Gamespot.com: EA to Become Publisher for Valve Retail Titles

[The Mullinator]

meh. Since Valve is probably planning on Steam for being its major method of distribution and money making I doubt that EA will have much power over them as a result, which is the most major worry of having EA as a publisher I suspect if your an independant developer. Since I never planned on buying retail anyway it probably won't even affect me.

 

[svet-am]

People say that EA has no say so in the development of Valve games so no harm right? Wrong. EA is already the biggest videogame publisher in the world and they will profit from selling popular Valve games to console gamers. This will only strengthen an already overwhelmingly powerful force in the gaming industry. They bought the rights to make NFL and NCAA football games for crying out loud! No one else can make those kinds of games(not officially anyway). No way can that be argued as being 'good' for gamers. Monopolization in general is bad for consumers, why else would we have antitrust laws in the US?

Valve partnering with EA doesn't present an immediate, direct threat to the quality of Valve games. In the long run though, it would've been more beneficial for consumers if Valve went with another publisher like Activision if for no other reason than to keep EA 'honest' and not totally take gamers for granted. I'm NOT saying that EA is an evil company, they're just doing what any successful business does - all I'm saying is that without competition we'll be seeing Madden games go for $80 a pop. Why else do MS Windows and Office products cost an arm and a leg? Because MS has no real rivals in these particular fields. Helping EA become a stronger monopoly is not good in the long run.

what did I do wrong? i said all of this same stuff a few posts back and got slammed. this guy says the same stuff using different phrasing and people flock to his support. wtf!? :rolling:

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

because you were suggesting that EA had some say in how Valve run things, or some measure of control over Valve. Which they don't.

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

not to take this thread all off topic or anything but if EA eats up all the competition, that means they can throw out whatever level of work they please and us gamers would have to put up with it.

oh...and its called a monopoly.
and kids, believe it or not, monopolies aren't always a good thing.
in some cases they are...but not in game industry.

Yep, I was about to say that, ray_MAN read up on how MS got a nice lawsuit for being a monopoly. No good things can come to those who eat up other developers.

 

[boglito]

thank god for steam

.bog.

 

[Insano]

EA is a good publisher, at least they have a lot of commercials for their games.

Look at Vivendi with HL2: I hardly saw any commercials for it.

imho

VU=Rock
EA=Hard place

either way - so what?

Vivendi rocks?

They stopped Counterstrike: CZ from releasing for 6 months.

They tried to get their hands on the right of the HL universe.

They tried to stop Valve from selling trough Steam and make money.

 

[Ghost]

I'd also like to throw in that VALVe isn't a public company, it's privately owned. It's stock isn't on the stock market. EA can't just buy up all of VALVe's stock and take control of the company that way, the only way they can do anything is if Gabe (or whoever) sells them the company, and even then I don't think one person could do that without the consensus of VALVe's other employees.

Though I'm not a business guy in anyway, I'm pretty sure that a company needs to be public in order to get bought up, so I don't think we have to worry about that much happening. Putting pressure on VALVe in other ways? Maybe, but VALVe would probably drop them like they did Vivendi.

 

[Absinthe]

Vivendi rocks?

They stopped Counterstrike: CZ from releasing for 6 months.

They tried to get their hands on the right of the HL universe.

They tried to stop Valve from selling trough Steam and make money.

Umm... rock and a hard place, dude. Ever heard of that figure of speech?

Any way, I'm not too concerned with this, as EA doesn't have any real hold over Valve. Still, I can understand why people don't want one of their favorite developers to partner up with Beelzebub when it comes to anything. It's just not a pretty sight.

The kind of message it gives off is also pretty conflicting. One one hand, we have Steam, the distribution technology that can empower the little man. On the other, we have EA, the soul-crushing evil empire that eats everything in sight in an effort to become the next big monopoly.

Bleh. I just won't buy retail, is all.

(Edited because I made a stupid mistake. This is becoming a bad habit.)

 

[Insano]

Umm... rock and a hard place, dude. Ever heard of that figure of speech?

Sorry, I'm born and raised at Munro's palace :naughty:

Bleh. I just won't buy retail, is all.

Same.

 

[Ghost]

For the digital revolution!

 

[Lincoln]

Did you even read it?

Also, think. Valve is primary a game developer. They can handle online distribution via Steam, but delivering games to retail, be it for PC or consoles, is done by other companies, such as VUG, Activision, EA.

"Valve will now officially self-publish all of its PC products"
Does it say Valve will do it exclusively? No.
Does it say Valve will self-publish via retail? No.
So what the hell does this mean? It means the contract with EA mentions that Valve is free to distribute games via Steam.

A game of the year version. So what.

THE MORE IMPORTANT LINE is that Valve will self-publish its future PC titles.

And what the hell do any of you here care? You already have HL2 for the PC, most of you are whining about how the console verison will suck, but you all want another excuse to bitch at Valve and EA, when neither have done anything yet.

 

[Bluestrike]

I love the current "Hate EA" fad.


You might want to bitch to Digital Illusions about that, not EA.

For some reason people can't differentiate between Publisher and Developer.

Actually, developers often depend on their publisher for money to create a game.
And a publisher will only look at the revenue, if its sounds to risky like a innovative game, theres not mutch chance they get the money to do it.

In the case of Valve its not to bad, Valve doesn't need developer funding at all, and they are publishing their own game as well, over the steam network.
But not many other developers have that luxury.

When publishers get more and more control of the game market, they can also increase prices for the products with their dominant position.

 

[Chris D]

EA is a good publisher, at least they have a lot of commercials for their games.

Look at Vivendi with HL2: I hardly saw any commercials for it.

Vivendi rocks?

They stopped Counterstrike: CZ from releasing for 6 months.

They tried to get their hands on the right of the HL universe.

They tried to stop Valve from selling trough Steam and make money.

Insane, you should know better. Use the edit button, don't make a new post.

Posts merged.

 

[Rafa 5.0]

Walking through Ravenholm you find billboards that say NFSU2 and BF2 and all the Breen screens show footage of Burnout: Revenge, hahahha!

 

[Insano]

Insane, you should know better. Use the edit button, don't make a new post.

Posts merged.

Sorry, I had two windows open and forgot it was the same thread.

Please don't kill me

Walking through Ravenholm you find billboards that say NFSU2 and BF2 and all the Breen screens show footage of Burnout: Revenge, hahahha!

If that happens, a lot of people will boycot that game.

Valve knows that and they would never do it.

And yes, I know you were just kidding.

 

[jet jaguar]

Walking through Ravenholm you find billboards that say NFSU2 and BF2 and all the Breen screens show footage of Burnout: Revenge, hahahha!

If we're lucky maybe EA can replace all that nerdy ambience soundtrack in HL2 with the hipper, more with it, EA Trax!!

 

[cadaveca]

because you were suggesting that EA had some say in how Valve run things, or some measure of control over Valve. Which they don't.

did YOU read the contract?:naughty:

 

[Dowie]

Awaits...

Half Life 05/06 Season

and sequels every year

 

[Insano]

Awaits...

Half Life 05/06 Season

and sequels every year

Valve has the right of the HL universe. Never going to happen

 

[Dowie]

I know I just hate that company dammit EA

We will never forget Westwood and all the other game universes and companies you have ****ed up

I agree with your sig above, I will never buy retail products from Valve and EA, only on steam now

ohh year sorry EA the one good game series you have is Battlefield, the rest are shit apart from Allied Assault

 

[Insano]

I know I just hate that company dammit EA

We will never forget Westwood and all the other game universes and companies you have ****ed up

I agree with your sig above, I will never buy retail products from Valve and EA, only on steam now

ohh year sorry EA the one good game series you have is Battlefield, the rest are shit apart from Allied Assault

All westwood members left anyway and started new developer teams.

Same for the team that developed Medal of Honour: Allied Assault.

Most of them left EA and their team made Call of Duty.

 

[ray_MAN]

Yep, I was about to say that, ray_MAN read up on how MS got a nice lawsuit for being a monopoly. No good things can come to those who eat up other developers.

I honestly can't see why a monopoly is a bad thing. If other companies are weak, and another is growing prosperously, why are they forced to stay where they are? Why should other companies go bankrupt if they could be taken into the warm arms of a successful company? Humans are a monopoly.
I am also almost 100% sure that the contract Valve signed was very exact and met the needs of Valve. They know what PC gamers want. They will not turn into a shit house. Otherwise, Valve wouldn't have signed it.

 

[The Mullinator]

I honestly can't see why a monopoly is a bad thing. If other companies are weak, and another is growing prosperously, why are they forced to stay where they are? Why should other companies go bankrupt if they could be taken into the warm arms of a successful company? Humans are a monopoly.

The problem is when competition can't even exist anymore. Once competition can't exist then the owner of the monopoly can do whatever they want, as a result severely hurting consumers.

Competition is what gives us better products and lower prices. Without it an industry will become stagnant and unusable with time.

 

[ray_MAN]

Unless there was a sympathetic and intelligent owner of the business. Oil is a monopoly.

 

[Voodoo_Chile]

If we're lucky maybe EA can replace all that nerdy ambience soundtrack in HL2 with the hipper, more with it, EA Trax!!

Tell me your Joking???!

My own personal feelings on the matter are that if this is nothing but a Simply Distribution deal then fine,But I still reserve the right to dispise EA as I see fit due to their stifling of Creativity and sheer willingness to produce Piss-Poor games for sole profit.

Sure their a company in the Business of making money but after the rape of Bullfrog and westwood (among Others) there can be no forgivness.

 

[Underhill[FIN]]

That would suck.. My god why????

This means that we dont see blood in valves game anymore, and that sucks.. Blood is big thing doggs :frown:

 

[Lincoln]

That would suck.. My god why????

This means that we dont see blood in valves game anymore, and that sucks.. Blood is big thing doggs :frown:

Oh my god.

You can't possibly be that dumb.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

did YOU read the contract?:naughty:

I don't need to.

Let's pretend that you, cadaveca, are a successful, self-owned game developer with a penchant for digital distribution. Now you need a publisher to handle all the retail side of your game distribution.

Would you, at any point, decide to give any form of control over the development of your games to whoever you choose as your publisher?

Would you, at any point, decide to give any form of control over the running of your company to whoever you choose as your publisher?

Would you, at any point, decide to give anything to whoever you choose as your publisher except the right to handle distribution and marketing of your retail product?

If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, you wouldn't deserve to be in the games industry.

 

[Insano]

And Gabe Newell, who probably makes the big decissions at Valve, isn't some noob. He worked at Microsoft before so he knows the business.

 

[BladeTurbo]

They have one. Heard of Steam?

Steam a mistake? thats news to me, i haven't had any problems. i think its a great way to stop piracy and insures the money goes directly to the developers and not the greedy publishers. i remember in an interview with Gabe that the developer only receives about $7.00 per sale. this insures they get at least $30.00 per sale.

from final hours of HL2 (http://www.gamespot.com/features/6112889/p-8.html)

"Newell told the crowd that, under the current system, most developers make only about $7 for each game they sell. But an online distribution platform like Steam--which cuts out the middleman and delivers a game directly to the consumer's desktop--could net developers more than $30 per copy"

 

[63]

Steam a mistake? thats news to me, i haven't had any problems. i think its a great way to stop piracy and insures the money goes directly to the developers and not the greedy publishers. i remember in an interview with Gabe that the developer only receives about $7.00 per sale. this insures they get at least $30.00 per sale.

from final hours of HL2 (http://www.gamespot.com/features/6112889/p-8.html)

"Newell told the crowd that, under the current system, most developers make only about $7 for each game they sell. But an online distribution platform like Steam--which cuts out the middleman and delivers a game directly to the consumer's desktop--could net developers more than $30 per copy"

I didn't say anything about steam being a mistake. I was referring to the "They should of just made thier own Publishing company" part of the post.

 

[BladeTurbo]

What the hell are you talking about... I didn't say anything about steam being a mistake. I was referring to the "They should of just made thier own Publishing company" part of the post.

sorry, my bad. i read into it that you were talking about the mistake, not the publishing company.

 

[Underhill[FIN]]

Oh my god.

You can't possibly be that dumb.

yes i can

 

[xzeox]

Man This is like the 7th thread ive seen on this topic. BUT IT DOESNT MAKE EA RIGHT!!!

 

[Absinthe]

Unless there was a sympathetic and intelligent owner of the business. Oil is a monopoly.

And there's a reason the oil market is a bitch to deal with.

In any case, EA is far from sympathetic. If youre somehow trying to say that monopolies are a good thing, then you haven't given them very much thought.

 

[polyguns]

i never hated ea till they bought out the nfl, but really, i should hate the nfl, cause of their greedy sellout asses, ill never play nfl blitz

ea is very smart not touching the pc market with valve. the only thing that might be worrysome for the future for ea could be when the next gens come out, and valve gaines some ability to produce a steam like ap for x-box, oh i see it now, downloading your CONSOLE games over steam eliminating the need for ea, funded by ea at first, oh that sounds familiar.

the two greedy game enterprizes deserve each other, and we deserve the upcomming drama and battles cause we all supported both over the years. i know valve knows what their doing, but on this one, seems ea coulda laid their brains on the ground to get their asses pwnt.

I'll never buy another valve product, thats the easy part, but never buying another ea product is hard. thats more like boycotting walmart, 2 am in the morning and you need writable cd's, theres nowhere else to go

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Bye then.

 

[DarkStar]

Oh. My. God.

I can't believe it.

If there was one developer I didn't expect this from it was Valve.

I'm shocked, but hopefully the quality of the games will not be lessened by this move, even if we do have to sit through that horrid "Challenge Everything" logo from now on.

 

[Insano]

Man This is like the 7th thread ive seen on this topic. BUT IT DOESNT MAKE EA RIGHT!!!

It's a newspost. They are always right.

 

[Ghost]

Hm, I wonder if there will be a Penny Arcade strip about this?