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Gearbox?s Randy Pitchford has told Maximum PC that he thinks Steam and Valve should be seperate entites, as it is nothing more than a ?money grab?.

?I?ll tell you what. Steam helps. As a guy in this industry though, I don?t trust Valve,? he said. ?I, personally, trust Valve. But I?m just saying, honestly, I think a lot of the industry doesn?t.

?It would be much better if Steam was its own business. There?s so much conflict of interest there that it?s horrid. It?s actually really, really dangerous for the rest of the industry to allow Valve to win.

?I love Valve games, and I do business with the company. But, I?m just saying, 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 its providing. It?s exploiting a lot of small guys. For us big guys, we?re going to sell the units and it wVG247f-steam-was-its-own-business/"]VG247[/url]

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?I?ll tell you what. Steam helps. As a guy in this industry though, I don?t trust Valve,? he said. ?I, personally, trust Valve. But I?m just saying, honestly, I think a lot of the industry doesn?t

lol backpedal backpedal.. Let me try and work my way out of what I just said.

I do agree though, Valve and Steam should be seperate, but you can't blame Valve for making a GREAT platform for digital distribution.

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Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford has told Maximum PC that he thinks Steam and Valve should be seperate entites, as it is nothing more than a “money grab”.

No he didn't. He said it's "also a money grab"

How are they "exploiting" anyone? this guy is full of ****.

Well, we don't know the exact business deals, but I'm guessing it has to do with profit share, percentages, initial fees, time to make profit, minimum game price, update process... etc... I don't know, it could be loads of stuff.

I wouldn't say he's "full" of ****, maybe he has a point. He knows the figures after all.

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The only real way we have of seeing how much Valve charge is from the Developers. And if we look at Garry from Garrys Mod he said they priced the game at ?10 and the money from each sale goes 50% to him and 50% to them. Which is quite high in my opinion.

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lol backpedal backpedal.. Let me try and work my way out of what I just said.

I do agree though, Valve and Steam should be seperate, but you can't blame Valve for making a GREAT platform for digital distribution.

"Wooooooooooooooooohsh"

That's the sound of the point he was making flying WAY over your head.

He was makign a point as two different entities.

Him as a man in the industry

Him as a gamer and consumer

The consumer personality likes and trusts steams and thinks it's an awesome service. The industry personality sees all the behidn the scenes issues and problems among other things this dual ownership brings to the table.

Also you can't honestly claim the prices on steam are justifiable or fair when compared to disk based distributions.

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"Wooooooooooooooooohsh"

That's the sound of the point he was making flying WAY over your head..

Oh I understood him completely. I was being funny as to how it was written in the article... woooooosh sorry you didn't catch that.

Also you can't honestly claim the prices on steam are justifiable or fair when compared to disk based distributions.

And the prices Microsoft charges for digital distribution isn't worse? I mean come on. Its an easy concept with steam... Don't like it don't pay it. With the xbox you have no choice on some things other than to just not purchase them. At least with Steam you have an alternative

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The only real way we have of seeing how much Valve charge is from the Developers. And if we look at Garry from Garrys Mod he said they priced the game at ?10 and the money from each sale goes 50% to him and 50% to them. Which is quite high in my opinion.

That's a very poor example as Valve gave Garry a free full license to the Source Engine code as part of the GMod 10 deal, something that you won't find happening anywhere else.

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Yea they took the risk so I can't blame them for taking a larger share. Look at Apple and iTunes. Valve has arguably brought the iTunes Store to PC Gaming. I wasn't a big fan of Steam in the beginning but as time went on its matured quite well and now definitely a great way to distribute games. I'm glad for them. But it couldn't hurt to separate it into its own business and remain owners of it, just not have it run by the same people. It'd also help separate people from thinking Steam is specifically for Valve games.

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That's a very poor example as Valve gave Garry a free full license to the Source Engine code as part of the GMod 10 deal, something that you won't find happening anywhere else.

Except had he not had that, he would not of been able to sell the game at all.

Valves Engine: ?250K

Valves money made on the game so far: Over ?1m GBP

As Pitchford said, Valve use Steam to make money in an unfair way to smaller developers. And I only brought the garry mods pricing up because that is the only numbers we have to my knowledge.

And to my credit it isn't a poor example. It is a completely true example of the reality of that situation. Valve get 50% of every copy sold even after Garry's game has paid for the source licensing 4 times over.

Also, just for the record I love steam and use it for all my games. I think it's an excellent service and although a lot of the time games actually cost more on Steam than I can get them for from Amazon or Play.com I still always look there first before purchasing something.

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Gearbox taking shots at Valve is pathetic, Gearbox would not exist without all the cash they got doing HL ports and expansions. BiA is not such a good series they could survive on just that title. Weak as usual Pitchford.

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The only real way we have of seeing how much Valve charge is from the Developers. And if we look at Garry from Garrys Mod he said they priced the game at ?10 and the money from each sale goes 50% to him and 50% to them. Which is quite high in my opinion.

That 50%/50% deal is because he got the Source engine for free (as mentioned), if you're not writing a Source game (say, it's your own engine) the margins are much better.

I don't see how it's hurting small dev's, it's helping them (13 million+ possible members being shown a notification when the game's released and having it listed in the store)

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Also you can't honestly claim the prices on steam are justifiable or fair when compared to disk based distributions.

Until recently, false. I do agree that their method of charging Europeans is unfair. Otherwise, over on this side of the pond it's sometimes or usually a bit cheaper than getting it via stores, after factoring in conversion rates and not having to pay Canadian taxes.

So don't pre-purchase Borderlands on Steam? OK. You're the boss.

:laugh:

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That 50%/50% deal is because he got the Source engine for free (as mentioned), if you're not writing a Source game (say, it's your own engine) the margins are much better.

If you had of moved on down the thread you would have noticed I already commented on that specifically. Obviously the margins are better for people not in a special deal of convenience with valve only an idiot would assume otherwise. But if you read my earlier comment my position becomes clear with the Garrys Mod deal specifically.

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The sad part is that I'm actually not kidding for once. I was just about to pull the trigger on the pre-purchase but this statement instantly soured me on Borderlands. Way to go Randy. (and I own almost every Gearbox release on Steam so I guess that purchasing those was a mistake as well)

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Is this dude on crack? Steam is great for the customers (convenience, competitive pricing, discounts for preorders, etc.), and through it we're exposed to a lot of games from smaller studios that without Steam we probably wouldn't even know existed. The only people I can see being hurt are the jackasses that come up with **** like Securom, and I don't see how separating Valve from Steam will give them back the business they don't deserve.

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He isn't arguing that it's bad for consumers. He's saying that it's unfair -- somewhat monopolistic, and that it's a conflict of interest when you consider Valve's primary business is (or was) making games.

I think he's got a point, and I love Valve.

Getting upset and saying you're going to not get the man's game because of this statement is silly, IMO. He gave his opinion. He wasn't a jerk about it, he just said what was on his mind.

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He isn't arguing that it's bad for consumers. He's saying that it's unfair -- somewhat monopolistic, and that it's a conflict of interest when you consider Valve's primary business is (or was) making games.

I think he's got a point, and I love Valve.

Getting upset and saying you're going to not get the man's game because of this statement is silly, IMO. He gave his opinion. He wasn't a jerk about it, he just said what was on his mind.

Exactly.

What he is getting at is Valve are making this platform extremely popular, It is becoming the first thing people see when they want to play a game and by default it shows you offers for games and such. But all other game devs have to pay Valve for this sort of marketing within Steam which eats in to their global marketing budget whilst Valve by owning steam can advertise their own games for zilch whilst getting the same amount of eyeballs as everyone else who is paying for it.

This means Valves advertising budget goes further in non-Steam areas giving them an unfair presence where their service doesn't already exist. And although they still sell PC games in-store they all require you to sign up for Steam which will increase their userbase and decrease their costs in future for the delivery and advertisements of their own games.

So basically he has a valid point but at the same time simply suggesting Valve spin Steam off in to a separate entity doesn't help the situation for developers because Valve would never do it. He has raised the issue but he needs to go further and rally some developers to come up with a true independent platform that is not vendor biased before Valve galvanise the entire market.

I still love Steam myself. Even though I recognise this is a bad deal for developers me as a consumer I'd probably still just use steam I've already bought to many games on it to switch and I'm happy with the way Valve have been developing it thus far.

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It's not silly. He straight-up said that Steam is a money grab and that Valve is not to be trusted. That sure sounds like he doesn't want people using Steam to purchase his game or any other game and since Steam is my platform of choice for PC games and since I was planning on playing Borderlands on the PC I'm left with no other choice than to not purchase it.

I'm not going to waste my money on packaging and distribution and I'm not going to pay the 360 console tax so what's left? Direct2Drive? That's not even an option when compared to the service which Steam offers.

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Except had he not had that, he would not of been able to sell the game at all.

Valves Engine: ?250K

Valves money made on the game so far: Over ?1m GBP

As Pitchford said, Valve use Steam to make money in an unfair way to smaller developers. And I only brought the garry mods pricing up because that is the only numbers we have to my knowledge.

???

That's exactly my point! If Valve hadn't of approached Garry with a deal that gives him a 50% cut of sales with a free engine license, Garry would of had nothing. How is Valve taking advantage, especially considering Garry's actual input is minimal at best? (He essentially slapped in a Lua interpreter and a few models/maps)

Freebie engine, use of resources (Models) that he hasn't made/paid for a 50% cut? Yeah, I'll say it again; GMod is a very poor example.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of GMod and what it can do with Lua, (wiremod for example) and I've played it since the v3 days, but my point remains: The whole GMod 10 thing was a great success for Garry, and a big plus to Valve for bringing something to retail that wouldn't exist without their care for the modding/(indie?) community.

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