Gabe Newell grew a beard?! Also, some other things

[ICEE]

Penny arcade did an interview with Mr. Newell (http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/valves-gabe-newell-talks-wearable-computers-rewarding-players-and-whether-w/1) that I thought was very interesting. He has a lot of insights about the state of the video game industry.

http://hw1.pa-cdn.com/par/img/editorial/gabe_alt.jpg

[Phopojijo]

Yeah I put up an article on it.

http://pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Gabe-Newell-gets-Steamed-over-piracy-discussions

[Llama Juice]

http://www.modacity.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2642&d=1329788459

That's all I saw in the picture.

[MXC]

He looks like Santa Claus. :iamafag:

[annihilation]

He looks like Santa Claus. :iamafag:

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is episode 3.

[Donut]

i love what he said about developers being on the opposite end of a battle with their consumors and still using pre-internet sales strategies for games. specifically his comments on DRM. take the fucking hint ubisoft.

theres another part in there about free to play games drawing in more users, so that they get a feel for the game and decide whether they like it or not, and from there charging money for extras to generate revenue. as far as i can see, that works really well for tf2 because of the nature of tf2, and i agree its a step in the right direction. my criticism is that i feel like that same strategy would be a lot harder to implement into a more... traditional style game, like bioshock or even battlefield. i mean, brand name aside, what would you use to bring in revenue? DLC for map packs or something? because then im sure the corporate machine would turn that into a homefront scenario where you get 4 hours of campaign and have to buy some dlc for the "complete game".

[Warsaw]

How about we can play BF3 for free, but to be able to progress past, say Rank 3 (and all the unlocks up to that point), we have to purchase the game for, say, $20. They could also give us three starting maps and charge us $1.99 per map. They could enable only Conquest and charge a small fee for the other game types-I know I only really play Conquest and so I wouldn't really miss Squad Deathmatch or Squad Rush, but I might buy the Rush add-on.

Yeah, it's doable.

I really enjoyed that interview. I love how chill he is and how chill he makes Valve seem. Sounds like a great place to end up. Thanks for sharing.

[Donut]

i can see that view point. i can totally see not wanting to play certain gametypes, and thus just not buying them and saving some money. at the same time, you have to pay "extra" for the full game. it does make sense. i guess a decent example would be the specact dlc for bad company 2. thats what, 5 bucks for new player models, 4 extra class slots, some retextured guns, and some new medals? that doesnt affect gameplay (aside from giving early access to some weapons, and russia medic getting a green hat. seriously, wtf, red beret in the snow? this is why we cant have nice things, RU army), but its a nice thing to have if youre really into the game.

again, its basically flawless with tf2, because nothing that actually alters gameplay (i.e.: weapons, maps, game modes) costs money. its just aethetic items like hats. i dont feel like im getting gipped because i dont have some gun that another guy does have. at that point youve turned it into a game where players get a distinct advantage for paying more money. youve essentially turned it into a high-class gunz-the duel. and of course, EA has actually tried something similar with battlefield free-to-play. forgive me if im getting some details wrong here, but my understanding is that you can buy daily, weekly, or lifetime weapon access for different amounts of money. im sure that suits some people, but it would piss me off to be at a disadvantage because i didnt spend as much money.

E: and you know corporate greed would just abuse the shit out of this system too. activision essentially already has with calladooty dlc, minus the part where they charge less for the base game.

[Warsaw]

Customers won't pay if they don't see any value. It's up to us to vote with our wallets. It will only fail if everyone in the industry decides together that they will charge x amount for x type of content.

Basically, a cartel. The same thing you see with electronics that nobody ever does anything about.

E: and yes, that's how Battlefield Play4Free works, except certain items (scopes) are unavailable as lifetime items, which is bull. I've actually spent money on P4F because I enjoy its game-play more than BF3. How is it that a free game based on a 2005 core game is far less bull-shitty than the newest real deal?

[DarkHalo003]

I liked his commentary about consoles.

[Llama Juice]

Working on Age of Empires Online (AoEO) gave some interesting insight to this situation. The game itself is a Free To Play game, and the two civilizations that came out at launch are nearly fully playable for free players. They can play in PvP and they can go through the full quest line on a free game. Then if you want to play in different PvP modes or have some extra buffs that really help you in Single Player modes you can buy a civ pack that unlocks a bunch of stuff for that civ.

The problem is... well they're charging $20 per civ pack... and it's difficult to have someone see it as a good deal when it's $20 for just a few unlocks. They see it as $20 more that they have to spend on a game that they already have, rather than paying just $20 for a "game". Granted, if they were to just lower the cost to like $10 I think it would be much much more well received... but the devs still need to get paid

The F2P method is very broken for AoEO, but it was definitely a neat learning experience.

I don't feel like TF2 is a good example of a F2P game because well, I bought the game, twice! A LOT of people bought the game, that money paid for the development of the game, and a few years after the game had already been out, everything had been paid for on the dev side... they decided to make it F2P. To have it F2P from the start would be interesting, but they'd have to have a lot less game in there to be able to afford to produce it. (Of course this is Valve we're talking about here, they don't really have shallow pockets...)

TLDR: I guess my point is that a game that is as strong as a traditional retail game would have a very hard time being able to make it's money back on a free to play scheme. They would have to release a rather downscaled version of the game at launch, and if it does well then expand. This is super risky for a game studio that doesn't have pockets like Valve does.

[ICEE]

Thats an interesting point that I hadn't thought of. I guess TF2 is somewhat of a special case.

[dazman23]

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is episode 3.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC5U8_ugxMA

Sorry could not resist. lol