Backov, I think you and Igor should be saying fuck you to your 4th grade english teachers for skipping the comprehension part of reading.
Chet
That’s very professional… did you notice I never said “fuck you” to you or VALVe?
Now how about you do something more constructive like telling VALVe to do one of the following?
[ul]
[li]Fixing Steam
[/li][li]Adding those player models to CS: Source
[/li][li]Adding our AS maps back to CS: Source
[/li][li]Putting the classic maps back in CS: Source
[/li][li]Releasing Day of Defeat Source, which I already paid for (and it better not be a straight up DoD port like Half Life: Shi…err…Source edition)
[/li][/ul]
I think you should. By the way, I’m sure you’ll probably ignore this post, or you’ll just say something like it takes a lot longer than we think it does.
Funny… in the months since CS: Source has been released we have had dozens of HL2DM and CS:S fan maps released, a lot of them are just as good quality as the VALVe ones. If VALVe has a mapper shortage they should consider recruiting the fan mappers. Anyways, I think it’s strange that a few unpaid volunteers can produce work faster than the paid professionals.
I remember back before VALVe bought out CS we actually used to have new content added every few months. I tell you, those days are long past us. You guys having fun counting the money over there? It won’t last forever if you keep screwing your fans.
Publishers and Distributors take well over half of the profit from retail sales, typically I’ve heard it’s well over 3/4ths. I suspect many companies will happily forget about the dying out dial-up crowd, and willingly making less profit in return for keeping it all. Plus I bet that Valve isn’t the only developer that had a publisher leave a bad taste in their mouth; in the past publishers could be assholes because they had all the power, but perhaps this is no longer so.
I doubt that Valve (and Stardock) are the only ones who’ll be doing this in a couple of years. It’s pretty common to buy your games online, from there it’s only a small leap to downloading so you don’t have to wait.
http://investor.activision.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=149719
Santa Monica, CA - April 4, 2003 - Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) and Valve, L.L.C. jointly announced today a strategic partnership that grants Activision exclusive worldwide publishing rights to upcoming games created by the premiere PC game developer. The multi-title agreement underscores Activision’s commitment to partner with top development talent and will expand the company’s PC portfolio.
The only game that came out of this was Day of Defeat even though it was a “multi-title” announcement. Since then, Valve released CS: Condition Zero and HL2 (via VU Games) and CS for Xbox (via Microsoft). I guess this includes future games?
Publishers and Distributors take well over half of the profit from retail sales, typically I’ve heard it’s well over 3/4ths. I suspect many companies will happily forget about the dying out dial-up crowd, willingly making less profit in return for keeping it all. Plus I bet that Valve isn’t the only developer that had a publisher leave a bad taste in their mouth; in the past publishers could be assholes because they had all the power, but perhaps this is no longer so.
I doubt that Valve (and Stardock) are the only ones who’ll be doing this in a couple of years. It’s pretty common to buy your games online, from there it’s only a small leap to downloading so you don’t have to wait.[/quote]
Of course it remains to see whether or not customers would rather buy games online than in a store. Not mentioning why Steam is a poor program (bad UI, hard to install things, likes to break, etc), I can mention some other things that don’t have anything to do with Steam:
[ul]
[li]Right now you buy a license not the game itself, if VALVe shuts down your Steam account you can never play the game again. What the f***? I’d like to see them come take my HL1 CDs, I’d shoot at them for trespassing on my property.
[/li][li]You don’t get the box, you don’t get a paper manual. Nothing to say like you own the game, and it’s more like viewing Pay-Per-View than buying a DVD set.
[/li][li]At the end of the day the price is pretty much the same as buying it in a store. I think it was $5 cheaper to buy HL2 on steam, but you know what, if they keep those 3/4th of the profits I think they should lower the prices. Otherwise I have no reason to just buy a box, or skip the game.
[/li][/ul]
Igor, sorry for not separating you out and addressing that everything you said had already been addressed. I apologize that I dared to expect you might read the post before you responded. My bad.
Where does it say that Valve will no longer sell products in the retail channel? If you go back to the first page, there are even posts about that. But again, I apologize, asking you to know what you are posting about, or reading the posts previous is just unfair. You have a level posting quality you must uphold, i apologize for thinking you should ever stray from that.
As for CS, yes valve has not supported that game at all. They just shoveled it out the door 5 years ago and they just leave it dying now. They don’t update weekly, they don’t add new content every month. No we just leave it there to die. I think valve is the classic example of a company that just releases a product and then never supports, yes ,yes I do think that…
Chet backs away slowly from igor…
Backov, I think you and Igor should be saying fuck you to your 4th grade english teachers for skipping the comprehension part of reading.[/quote]
Sorry for skipping a lot of this bullshit defense of valves business practices, did you not defend it? I’d read it more closely but why bother.
I rescind the fuck you chet then. :)
That’s a good question. I don’t know where you get the idea that I said VALVe will stop selling products in the retail channel. I only said selling them online won’t work as well as selling them retail. That’s what I said. If you took it otherwise, now you should be clear.
At first I thought you saw my reasoning. Then it seemed like you were getting sarcastic… Let me help you though.
Let’s go to: http://www.msf.cstrike.de/content/general/history/index_development.php
Scroll down to the bottom, the first beta came out in June of '99. Within only two months they were up to beta 2.0 adding a bunch of guns, maps, and various content along the way. Beta 3 came a month later. Beta 4 two months later. Beta 5 came only two months later, adding the DE_ gameplay and a bunch of maps. For Beta 6 they took a whopping four months (but CS has stayed pretty much like beta 6 with the exception of a few changes) and they added two gameplays: as and es. Beta 6 had a bunch of subversions and then beta 7 came, then 1.0 which is when I believe VALVe bought out CS.
But anyways, lets look at the current timeframe:
I won’t even mention non-source CS hasn’t gotten any updates in a long, long time (how about not being cheap and releasing CZ hostages for CS owners?)
Okay, let’s see, last CS: Source update was on April 5, 24 days ago. That’s okay… but there wasn’t any new content added!
Let’s try and find the last time there was new content (minor things don’t count)!
February 24, 2005 , Featured News - Steam News Hub when you added cs_compound and de_train
On the same day you said DoD:S would go beta soon, I’m still waiting…
On January 17, 2005, you added bots and de_tides as content.
So, it took VALVe over a month to add two maps (one of which was a simple port)? You could say “but what about all the bugs they fixed…” – that’s great, it’s really great, but programmers don’t make the same and they don’t make the models.
Chet, try surfing through the Steam news archive next time before you start being sarcastic. You represent the company, you should be ashamed.
edit: Supporting it and fixing bugs is not the same as adding the new content, when I bought HL2 I was expecting CS: Source to be a better version of CS, not a stripped down CS with better graphics. Heh, was I wrong.
It is beta, but private. Which means only a select few get to play.
[quote=“nutsak”]
It is beta, but private. Which means only a select few get to play.[/quote]
Then everyone who isn’t in it doesn’t really care, now do they?
So you’re saying that if you were in the beta then you wouldn’t be complaining. What are you ? 12?
What’s the point of arguing with you? You skip over the real debate and pick out the little details like DoD:S being in beta when the real situation is about whether or not the online business model will succeed for VALVe.
Does VU get anything out of the deal–aside from four more months of retail HL2 sales?
Also, I don’t see any reference to Team Fortress 2. Is this now Valve’s product, or is it still under contract to VU as the retailer for the game?
Peter
So what did you mean then? Your argument only made sense if you made the assumption that HL2’s retail presence would disappear and you would have to by it online. Otherwise what was the point of all of that 56k nonsense you were talking about when those people will still have the option to just buy it at the store the same as they do now.
So what did you mean then? Your argument only made sense if you made the assumption that HL2’s retail presence would disappear and you would have to by it online. Otherwise what was the point of all of that 56k nonsense you were talking about when those people will still have the option to just buy it at the store the same as they do now.[/quote]
I’ll go ahead and admit I made assumptions regarding Half-Life 2, but not the future products. This quote got me started:
Under the settlement agreement, VU Games will cease distribution of retail packaged versions of Valve’s games, including "Half-Life"®, “Half-Life 2”, "Counter-Strike"™, “Counter-Strike: Condition Zero” and “Counter-Strike: Source”, effective August 31, 2005.
So if VUGames isn’t going to be distributing HL2 and CS:S anymore, then it means it’ll happen through Steam. Even if they managed to get future games out with another publisher like Activision the lawsuit probably has terms of them not republishing these games with someone else.
I suppose my point was that if they did choose to go without a retail alternative, that is what would happen to them (where the 56k mumbo jumbo comes into place).
Igor as I said in the Brad thread (which brad chose to try and make it out like i was bragging and use it against me) - I do not represent Valve in any way on these forums. None. Zero. Let me make that very clear, nothing i say is any way representative of Valve and I have never said otherwise.
But you are useless. From the first post i saw you make on QT3 about Dell’s “expensive” ram, which everyone else quickly pointed out you had no idea what you are talking about - you have not posted one single intelligent thing on this forum. Not one. Not in this thread, not in any thread.
And yeah, if I couldn’t read I too would not see any content or updates released by valve. We just release products and abandon them. Are you 12?
Chet
Except that you’ve admitted that you work for them which really does make you a representative.
Just as I represent the white man!
I’m going to call this a win. I choose to blame VU and not Valve for the deceptive retail packaging which is just about the only thing I was up in arms about.
I don’t really mind at all if Valve wants to make their stuff internet-only, just as long as they’re honest about it. It makes sense that Valve would have wanted to put a big sticker on all the retail boxes that said, “you must have internet, bitches!!!” and VU would have been… reluctant.
Hell, I’ll even blame VU for the stupid postcards idea. It’s all hugs and kisses between jafd and Valve now.
Eh? What makes you think that? Seems pretty unlikely to me.