Slashdot Mirror
Valve and Vivendi Part Ways
IGN has news that the long running suit between Valve and Vivendi has finally been resolved. There has been some sort of settlement reached, the immediate result being that as of August 31st Vivendi will no longer be distributing Valve titles. From the article: "Valve has not announced a new publishing partner, or whether the company will now solely rely on Steam for distribution. A new publishing agreement would almost certainly be needed for the Xbox version of Half-Life 2 scheduled for release later this summer."
There's a shock. As if anyone couldn't see this happening. Now I wonder how many people will take this chance to start bashing steam once again
I'm very happy about this. As long as Valve works the rest of the bugs with Steam out, I'll be more than happy to purchase products soley off of steam from now on.
Screw Vivendi.
Why can't Valve self-publish? Granted I know little about this arena, so I may be speaking directly from my posterior, but it doesn't seem hard. A disc press makes up 500 bazillion DVDs, and they usually do the case for it too, you provide the art. Then contract to a printer to print the boxes and manuals. Box and ship to wholesaler houses.
What does a "publisher" do except manage all that and take a good chunk of money for it? Sure for smaller firms they bankroll the project, but Valve probably has a few bucks to do this themselves. They put out a recent game that seems to be somewhat popular with the kids...
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
As much as I disapprove of Valve, I hate Vivendi more.
Microsoft as publisher for atleast Halflife2 xbox.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
Advertising.
As well off as Valve is, I don't think they have the experience or the connections to run the kind of advertising blitz that an experienced publisher can.
--------
This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along.
...distribution. These days it is possible for a developer to market their own title. Great leaps in manufacturing technology in this internet age have meant it is much cheaper to produce the physical media than it was in epochs past (early nineties), such as the CD, box, etc. What is barely possible for a newcomer is to break into the distribution channel.
Distributors are the ones that make sure boxes reach the shelves, at the right box width and height, at stores like Wal Mart, CompUSA, and Best Buy. Having the right distributors signed on is more important than having the right publisher.
As for a developer breaking into the distribution channel, I only know of one example: Id. Back when they were operating their own phone/mail order system for Doom, they offered up the shareware for free. I.e., they wanted no royalty take on the shareware copies that sold everywhere. Hence why you could find the shareware at anyplace that sold software, and some places that didn't (I remember a friend's picture from a convenience store in socal from that period, showing doom shareware up for sale next to the bubblegum).
Performing sanity checks on your own beliefs is vital in avoiding poisoned koolaid.
Yeah I'm sure that extra 3% market is worth the trouble.
Maybe they'll team up with Activision next? It's not as is they've not done anything together before...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Take a look at the commercialization of Counterstrike and Day of Defeat. Counterstrike pulled a lot of people into the half life fold, when before the most popular mods were generally for the Quake series. They saw quickly that mods were sustaining the sales of their product.
They also saw the potential of standalone products based off of these mods. Factor in piracy due to Counterstrike's popularity, and you see that they were looking at more effective copy protection. Looking into the future, they saw mod groups turning into the next big development studios. When creating business strategies, you always look for business models along the lines of the One Ring.
Thus Valve toiled away, improving the mod SDK and telling mod developers that were interested in commercializing quality mods. This brought a lot of talent to the Half Life SDK. Working on their next generation engine, they saw the need to make it easier to develop with, if only for their bottom line- and to make the next gen SDK easy to use for modders. Steam, an online distribution system, is the ultimate way to commercialize the mods- and distribute Half Life 2 to those users who are network connected, and whom trust Valve with their credit card number.
Thus Valve is trying, nay, has succeeded, in forging One Steam To Rule Them All. What they haven't done is focused on creating standards in such a way as to bring all developers at least partially into their fold. Thus, they've gone off and created their own corner of the universe.
I have no doubt they'll be the number one publisher of commercial Half Life mods. After all, the Eula and SDK license insure that.
They'll probably sign with a publisher that offers them a great royalty deal, and publishing support on at least two of the console systems, to suuport their physical boxes. If they can get enough mindshare via Steam, boxes on the shelf won't be their biggest source (pun!) of income.
Performing sanity checks on your own beliefs is vital in avoiding poisoned koolaid.
Please don't let it be EA
Please don't let it be EA
Please don't let it be EA
Knight37 - Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer
Damn you, Angelina Jolie! Is nothing sacred?
This was soemthing that was obviously going to happen from the start. I have a feeling that valve will become their own publisher. A company with that many resources can produce and distribute the media for its own games without any help from another party...
Lucas carved out a new freedom in film-making, Google defined their own industry and vowed to do no evil, now Valve has its own opportunity to define a new way of distributing computer games.
Onya Valve!
Even if Valve went without a publisher, do you really think they would charge that much less for their games? $50 has long been the standard price, and they won't tarry far from that path. After all, they are a business, first and foremost, and will make as much money as they can. It is inherent to what they do.
Also, they are going to get a publisher. Think about who buys games. Mostly teenagers. Now think about how people buy games via Steam. They buy with a credit card. I don't know about you, but my parents never let me use their cards. They risk alienating a lot of their market (under 18, I'd wager a good half) by moving to a Steam only market.
That Valve is going to quit being a bunch of little MS fanboys and might start writing code that is half-assed portable?
Your post makes no sense.
Valve was not a Vivendi studio. Vivendi was merely the publisher.
Actual Vivendi studios have supported non-MS platforms, for example Blizzard's long history of Mac support.
Hurrah for Single Player games that require internet connections to play, and require Steam while not listing this minimum requirement on the box! THANKS!
Yes! I demand a java version of counterstrike!