Tripwire Refute Valve Exploitation Claims

[Blackthorn]

After all the fuss caused by Randy Pitchford, followed by Valve's response, now indy developer Tripwire has stepped forward to defend Valve.

Gibson also dismisses Pitchford's suggestion that as a Valve venture Steam has a "horrid" conflict of interest, saying that while a potential conflict could arise, it hasn't proven to be a problem.

"We've never had a situation where Valve downplayed our competing titles," he said. "On the contrary, they have done a great job of promoting our games on the front page of the Steam store and through pop-up advertisements on Steam."

"The reality is almost every publisher/distributor has some conflict of interest," he added. "Standard bricks-and-mortar driven publishers have their own first-party titles. If they are publishing a first-party title in the same genre as your third-party title, most will either refuse to work with you, or will give your game a much lower priority for funding, advertising and marketing."

Valve response to this situation is unique, reckons Gibson. "Rather than say, 'I don't want to sell your game, because it's a competitor to our game,' Valve says, 'Our game is good, and so is yours, so let's both make some money together.' The attitude is if the game is good, they'll sell it."

Full article here.