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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."
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 ]
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.
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This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along.
I think this is great news (even though we've been expecting it for awhile). The nice thing is that now Valve can actually focus on their issues with Steam with all their resources as opposed to trying to deal with Vivendi. Hopefully this will also start a new erra of games being released without the silly rules of publishers getting in the way. HL2 probably would have been cheaper via steam than in the store if it hadn't been for Vivendi.
I for one would be more than happy to download (and burn myself) all the software I purchase if it meant saving some dollars. Not only that, but the actualy software company would probably see a lot more of the money for their software in this type of a model.
Congratulations Valve!
...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.
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?
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!