with Civ V, you had no choice but to go through Steam. So alot of people but through Steam. I bet if you didn't need to be forced to have Steam, Vavle wouldn't have gotten alot of their sales.

How ironic alot of them got their carrers started from making mods, but Steam games are so hard to mod, if not impossible to mod. Valve is more profitabvle than Google and Apple? That is a joke. For PC users, they are Forced to use Steam, so you have no choice now really. Let's see if they would have had a 200% increas if Steam wasn't forced apon us. Yes they would still do good, but not that Good.

I don't see it as a retail killer until they actually charge lower prices than a boxed copy for the games. The only reasonmy library grew so big is due to sales. I don't really see why the prices should stay the same since there is a difference in cost due to the packaging and extras n the box plus shipping.

I will say though I have gotten really used to Steam and will keep using it at least for now, and I will still purchase the sale games. But I have to agree with Davor, of course their growth will be huge when big name games force the users to use it.

I am Heavy Weapons Gabe... and THIS is my weapon. It weights 150 kg and uses 200$ custom game delayers, which delay 10,000 games per minute. It costs 400,000$ to fire this weapon... for twelve seconds.

The Source engine is well-documented and quite usable. There are a huge number of Source mods, with quality ranging from great to crap. It might be different than modding Bethesda's games, but that doesn't mean it's difficult to mod.


Per Employee, not overall. Which appears to be a fact.

Source engine games are incredibly easy to mod, even if you can't mod non-Valve games.

Besides, what the [censored] is everyone's problem with Steam? It's a good service.

If people were forced onto Steam and then bought things, how is that a bad thing? Obviously that means they like the possibilities Steam offer.

Yeah, because Source Engine is unmoddable, Civ 5 was so much more restricted when it comes to modding and Steam didn't adapt their exe to work with OBSE. Oh wait...

Per employee, again

Games that come with developer tools are as easy to mod in the Steam version than it is in the retail version. When third-party tools are developed by the community to enhance the modibility, Steam techs will help them work on the Steam version. Like it happened with Oblivion Script Extender.

In game companies today, if you want a job in level design or game design, you need to have done modding before. And this is awesome.

I love Valve, I love Steam and Gabe Newell is one of my favorite guys from the industry.

Ditto. My three favourite companies are Bethesda, BioWare and Valve.

Obviously the main reason that they're getting profits is because Gaming Companies are so scared of Piracy that they force you to use Steam in order to install a game which is (censored) stupid. :swear: :swear: :swear: :swear: :swear:

We're forced to use it in a my-way-or-the-highway fashion, the offline mode is a joke and most non-sale games are overpriced (in my region).
As it stands I grudgingly use it for games where I'm forced to use it and happily take advantage of the sales. But until these issues are dealt with I'll definitely dislike the nature of Steam more than I enjoy what convenience it offers.

Love the overlay, though. I'll admit that.

Hahaahahaha, I can see him doing this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im6yRpQrsaY&feature=related

You'd think that with the huge growth of his company, he'd be able to buy himself and treadmill or something.

Wow. That was a bit unneeded, don't you think. He's one of the nicest guys in the industry.

I dunno. Id like to see how it turns out. Hopefully it will be worth the weight.

Also, have you seen what he has said about he PS3, and now the Xbox?

...Wait, they're still working on Half-Life? Could've fooled me! (...Okay, back to sitting in a corner and twitching from Episode 3 deprivation. Page me when Black Mesa comes out.)




... :facepalm:

Nothing stops piracy. It's just an easy platform for distribution and game updates.


No, what?

I actually like Steam, and use it frequently when I am not doing work or playing on my xbox.

What did he say about the PS3 and the Xbox?

U mad?

Well originally, he said "the PS3 is a waste of time, total disaster and has no games"
http://www.1up.com/news/gabe-newell-ps3-total-disaster

And now he's saying "Xbox live svcks, etc"
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2010/09/09/gabe-newell-trashes-xbox-live.aspx
Granted, he does have a right to trash Xbox live for all the hurdles people have to go through to release a patch for their game (just look at Monday Night Combat, for a recent example).
And midway through typing this, I lost my train of thought. Crap.

Gabe's problem with the PS3 was the hardware architecture being so different from PC, Mac and Xbox which makes development more difficult. This is a common complaint among all third party developers. They seem to have found a solution though, along with Sony letting them run Steamworks through PSN, while Microsoft still controls XBL to an obsessive degree.

I fail to see how anyone could have a legitimate issue with Steam. I personally find it to be an amazing service. I can download and install games associated with my account on any computer I happen to be at. On slower connections it takes a long, long time, but it's easier than carrying discs with me everywhere I go. My games are automatically updated without my having to search the web for a working download link, or sitting in line at a file site for an hour because I'm not a registered user, and then, my download speed is capped to 150kb/s. Exaggeration, perhaps, but it makes my point. And Steam offers incredible deals on games, and instead of going out, driving all the way to the store, sifting through a whole bunch of games to find the one copy of the game I want, and all that other hassle ...I can buy it right here, at home, on Steam, without having to get out of my pajamas, and while I go shower and have breakfast my game downloads. And by the time I'm back at the computer, I'm ready to play it. Sure, it's nice to have a box, it's nice to get out of the house. But sometimes I don't want to go out, and I had two big cardboard boxes filled with old game boxes that I recently threw out. No reason to hoard that.

I do like to have a physical copy of my game, on disc, and I'm not sure if there is a way I can copy my Steam games to my own DVDs, legally. I haven't seen a way to. I do wish there were an option to copy the game you bought to a DVD. But it's not a huge deal to me at all.

Valve has done good. They deserve every dime they've earned.

Legitimate issue: Being forced to install a 3rd party program.

People don't like being forced to do some things. I don't really care about Steam and all that jazz though.

I'm pretty sure that works by just right clicking the game in the list and choosing Backup Game Files