... WELL I'm so glad Nintendo decided to join in on the fun!
Anyway, there's a thread up in G&T right now regarding a comment Gabe Newell made. He says that Valve needs to convince EA to come back, to Steam that is. It made me post this on Twitter just now, and figured it would make good discussion fodder for us.
So are digital distribution platforms the next unnecessary internal war of the video game industry?
We've, uh, discussed it. Every Single Time EA removed a game from steam. Over the past few months
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
... WELL I'm so glad Nintendo decided to join in on the fun!
Anyway, there's a thread up in G&T right now regarding a comment Gabe Newell made. He says that Valve needs to convince EA to come back, to Steam that is. It made me post this on Twitter just now, and figured it would make good discussion fodder for us.
So are digital distribution platforms the next unnecessary internal war of the video game industry?
We've, uh, discussed it. Every Single Time EA removed a game from steam. Over the past few months
Well I know that, but what I mean is, is EA just the first company that's going to be so aggressive on this and other companies will start pulling the same shit?
... I guess we talk about that too though...
... I guess I'm just venting frustration at the situation as a whole.
I wonder if Sony will be able to attract any indie developer attention with that low price point for devkits. If it works, the Vita will be pretty bitchin'.
I find it interesting that it's almost the exact price of the entry level 3DS dev kits that was leaked 5 months ago or so.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]XBL: Rakayn | PS3: Rakayn | Steam ID
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I wonder if Sony will be able to attract any indie developer attention with that low price point for devkits. If it works, the Vita will be pretty bitchin'.
I find it interesting that it's almost the exact price of the entry level 3DS dev kits that was leaked 5 months ago or so.
I can't blame them for that though. They have to compete. Like they have no choice. I think it's more interesting that Nintendo and Sony are scrambling to get people to develop for their systems. The back and forth with this shit is great to watch unfold.
I wonder if Sony will be able to attract any indie developer attention with that low price point for devkits. If it works, the Vita will be pretty bitchin'.
I find it interesting that it's almost the exact price of the entry level 3DS dev kits that was leaked 5 months ago or so.
I can't blame them for that though. They have to compete. Like they have no choice. I think it's more interesting that Nintendo and Sony are scrambling to get people to develop for their systems. The back and forth with this shit is great to watch unfold.
I just think it's funny that some people are giving huge props to Sony when it's Nintendo that's setting the trend. Obviously Sony needs to compete and with such a volatile market, you can't charge as much as you used to.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I wonder if Sony will be able to attract any indie developer attention with that low price point for devkits. If it works, the Vita will be pretty bitchin'.
I find it interesting that it's almost the exact price of the entry level 3DS dev kits that was leaked 5 months ago or so.
I can't blame them for that though. They have to compete. Like they have no choice. I think it's more interesting that Nintendo and Sony are scrambling to get people to develop for their systems. The back and forth with this shit is great to watch unfold.
I just think it's funny that some people are giving huge props to Sony when it's Nintendo that's setting the trend. Obviously Sony needs to compete and with such a volatile market, you can't charge as much as you used to.
Where is this props-giving? Like the "Fuck yeah Sony!" sorta shit?
Nintendo's devkits have always been cheap if I remember correctly. Isn't the Wii's devkit like $4-5k while the other two are 20k+ or am I misremembering?
Part of the iOS cost used to be a Mac, which isn't cheap. Is it still that way or did they finally fix that?
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I doubt we'll see EA back on Steam without one of the following things happening:
-Valve caves to whatever ridiculous demands EA is making in regards to how EA games are handled on Steam and/or how much Valve makes off of games sold through Steam (I really hope Valve doesn't do this and I don't see why they would)
-this is actually some ridiculous issue on Valve's side of things and they fix it for EA (I really, really doubt this one since Valve seems to handle Steam in a stellar fashion)
-EA loses tons of sales because of their idiocy, then comes crawling back to Steam several months down the road (this is pretty much exactly what I expect to happen) except now all of the games they lost sales on are now at reduced prices and so they can never make back the money they lost on trying to force their shitty Origin service on people
When all is said and done, Valve has done a great job working with tons and tons and tons of small indie developers. If EA can't work out their issues with EA despite having entire teams of people doing that one job larger than many indie devs, then the whole mess is pretty obviously EA's fault.
The problem is that corporate attitudes won't allow EA to back down until things get horribly worse for them than they should even remotely need to before attitudes change.
I don't know about the reduced prices part, but then again, EA is much more reasonable about dropping the prices of their games with time, both with sales and the base price for that matter. Unlike Actiblizz, who still has CODBLOPS at $60
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
It wouldn't be a retaliation sort of there where Valve demands lower prices as retribution, I just mean the usual drop in prices after so many months plus Steam sale stuff. EA would absolutely be better off selling several hundred thousand copies of a game through Steam at full price on release day over selling a fraction of that through Origin and coming back to Steam months later when everyone expects at least 20 bucks off of those same games.
Honestly, the only way that EA wins this whole scenario is if Valve concedes even a little bit instead of Valve telling EA to enjoy eating all those sales lost due to blinding greed. I'm willing to bet Valve is actually in a much better position to lose EA sales than EA is in to lose Steam sales.
I doubt we'll see EA back on Steam without one of the following things happening:
-Valve caves to whatever ridiculous demands EA is making in regards to how EA games are handled on Steam and/or how much Valve makes off of games sold through Steam (I really hope Valve doesn't do this and I don't see why they would)
-this is actually some ridiculous issue on Valve's side of things and they fix it for EA (I really, really doubt this one since Valve seems to handle Steam in a stellar fashion)
-EA loses tons of sales because of their idiocy, then comes crawling back to Steam several months down the road (this is pretty much exactly what I expect to happen) except now all of the games they lost sales on are now at reduced prices and so they can never make back the money they lost on trying to force their shitty Origin service on people
When all is said and done, Valve has done a great job working with tons and tons and tons of small indie developers. If EA can't work out their issues with EA despite having entire teams of people doing that one job larger than many indie devs, then the whole mess is pretty obviously EA's fault.
The problem is that corporate attitudes won't allow EA to back down until things get horribly worse for them than they should even remotely need to before attitudes change.
I really don't see any of that happening. The issue, as best as has been pieced together, is that moving forward EA will require all of their PC DLC to be downloaded through Origin (or perhaps BioWare's social site in the case of those games) - so that the only thing Valve can do to fix it is to sell download keys for Origin. While other DD services have gotten over this (it's the only way to sell Steamworks titles, after all), Valve won't.
It's hard to fully lay the blame where it is deserved. For one, Steam is a major force in PC gaming now, and any publisher would be silly to neglect it or ignore it because they don't want to play by Valve's rules. On the other hand, Valve is indeed using their position to force publishers to act in such a way that they wouldn't normally (although ultimately I think a rule about requiring all DLC to be available in the same manner as the game is beneficial to consumers, I guess it is less so to publishers).
EA is betting that whatever sales they lose from not being on Steam, they will make up for in direct profits on whatever they do sell through Origin, plus the intangible benefit of getting their storefront right on people's PC in the hopes of more profit down the line. Considering how massive BF3 and ME3 are going to be, they may well be right. I know that I don't need to play BF3, and I can put off ME3 until I feel like the price merits the hassle (maybe $10 or so), but if other times publishers have pissed off their fanbase are any indication, gamers will roll over and accept things if it means they can play the games they want to play.
The only reason I'm considering BF3 with all the hassles EA keeps heaping on it is that the "free" preorder DLC will cost $15, a quarter of the base price, which will cut out the lions share of any possible deals within the period where it's still experiencing the launch population
EA's recent spate of public "mudslinging" over this year's Modern Warfare 3/Battlefield 3 showdown is bad for the industry, so says Activision exec Eric Hirshberg.
Speaking in his Gamescom keynote today, the Acti Publishing CEO called on publishers to encourage each other to make great games rather than tearing chunks off each other in the press.
"Competition is of course a good thing. It keeps us all on our toes and ultimately makes the games better. It's healthy. But it's one thing to want your game to succeed and another thing to actively, publicly say you want other games to fail," he said.
"Recently a competitor of ours was quoted as saying that he wants to see Call of Duty 'rot from the core'. I've been asked countless times to respond to this comment and I've generally chosen not to. My job is to help our incredibly talented, passionate teams to make the best games they can, not to throw insults around at others. But I actually feel this kind of rhetoric is bad for our industry.
"Can you imagine the head of Dreamworks animation coming out with a new movie and going to the press and saying that he wants Toy Story to 'rot from the core'," he continued. "It's kind of hard to imagine, right?"
Hirshberg went on to argue that if everyone supports one another then the industry will make better games and pull in more punters.
"As someone who runs one of the biggest publishers in this business I can tell you that I want as many games as possible to succeed, whether we created them or not," he continued, "because I want this industry to keep growing and bringing in new people.
"I believe when someone in this industry does something great, whether they work in California, or Sweden, or North Carolina, or the United Kingdom, it doesn't just benefit their company. It benefits us all."
He added that there are plenty of potential customer out there to go around. Make a great game and it will sell, no matter what the competition is up to, he argued.
"I believe that as many great games as this industry can make, that's how many people will buy. I say that not only as the CEO of Activision but also as a gamer.
"This isn't politics. In order for one to win, the other doesn't have to lose. This is an entertainment industry, it's an innovation industry and, at best, it's an art form. But we're still a young art form. If we were the movie industry the movies wouldn't even be talking yet.
"We all still have a lot to prove in our position in the pop cultural landscape. We still need to stand the test of time. We need to show we can withstand the kind of disruptive change and new competition that we're facing now.
"The only way to do that is to continue to make great games. We shouldn't be tearing each other apart fighting for a bigger piece of the pie – we should all be focused on trying to grow a bigger pie. If we as an industry act like there's a finite number of games in the world, then there will be."
You see, because Activision are like Pixar and Call of Duty is like Toy Story. If Pixar were raging twunts and and made a new Toy Story every year where Woody and Buzz constantly get separated from Andy and have to find their way back (always for his birthday). Guitar Hero can be Cars.
I wonder how many people will be returning their new wii complaining that the new touchscreen thingy controller they heard the new wii came with was missing.
I wonder how many people will be returning their new wii complaining that the new touchscreen thingy controller they heard the new wii came with was missing.
Are you serious?
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
Yeah...give people some credit.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I wonder how many people will be returning their new wii complaining that the new touchscreen thingy controller they heard the new wii came with was missing.
Are you serious?
Well, he does have a bit of a point. WiiU gets huge fanfare announcement, and new Wii model gets a quiet whisper, but in stores it will be sold as being new. It won't be some wide spread issue, but some amount of people will be confused.
I wonder if Sony will be able to attract any indie developer attention with that low price point for devkits. If it works, the Vita will be pretty bitchin'.
I find it interesting that it's almost the exact price of the entry level 3DS dev kits that was leaked 5 months ago or so.
I can't blame them for that though. They have to compete. Like they have no choice. I think it's more interesting that Nintendo and Sony are scrambling to get people to develop for their systems. The back and forth with this shit is great to watch unfold.
I just think it's funny that some people are giving huge props to Sony when it's Nintendo that's setting the trend. Obviously Sony needs to compete and with such a volatile market, you can't charge as much as you used to.
The big difference is that Sony is actually trying to attract small indie developers (even going so far as to give free development kits to small developers in exchange for exclusives) whereas Nintendo refuses to do business with indie developers unless they're over a certain size and have a physical office.
EA's recent spate of public "mudslinging" over this year's Modern Warfare 3/Battlefield 3 showdown is bad for the industry, so says Activision exec Eric Hirshberg.
Speaking in his Gamescom keynote today, the Acti Publishing CEO called on publishers to encourage each other to make great games rather than tearing chunks off each other in the press.
"Competition is of course a good thing. It keeps us all on our toes and ultimately makes the games better. It's healthy. But it's one thing to want your game to succeed and another thing to actively, publicly say you want other games to fail," he said.
"Recently a competitor of ours was quoted as saying that he wants to see Call of Duty 'rot from the core'. I've been asked countless times to respond to this comment and I've generally chosen not to. My job is to help our incredibly talented, passionate teams to make the best games they can, not to throw insults around at others. But I actually feel this kind of rhetoric is bad for our industry.
"Can you imagine the head of Dreamworks animation coming out with a new movie and going to the press and saying that he wants Toy Story to 'rot from the core'," he continued. "It's kind of hard to imagine, right?"
Hirshberg went on to argue that if everyone supports one another then the industry will make better games and pull in more punters.
"As someone who runs one of the biggest publishers in this business I can tell you that I want as many games as possible to succeed, whether we created them or not," he continued, "because I want this industry to keep growing and bringing in new people.
"I believe when someone in this industry does something great, whether they work in California, or Sweden, or North Carolina, or the United Kingdom, it doesn't just benefit their company. It benefits us all."
He added that there are plenty of potential customer out there to go around. Make a great game and it will sell, no matter what the competition is up to, he argued.
"I believe that as many great games as this industry can make, that's how many people will buy. I say that not only as the CEO of Activision but also as a gamer.
"This isn't politics. In order for one to win, the other doesn't have to lose. This is an entertainment industry, it's an innovation industry and, at best, it's an art form. But we're still a young art form. If we were the movie industry the movies wouldn't even be talking yet.
"We all still have a lot to prove in our position in the pop cultural landscape. We still need to stand the test of time. We need to show we can withstand the kind of disruptive change and new competition that we're facing now.
"The only way to do that is to continue to make great games. We shouldn't be tearing each other apart fighting for a bigger piece of the pie – we should all be focused on trying to grow a bigger pie. If we as an industry act like there's a finite number of games in the world, then there will be."
You see, because Activision are like Pixar and Call of Duty is like Toy Story. If Pixar were raging twunts and and made a new Toy Story every year where Woody and Buzz constantly get separated from Andy and have to find their way back (always for his birthday). Guitar Hero can be Cars.
Ugh, as one of my favorite companies, I am soooooooo glad Pixar is nothing like Activision.
Or I would already have Up 4: Modern Wifefare, and it would ruin one of my favorite animated movies of all time.
Now Brainiac, you know you're just hating Activision because they're so rich, famous, talented and sexy. Why can't you just love them and accept them as the delicate, beautiful success-behemoth that they are?
Now Brainiac, you know you're just hating Activision because they're so rich, famous, talented and sexy. Why can't you just love them and accept them as the delicate, beautiful success-behemoth that they are?
I know, you're right. Activision, I promise to stop unfairly criticizing you for things you do. :rotate:
And yes, people who say Up didn't make them cry are big fat liars or have no emotion. Up was such a masterpiece of a SQUIRREL!
Not having that I understand, WoW would take a ton of work to get on a console.
I don't even want to think about the controller combinations necessary to account for all of the abilities a class can have. Not the half dozen they use commonly, but the dozen+ that are situational but still important. "Oh god, was ice block left trigger right trigger green, or left trigger right trigger red yell... fuck it, I'm dead anyway" "Why does your dps suck so much?" "I'm on an xbox, macro'ing is a bitch!" "____ has been kicked from the raid".
Sorry, I think I was having a WoW elitism flashback/seizure.
Part of the iOS cost used to be a Mac, which isn't cheap. Is it still that way or did they finally fix that?
You still have to have a Mac, but that's still cheaper than the Dev kits for the consoles. Mac Mini is $599, plus the $99 a year dev subscription. That's really not all that expensive.
Switch Friend Code: SW-4598-4278-8875
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
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Well I know that, but what I mean is, is EA just the first company that's going to be so aggressive on this and other companies will start pulling the same shit?
... I guess we talk about that too though...
... I guess I'm just venting frustration at the situation as a whole.
I find it interesting that it's almost the exact price of the entry level 3DS dev kits that was leaked 5 months ago or so.
I can't blame them for that though. They have to compete. Like they have no choice. I think it's more interesting that Nintendo and Sony are scrambling to get people to develop for their systems. The back and forth with this shit is great to watch unfold.
I just think it's funny that some people are giving huge props to Sony when it's Nintendo that's setting the trend. Obviously Sony needs to compete and with such a volatile market, you can't charge as much as you used to.
Where is this props-giving? Like the "Fuck yeah Sony!" sorta shit?
-this is actually some ridiculous issue on Valve's side of things and they fix it for EA (I really, really doubt this one since Valve seems to handle Steam in a stellar fashion)
-EA loses tons of sales because of their idiocy, then comes crawling back to Steam several months down the road (this is pretty much exactly what I expect to happen) except now all of the games they lost sales on are now at reduced prices and so they can never make back the money they lost on trying to force their shitty Origin service on people
The problem is that corporate attitudes won't allow EA to back down until things get horribly worse for them than they should even remotely need to before attitudes change.
Honestly, the only way that EA wins this whole scenario is if Valve concedes even a little bit instead of Valve telling EA to enjoy eating all those sales lost due to blinding greed. I'm willing to bet Valve is actually in a much better position to lose EA sales than EA is in to lose Steam sales.
I really don't see any of that happening. The issue, as best as has been pieced together, is that moving forward EA will require all of their PC DLC to be downloaded through Origin (or perhaps BioWare's social site in the case of those games) - so that the only thing Valve can do to fix it is to sell download keys for Origin. While other DD services have gotten over this (it's the only way to sell Steamworks titles, after all), Valve won't.
It's hard to fully lay the blame where it is deserved. For one, Steam is a major force in PC gaming now, and any publisher would be silly to neglect it or ignore it because they don't want to play by Valve's rules. On the other hand, Valve is indeed using their position to force publishers to act in such a way that they wouldn't normally (although ultimately I think a rule about requiring all DLC to be available in the same manner as the game is beneficial to consumers, I guess it is less so to publishers).
EA is betting that whatever sales they lose from not being on Steam, they will make up for in direct profits on whatever they do sell through Origin, plus the intangible benefit of getting their storefront right on people's PC in the hopes of more profit down the line. Considering how massive BF3 and ME3 are going to be, they may well be right. I know that I don't need to play BF3, and I can put off ME3 until I feel like the price merits the hassle (maybe $10 or so), but if other times publishers have pissed off their fanbase are any indication, gamers will roll over and accept things if it means they can play the games they want to play.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-17-activision-condemns-ea-mudslinging
You see, because Activision are like Pixar and Call of Duty is like Toy Story. If Pixar were raging twunts and and made a new Toy Story every year where Woody and Buzz constantly get separated from Andy and have to find their way back (always for his birthday). Guitar Hero can be Cars.
Modern Warfare 4 is going to have vehicles in it, clearly.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-17-nintendo-discontinuing-current-wii-model
You impeccable gods.
Are you serious?
Well, he does have a bit of a point. WiiU gets huge fanfare announcement, and new Wii model gets a quiet whisper, but in stores it will be sold as being new. It won't be some wide spread issue, but some amount of people will be confused.
Anyone who has worked retail can tell you, people can be surprisingly dumb.
The big difference is that Sony is actually trying to attract small indie developers (even going so far as to give free development kits to small developers in exchange for exclusives) whereas Nintendo refuses to do business with indie developers unless they're over a certain size and have a physical office.
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Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
Ugh, as one of my favorite companies, I am soooooooo glad Pixar is nothing like Activision.
Or I would already have Up 4: Modern Wifefare, and it would ruin one of my favorite animated movies of all time.
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
I know, you're right. Activision, I promise to stop unfairly criticizing you for things you do. :rotate:
And yes, people who say Up didn't make them cry are big fat liars or have no emotion. Up was such a masterpiece of a SQUIRREL!
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
But, g-damn, did you see that BF3 trailer?
I am a sucker.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I don't even want to think about the controller combinations necessary to account for all of the abilities a class can have. Not the half dozen they use commonly, but the dozen+ that are situational but still important. "Oh god, was ice block left trigger right trigger green, or left trigger right trigger red yell... fuck it, I'm dead anyway" "Why does your dps suck so much?" "I'm on an xbox, macro'ing is a bitch!" "____ has been kicked from the raid".
Sorry, I think I was having a WoW elitism flashback/seizure.
Up was one of the saddest movies I have ever seen. I'd even heard that the first 10 minutes is pretty rough before I went in.
To tie this back to my WoW rant; I was not prepared.
You still have to have a Mac, but that's still cheaper than the Dev kits for the consoles. Mac Mini is $599, plus the $99 a year dev subscription. That's really not all that expensive.
3DS Friend Code: 0404-6826-4588 PM if you add.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/147096/video-game-industry-thread-360-finally-croaks-in-japan