Email from Gabe. Re: Pay 2 Play

[MaDMaXX]

Yeah, its a pity i can't reply to this at work, when i left this post last night, it was at about 17 pages, i mean, 32 pages it rediculous

Anyway, thought i'd stick in a quick note about steam being the backend for HL2, it seems its the most mis-understood part of the game, well it was before the email that sparked this post

Steam runs the backend of HL2 in the same way that the Q3 engine is the backend of the jedi games or return to castle wolfenstien.

Its used for the multiplay verification and the console part of the game, from what i've seen of the new "console" its really quite nifty, with auto complete for most/every command.

its the cd key verification part of it, its the auto downloader for the game's patches, its the world that has been pulled over your eyes... er, no wait....

/edit dang, now i've posted this, its gone to 33 pages

 

[UndeadScottsman]

Originally posted by Mr Neutron
In response to headcrap on the previous page (#29):

I'm GUESSING you're referring to me, even though Headcrab is a title (Which, hilariously enough, is the same title YOU have ), not a name. There are at least five people on page 29 with the title of Headcrab, so if any of this wasn't referring to me, then you have my apologies ahead of time.

I believe you, like many people, are drawing many unlikely assumptions about the subscription scheme by making a false analogy: the 'valve subscription' service is really NOT much like the pay-for-play subscriptions of the MM games we have now. Though I've never subscribed to or purchased a MM game myself, I believe MM makers DO abuse their customers in that, while monthly charges are justifyable given the operating costs, also charging normal prices for the games themselves (50 dollar game with only one 10$ monthy fee prepaid for example) totally is not: it's as if the makers/publishers are hedging their bets, EXPECTING the customer to not actually like and use the product for which he must pay in advance. Additionally, charging for expansions just fragments those games' user-experience AND prays on addicts.

I find it funny that you're arguing against something you haven't actually used yourself. MMORPG's cost MILLIONS to produce (At last estimate, World of WarCraft was at 45 million!) and after their completion, they cost more money to keep running. The 50-dollar purchase (Of which, most goes to the publisher) is used to pay for the development costs while the monthly fee goes to maintaining the servers and some new content.

Expansions are also their own category, IMO. Most of the 10-dollar fee goes to paying for the game maintenance and paying the various GM's, tech support and etc., with whatever is left over going to free content updates. On the other hand, expansions allow the developers to create a lot more concentrated content , instead of sporadic updates fueled by part of the 10 dollar fee. And despite what you may think, I really haven't noticed any definative "split" caused by expansions in MMORPG's. Take Dark Age of Camelot for instance. The expansion adds some new classes, a new race, new monsters and a lot of new territory. However, none of those are necessary to enjoy the game and many people still play without the expansion and interact with those who DO have the expansion quite frequently.

But the 'valve subscription' plan, like WalmartHL2, is intended mainly I believe for people wanting to sample the goods or not sure exactly what they want, and Valve expects >99% of people like us to understand the situation and just go straight for the standard deal. Not that Valve is praying on the ignorance of casual customers either; in fact, I think this is a very good correction to the current way consumers are expected to pony up full price before really learning what they're buying; in this case, us fanboys know (or assume we know) what we're getting.

Normally I would agree with this, but Valve has stated otherwise. Gabe SPECIFICALLY said the subscription price would be a better deal, which means it MUST have incentives beyond “try before you buy.” Indeed, Valve would have to produce a $50 game every 5 months, a $35 dollar expansion every 3.5 months, a $20 dollar mod every 2 months or some combination thereof in order to simply CUT EVEN with the subscription vs. normal buying, so one should expect Valve to be producing MORE content than that in order to make the subscription a “better buy.”

Secondly, I trust Valve to remain honest and set pricing of content-upgrades, add-on MODs, and stand-alone MODs in proportion to the work required in their making. Using the base HL2 product as a baseline, we can assume this means we're not going to pay 4$ just for a new character model or single map (as headcrab suggested on the previous page). I admit though, in this particular regard, Valve has a past blemish (was Opposing Forces really worth full-price?; having picked it up this year for 5 bucks I feel glad I waited--but maybe I'm forgetting the standards of 4-5 years ago when producing that standard content was more difficult and costly). I suspect (and hope) Valve learned a lesson.

The $4 dollar price tag is something I pulled out of my butt for an example (Considering the amount of work it takes to make an Alyx-like model in HL2, it seemed reasonable at the time. Then I remembered multiplayer models wouldn’t be as detailed )

But really, paying TWO BUCKS for a map of Half-Life 2's quality is not anywhere near unreasonable, IMO. Crap, that’s !@#!-loads less then a movie ticket these days, and if you get a bloody HALF HOUR of fun with that map, then you’ll have SAVED money. And again, that was a number I pulled out of my butt.. Perhaps 50 cents or a dollar would be more reasonable, but you get the idea of what I was saying, right?

And as for Opposing Force, I wouldn’t attribute any of that to Valve. It’s almost a guaranteed that Sierra was responsible for jacking up the price on the expansion in response to Half-Life’s sales. (I mean, come on, doesn’t that sound EXACTLY like something Sierra would do? )

So unlike some of the subscription schemes in existence and in the works in other game genres:

1) This is not a scheme to extract more money without providing more value.
2) Whatever added value it brings will not be closed off to non-subscribers: Valve--if it didn't figure it out before (and I think they did despite everyone here jumping to conclusions)--knows people don't want to have to hedge their bets about getting the better deal by haggling over whether to go on the installment plan or paying flat out: we don't want to have to finance our game purchases (or just think that hard about them in general).

0) I NEVER referred to prior stuff as being unfair. Remember that
1) I never said it was (Since I, myself, would personally be okay with most of the numbers I provided)
2) Except for, again, Valve has said otherwise. SOMEHOW the subscription plan will be a the “better value.” So whether it’s through exclusive content, or through providing a subscription cost that’s cheaper than buying everything on it’s own, there’s going to be SOME reason to go for the subscription, as per Gabe’s comment.

-------------------------
Thus ends the lesson.

From one Headcrab to another, eh?

Sincerely,
Jeremy Dunn

 

[Kresske]

Originally posted by Silver.Fox
Let me get this straight ..

You just asked if you could give Valve $10 and they would let you have HL2 ..?

Come on .. seriously. You think it'd work like that?

I suppose a loop hole in their system might be to only pay $10, play HL2 till the end, then cancel your subscription ... however you wouldnt be able to play it again or any multiplayer ...

But hey .. if thats all your going for ...

No need to get pissy. I just asked a question. I was curious. I was planning on getting the $50 SP + MP boxed edition anyway.

 

[dscowboy]

Originally posted by UndeadScottsman
Normally I would agree with this, but Valve has stated otherwise. Gabe SPECIFICALLY said the subscription price would be a better deal, which means it MUST have incentives beyond “try before you buy.”

Who said you had to subscribe for the rest of your life? If I buy HL2 now, and a year later there are 2 expansion packs and TF2 out, I could subscribe for 5 months, get my fill of them, and cancel the subscription. And I would have saved quite a bit vs. buying all three outright.

Again, 'subscription' is a bad word for this, Valve should be saying 'renting', because that's really what it is. You can rent all of Valve's games, purchasing a month of rental time for ten bucks each.

For people that have no interest in multiplayer and just want to finish HL2 single player, they could rent it for one month and save 40 bucks. That's pretty generous of Valve.

 

[Logic]

Originally posted by dscowboy
For people that have no interest in multiplayer and just want to finish HL2 single player, they could rent it for one month and save 40 bucks. That's pretty generous of Valve.

We can't be 100% sure of this. There may be a minimum subscription time (for example, when you sign up you may have to remain subscribed for, say, 3 months before you can unsubscribe). This hasn't been mentioned by Gabe or anyone else, but it's possible. Mobile phone plans do that all the time, for example.

 

[dscowboy]

^^ True, good point.
What I'm trying to say is that subscription can very easily be a "value" for a lot of people without Valve releasing 'special subscription content'.

 

[Logic]

I agree. It won't suit everyone, but people who would normally have bought everything Valve release, or don't have large amounts of money to pay in one hit (ie kids on $5-$10 a week pocket-money\allowance), and who have a fast internet connection, will benefit a great deal from subscription.

 

[Silver.Fox]

Originally posted by Kresske
No need to get pissy. I just asked a question. I was curious. I was planning on getting the $50 SP + MP boxed edition anyway.

eh, I wasn't pissy .. sorry if it came off that way .. rofl

I just ... find it increadibly hard to believe that you think Valve would let you have HL2 for $9.95 ...

 

[Logic]

Originally posted by Silver.Fox
I just ... find it increadibly hard to believe that you think Valve would let you have HL2 for $9.95 ...

Keep in mind that once you unsubscribe, all you're left with is a memory. You'll never be able to re-visit your favourite locations, or fight your favourite battles. It will only exist in your mind until you re-subscribe or purchase.

People who have HL2 for just one month probably won't be satisfied. I still go back to HL and the expansion packs even now. True fans will play it so much for so long they'll know every location like the palm of their hand. You won't be able to do that in a month.

 

[Fraggz0rz]

Can you play multi player with out subscribing?

 

[Feath]

Originally posted by Fraggz0rz
Can you play multi player with out subscribing?

YES

 

[Fraggz0rz]

This is a big mess and now I think we need to all calm down because do you think for that valve would actualy listen to us LOL

 

[Logic]

*Sigh* Perhaps rather than expect people to find information for themselves, we should have a mod re-name this thread to "ASK YOUR SUBSCRIPTION\PRICING QUESTIONS HERE", and just have us answering questions until either the game's out or more info is released.

 

[Fraggz0rz]

lol probally

 

[Logic]

BTW if you want an explanation of the whole system, just back through some of the pages of this thread (starting from the end working back) and you'll come across numerous descriptions that should clear things up for you.

 

[Sensei_J]

HOLY CRAP! I've just read (most) all 33 pages of this thread and let me tell you... Gabe should read this.

Has anyone asked Gabe to read this thread yet?

j

 

[alco]

Yeah, I still say that they might consider dumping the idea.

Just look at the reaction here. I'm all for the pricing options. The idea can do lots of good for the gaming market, and can change the direction of the industry.

But you're still overestimating the majority's intelligence.

 

[alco]

Originally posted by Sensei_J
HOLY CRAP! I've just read (most) all 33 pages of this thread and let me tell you... Gabe should read this.

Has anyone asked Gabe to read this thread yet?

j

He posted here. I'm pretty sure he's read it.

 

[TheScream]

Steam Price differential

How fair will the steam price structure be for non-us subscribers?

If you base affordability of Steam on the differential between average wage in each country then it is quite difficult to work out something which is fair.

The average wage here in Australia is A$36k (US$23k approx) whereas the average US income is around A$46k (US$30k) and the differential will be significantly more in other countries. How will Valve keep the prices fair dependent on your locality? In addition, if I'm subscribing to Steam I'll have to pay "currency conversion" charges on my credit card for each transaction.

Yes, I do know that Steam is NOT compulsory for HL2 but I am concerned that it will be priced too high for the average Australian to utilise. As it is some retailers here have a pre-order price of A$100 (US$65) which is more than the estimated US price of the game.

 

[smilez]

Also the australian dollar is very bad compared to the US dollar, we also have to pay a conversion rate each month and high bandwidth costs as well (over $100 AU for dsl / month). If the monthly fee was $5 US that would be fine... but $10 is asking that much more

 

[Mr Neutron]

Reply to UndeadScottsman (a.k.a. headcrap) page 33:

Yeah I noticed my mistake; I'm new here. My post got really out of hand lengthwise and I didn't mean most of it as relating directly to your posts. I actually agree with most of your response (the Sierra thing I suspected before).

You're right about Gabe's 'better deal' remark being a little mystifying. It's possible though that he means 'eventually' when Valve has more products under its belt and a bigger output (perhaps from even more MOD projects going under their tutelage). Or it's possible he meant 'better for the more casual audience'. People forget here (especially in this thread) that Valve looks at the market in a broader perspective than just us hardcore. But even if he meant it for the hardcore audience, what does it matter if he's wrong as long as we have an alternative? (And here all my remarks about fair pricing and my credit idea apply.)

As for the MM comments, I was just paraphrasing criticisms I've heard from others, but the bit about not having pay $50 for a product only good for a month I think still stands. Yes the develpment costs must be recouped, but it should be looked at from the consumers perspective, that of a service. It'is different from other services wtih setup fees: if a sattellite TV provider gives you a dish and installs it on your roof for free but then you don't subscribe long enough to recoup their costs, that is a loss for them; MM installation costs on the other hand are negligeable, and their distributors lose nothing if you don't sign up at all

Or at least very little--potentially nothing if they would just sell the install discs for 5 or 10 bucks or sell install-discs-with-one-month prepaid for 15 or 20 bucks like I think they should; I remember Earth and Beyond did it right, selling the Earth and Beyond demo as full install discs with the option of subscribing. What happened to good old fashioned giving away the razors to sell razor blades? Or selling inkjet printers to sell cartirdges (boo! hiss!).

In short: the pay-at-both-ends model sucks if the game turns out to suck. They could just as easily make up the differance in revenues by slightly upping the rates on long-term subscribers (I don't expect a company to lose money on a customer, but it only deserves to be rewarded for actually making a good product--for MM's, that's measured in long-term subscribers). Expansions you may know more about.

Cheers.

 

[Mr Neutron]

TheScream (pg 34):

Actually americans' incomes in 2000 were ~28k avg for the ~97million working males and ~16k avg for the ~99million working females; that makes about a 22k average. Americans are both the richest and poorest in the Euro-Japanese-Commonwealth world.

If you are paying more, yes that sucks :<

http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/income00/inctab7.html

 

[UndeadScottsman]

Originally posted by Mr Neutron
Reply to UndeadScottsman (a.k.a. headcrap) page 33:

Yeah I noticed my mistake; I'm new here. My post got really out of hand lengthwise and I didn't mean most of it as relating directly to your posts. I actually agree with most of your response (the Sierra thing I suspected before).

No worries man!

You're right about Gabe's 'better deal' remark being a little mystifying. It's possible though that he means 'eventually' when Valve has more products under its belt and a bigger output (perhaps from even more MOD projects going under their tutelage). Or it's possible he meant 'better for the more casual audience'. People forget here (especially in this thread) that Valve looks at the market in a broader perspective than just us hardcore. But even if he meant it for the hardcore audience, what does it matter if he's wrong as long as we have an alternative? (And here all my remarks about fair pricing and my credit idea apply.)

Well, I see it more as a "If you use the subscription service for X ammount of months, you'll get it cheaper than if you bought everything in X ammount of months seperately" but I guess that's just my interpretation. We won't know more until after Half-Life 2 comes out, I suppose.

As for the MM comments, I was just paraphrasing criticisms I've heard from others, but the bit about not having pay $50 for a product only good for a month I think still stands. Yes the develpment costs must be recouped, but it should be looked at from the consumers perspective, that of a service. It'is different from other services wtih setup fees: if a sattellite TV provider gives you a dish and installs it on your roof for free but then you don't subscribe long enough to recoup their costs, that is a loss for them; MM installation costs on the other hand are negligeable, and their distributors lose nothing if you don't sign up at all

Or at least very little--potentially nothing if they would just sell the install discs for 5 or 10 bucks or sell install-discs-with-one-month prepaid for 15 or 20 bucks like I think they should; I remember Earth and Beyond did it right, selling the Earth and Beyond demo as full install discs with the option of subscribing. What happened to good old fashioned giving away the razors to sell razor blades? Or selling inkjet printers to sell cartirdges (boo! hiss!).

Usually you only get the installation for free when they're having a special promotional offer (And even then they find ways to gauge you anyway. "Sure the installation is free, but you have to pay for activation costs" and some such nonsense.. And heaven forbid if you live in Alaska ) And in the case where there is no trick or falcity, it's the equivilant to the special sales and bundles you see for various MMORPG's after a year or so. (Like I got DAoC, the Shrouded Isles expansion, and a free month for only 30 bucks.)

Plus there's a stigma having games that are priced that cheaply. Typically if a person is going for the bargain prices, they won't be to interested in playing a MMORPG in the first place (Unless they have been holding off for some reason, in which case the repacked bundle comes in) And the publishers won't be too happen about losing a massive chunk of profit right off the bat (Seriously, even cutting 10 dollars of the initial price is cutting out potential MILLIONS from the publisher)

And again we still have the issue of that multi-million dollar debt not going anywhere, and that the 10 dollar or so fee can't fix (Without racking up MORE debt that is) for a LONG time. And increasing the price of the subscription will just screw over the longterm, multi-year, hardcore, center of the fanbase, "don't piss these guys off cause it's BAD publicity" fans

In short: the pay-at-both-ends model sucks if the game turns out to suck. They could just as easily make up the differance in revenues by slightly upping the rates on long-term subscribers (I don't expect a company to lose money on a customer, but it only deserves to be rewarded for actually making a good product--for MM's, that's measured in long-term subscribers). Expansions you may know more about.

Cheers.

Well, if a MMORPG sucks bad enough to not make it a good purchase, then you just get hosed like you would for any other normal "bad" game, unless you, for some reason, WANT to spend 10 bucks a month for a craptacular game. (There IS a reason you get that free month, ya know )

Like with any other game, you should read reviews and such before you buy it (Unless it's Half-Life 2 ), Hell, you should do so especially for MMORPG's. Lord knows I ain't shelling out 100 bucks a year unless I'm pretty sure it's going to be worth it

Also, expansions are somewhat neccassary for MMORPG's as they allow the game to have an extended shelf-life. Usually retailers will drop games from their shelfs after a year or so (Unless their like number-friggen-1 the entire year), and while that's the norm for regular games, MMORPG's, which require a fresh influx of new players, it's almost certain death. Expansions allow the company to rebundle the game and get it back on the shelves

Sincerely,
Jeremy Dunn

 

[TheScream]

Mr Neutron, I found more up to date statistics for 2001/2 which said $30k but given I'm not a resident, I'll trust your figures.

 

[r00b]

i want hl2!!!11oneone :|

 

[ViperSG]

ha!

i seriously doutb this bs to be true. i preorded hl2 and the way i see it, its being realeased like the original, single player chapters with online multiplayer. as for mods, its most likely going to support mods right out of the box. try and come up with more beliveable bs please!

 

[Feath]

Re: ha!

Originally posted by ViperSG
i seriously doutb this bs to be true. i preorded hl2 and the way i see it, its being realeased like the original, single player chapters with online multiplayer. as for mods, its most likely going to support mods right out of the box. try and come up with more beliveable bs please!

This is beginning to get tedious.

It is being released like this. Just as you expected.

There's also going to be:

* a cheaper, single player only edition. Nobody is forcing you to buy that, believe it or.

* A Collector's edition, which we've actually known about for some time.

Read the entire thread. Particularly posts by Me, Logic, dscowboy and Silver.Fox. That will explain everything.

Rest assured, you'll be able to go to the shop and buy a copy of Half Life 2 that has single player and multiplayer.

And, for your information Gabe told us and confirmed this "BS". Don't argue that it wasn't him, because it was.

 

[ViperSG]

hmm

im thinking about taking back what i said. i saw basicly the same thing that was posted here, but this is more understandable and beliveable.

"This is what gabe supposedly said."

Option 1

You'll pay a standard fee for the game. From this you'll get full Singleplayer, full multiplayer, a Steam account and the ability to download all the cool free mods.

Option 2

You'll pay a reduced fee for the game. However with this you will get just the Singleplayer game and no multiplayer or mod support.

Option 3

You'll pay $9.95 every month, but no box fee. (This is done via Steam). From this you will get the full singleplayer game, multiplayer game, Steam account and the ability to download all the cool free mods. However you will also not have to pay anything, except continue your subscription, for future add-ons to Half-Life 2 or Valve Retail mods such as Team Fortress 2.

 

[Xrenity]

that isn't to difficult, isn't it?
but there is still an option #4: The special edition teh w00tness, all sorts of cool stuff...

 

[NPR Ira Glass]

I read the first thirteen pages of this thread, and then skipped to the end, so forgive me if this has been addressed already.

To those of you (anarchy, et nauseum) bitching about paying for mods... here's a little lesson in economics. A mod team is UNPAID, working on their OWN time to produce a product that they think the community will like. If Valve then says "Hey, your product is hugely popular, we'll pay all you folks to make a sequel," then it is a retail product because there are people being PAID to work on it. These people have bills to pay, children to feed, etc, so Valve HAS to charge for it or these people don't get paid, their cars get repoed, and their children starve to death.

I'm more familiar with BF42 mods than HL, honestly, so I'll use Desert Combat as an example. Frank Delise was a project manager in charge of 3D Studio Max at one point. SW-14 is a 17 year old kid. They are both working for FREE to produce the content that thousands upon thousands of people are enjoying. If EA Games wants to buy DC, and make a licensed version later (which has been hinted at), it will probably contain new content, and what's more, these people will finally be paid for the very hard work they have put in over the last year or so. Furthermore, since that is THE popular BF42 mod, people like SW-14 will have a great line on their resume if they want to break into the game development business, which involves them getting PAID for content they produce, and requires CHARGING end users for that content.

Valve has PAID people to use the Source engine to produce a game called Team Fortress 2, which is loosely based on the free (since no one got paid for it initially) HL1 mod "Team Fortress". Do you seriously expect Valve to NOT charge for something that they have been paying a develpment team to work on for... a year? Two? Valve is a business. It does not exist to make you happy, it exists (like all for-profit businesses) to make money. If it can't make money doing something, then it makes no sense for the company to do it, because all of the people employed by that company would get thrown out of their houses and starve to death. I'm going to assume that Gabe Newell is a decent person, though, so he wants to give people good value for their money. EVEN IF he wasn't a good person, even IF he were a raging ass, it STILL makes good business sense to give people value for their money, because if you don't, they will take their business, and their money, elsewhere.

\end of economics lesson for 16-year-olds who have never worked\

Now, as to the subscription thing, I'm not sure if it's a good idea for the consumer, because I don't know if Valve has released $600 worth of content in the last 5 years. If they haven't, then it's just dumb to pay them $120 a year.. UNLESS.. (and this is a BIG unless) they use that extra, regular income to hire more coders, modelers, and artists, and to become a bigger company that puts out MORE content, to make it worthwhile for the consumer. Imagine what some mod teams could do if they were getting paid for it, rather than fitting in modding time around their regular work schedules. Hell, I pay $7 a month to Fileplanet right now just so I don't have to wait in the damn lines, and if Valve had good content levels I would be more than happy to dump FP and pony up an extra $3 a month, but I would have to have some sort of serious promise from Valve that the content in question would be forthcoming.

 

[dscowboy]

NPR
Re: the economics lesson, hear hear

re: the subscription, nobody said you needed to subscribe for a whole year. You could wait until there are four games available, then subscribe for a couple months until you got bored of them, or decided to buy one. You'd still save money. Think 'renting' instead of 'subscription'.

But I agree that the subscription thing will incentivize valve to buy more mod teams and professionalize/commercialize the good mods.

re: team fortress, team fortress was never a mod for HL1. It was a mod for Quake, then Valve ported it to HL as a commerical product called Team Fortress Classic to tide people over until TF2, and then TF2 was delayed for years. There's a post earlier in this thread that explains it a little better.

 

[dis]

Originally posted by dscowboy

But I agree that the subscription thing will incentivize valve to buy more mod teams and professionalize/commercialize the good mods.

That's not good. I hope that it remains like it was for HL1. Any mod that is initially free will remain free (if you download it, instead of buying at a store) even after Valve makes a commercial version of it. That's what happened to CS and DoD. If they change this and make us pay for mods after a certain point that we've already been playing for free, then I think they're going to anger many people, and based upon that, I don't think that's going to happen. At least, I pray not.

 

[dscowboy]

What's wrong with what happened to CS and DoD? DoD looks a thousand times better now that it was bought by Valve.

EDIT: Mods that don't get bought or get funding take FOREVER to get off the ground. It's been 5 years since HL was released and CS and DoD are the only two mods that have fully matured. With more agressive purchasing by Valve, instead of having 2 good mods to play and a few half-finished ones, we could be swimming in great mods within a couple years.

 

[OCybrManO]

Originally posted by dscowboy
What's wrong with what happened to CS and DoD? DoD looks a thousand times better now that it was bought by Valve.

The game itself only looks marginally better but it does seem more polished... and who is to say that the DoD team wouldn't have been able to do that without support from Valve?

There is no point in saying "It looked better after it was updated" because that is supposed to happen... whether it is better than it would have been if the DoD team did the updates alone is questionable.

 

[dis]

Nothing is wrong with what happened to them. I think you misunderstand my post. What I hope is that the same thing happens to mods for HL2 as happened to mods for HL1. What I hope doesn't happen is that HL2 mods get commercialized by Valve and then everyone, including those that have already downloaded the mod and played for free for an extended, will have to pay to play the mod.

 

[NPR Ira Glass]

dsc: Thanks for the correction Re: Team Fortress being a Quake mod. I'm not up on all of the ins and outs of HL mods, having only been an online gamer since the release of RtCW.

As I understand it, HL2 MP will be handled through Steam, right? If that's the case, Valve could keep an eye on the mapping community, and when they see a promising beta of a map, contact the author and secure the rights to make it a "Steam Subscriber Only" map, and pass it down the pipe to all SS's. Then they could pay the map maker on a "per round" basis, or whatever, so they were not being paid up front to make maps, but were rather earning royalties on the maps they had already made. If a map maker wanted to give the map away, he could, but if he wanted to make some money to be compensated for his hard work, he could do that too. That would provide some incentive for people to subscribe.

Edited to add:

Please note that I think the online mod community is a rather special thing, in that it consists of individuals giving of their time and work to enrich the experiences of fellow geeky folks. However, I also know that in a finite system, you have to economize your time... so if mod teams would do more and/or faster and/or better if they had some profit motive, and aren't fitting their modding in between shifts at McDonald's or working for The Man, I'm all for SOME commercialization.

 

[mrCYDONIA]

OK, what is wrong with this picture?

Can someone explain to me any real benefit to a monthly subscription cost?
I am an old gamer, and I mean old. I started on PONG and Atari 2600.
I have all the latest games Of interest to me. (MOHAA, BF1942, CS, Generals, Warcraft and others, and I even find time to go to work and maintain a family)

Now maybe I am missing the boat on this monthly thing because I was not really ever into the RPG’s. so I wasn’t into the MMORPG’s.

The biggest issue I have, is that Half-Life only had 2 expansion packs in it’s entire 6 years. Lets do the math… $50 is the average price for a new game and $20 for an expansion pack. So, at $10 a month for 12 months = $120.
Now $50 for HL2 and 2x $20 for expansion packs = $90.
Valve plans to release 4 or more expansions in a year?? Or are they saying CS2 and TF2 will be released hot on the heels of HL2?
Even if all three are released the first year, your saving 30$ total.
And the second year they would have to release six expansions to make it worth the $120. I don’t see the value in this at all.

Why? Valve is full of empty promises.
I remember being very excited about TF2 in 1999, in fact they had screen shots up in 1999. Well, it is almost 2004 and it is still no where to be seen. I am not holding my breath for any game they put out in the future. And the excitement has worn off after 5 years. My excitement is waning for Condition Zero as well. How long are they going to wait and how much polish does it need? We know the engine is 5 years old, so hurry the hell up and release it before it looks like 1980’s technology.

And I have nothing against steam, but if I buy a new drive or upgrade my PC, I really don’t want to download 3-5 gigs of games when I could install from a CD in one tenth the time. Steam is not that great an idea in action. But that is just my opinion.
However, I spend a lot of money on games and PC equipment each year, I will not ever, under any circumstances, pay a monthly subscription for gaming, including Gamespy.
In fact Counter-Strike is a very unique gem, what other 5 year old games do you play?
Not many I am sure.

 

[dscowboy]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
There is no point in saying "It looked better after it was updated" because that is supposed to happen... whether it is better than it would have been is questionable.

Sure, it COULD have happened without Valve. But without funding, people have to work at a real job 8 hours a day. The amount of time/money that it took to 'polish up' DoD is considerable. If you paid people 50 bucks an hour (which includes salary, software licenses, equipment, office space, benefits, etc) just for 4 artists and map designers to work for four month, that's over 120k right there. Without Valve purchasing DoD, we would definitely NOT have DoD 1.0 right now, it would still be months if not a year in the future.

Just look at NS, it took how long between the last version and 2.0? A year? The NS people are quoted as saying that without contributions, even THAT would never have happened. With funding, they might've been able to turn out 2.0 in a third of that time.

 

[dis]

Originally posted by NPR Ira Glass
dsc: Thanks for the correction Re: Team Fortress being a Quake mod. I'm not up on all of the ins and outs of HL mods, having only been an online gamer since the release of RtCW.

As I understand it, HL2 MP will be handled through Steam, right? If that's the case, Valve could keep an eye on the mapping community, and when they see a promising beta of a map, contact the author and secure the rights to make it a "Steam Subscriber Only" map, and pass it down the pipe to all SS's. Then they could pay the map maker on a "per round" basis, or whatever, so they were not being paid up front to make maps, but were rather earning royalties on the maps they had already made. If a map maker wanted to give the map away, he could, but if he wanted to make some money to be compensated for his hard work, he could do that too. That would provide some incentive for people to subscribe.

As far as we know, there isn't going to be any "Subscriber Only Content" Everything that the subscribers get, the non subscribers can get too; they will just have to buy it at a store. I can't see them selling a map expansion pack. Either you'd get maps for free or they'll release them with a single player expansion pack.

 

[[NPR]Noah Adams]

Originally posted by dis
That's not good. I hope that it remains like it was for HL1. Any mod that is initially free will remain free (if you download it, instead of buying at a store) even after Valve makes a commercial version of it. That's what happened to CS and DoD. If they change this and make us pay for mods after a certain point that we've already been playing for free, then I think they're going to anger many people, and based upon that, I don't think that's going to happen. At least, I pray not.

You're right to the extent that charging for things that were once free is not a good way to engender the good will of the community, however Ira's economics model still stands. If a mod is commercialized after its completion, there's some justification for free online distribution. If it goes from 20% completion to 100% completion (using Ira's BF42 analogy, if Desert Combat were purchased today and completed by DICE), it's unreasonable to expect that it would be free to anyone.

It's ultimately the discretion of the developers, isn't it? If Valve approaches an independent mod team and wants to commoditize their product with the understanding that it will be sold for profit, the mod developers can always say "no". But seriously, who would?