Verno wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 10:20:

You can bet EA's CEO, Activision's CEO own Kotick and every CEO out there is putting more importance into what this ass Patcher says than all the gamers combined.

I haven't seen any evidence of this so no I think you're incorrect, I worry more about clueless investors forcing decisions on publishers than people working at publishers. I think most people in the industry recognize he's a colorful village idiot type.

Well, to be honest I wouldn't be able to tell you either way since I do not deal with the gaming industry anymore, I'm only basing my assumption on the many industries I work with. You are probably quite correct as well but again my argument stands, those investors forcing publishers to go one way were again influences by asshats like Patcher. Investors will listen to gamers even less than CEOs will and the reason 99% of them are clueless as fuck.

You can bet EA's CEO, Activision's CEO own Kotick and every CEO out there is putting more importance into what this ass Patcher says than all the gamers combined.

I haven't seen any evidence of this so no I think you're incorrect, I worry more about clueless investors forcing decisions on publishers than people working at publishers. I think most people in the industry recognize he's a colorful village idiot type.

Verno wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 09:28:
Steam has too much momentum to be affected by the words of a market analyst. Valve isn't publicly held anyways and they already have good relationships with the publishers. He's just an idiot who talks out of his ass, it could be about any particular topic. I blame site owners for publishing it. You might as well publish what I put on my blog, it's literally just as credible.

But that's not the point. As I mentioned earlier you know he's an ass, I know it, every single gamer knows it but CEOs of any corporation will listen not to us but to these analysts/speculators. That's why the financial world and corporate world is a fucked up place. You can bet EA's CEO, Activision's CEO own Kotick and every CEO out there is putting more importance into what this ass Patcher says than all the gamers combined.

Now mind you, I repeat that Patcher is trying to do something to Valve, keyword trying. Just because an "analyst" says some stuff it doesn't mean all or any CEO will follow. However this kind of speculation will not be taken lightly and considering how much each publisher wants to start their own digital retailer output it is indeed logical for these guys to undermine Valve by any way possible.

Steam has too much momentum to be affected by the words of a market analyst. Valve isn't publicly held anyways and they already have good relationships with the publishers. He's just an idiot who talks out of his ass, it could be about any particular topic. I blame site owners for publishing it. You might as well publish what I put on my blog, it's literally just as credible.

Having time to think about Patcher's words I now think that he's indeed hurting Valve.

Reasoning is simple, publishers, especially those who are known to try and fight the used games market, will not like these news one bit which may turn publishers away from Steam. This may have been an actual speculation to weaken Valve and drive publishers away from it.

Good grief, didn't see this possibility with all the talk about used games. So either Steam is actually going to do this or Patcher is actively trying to weaken Steam.

The most expensive game from Valve on Steam is The Orange Box at 30 bucks, which is still a great deal. Everything else of THEIRS is 20 or less. So yes, I think they have decent prices.

They don't decide the prices for other company's products, so it's wrong to blame them. Publishers don't want to always offer cheap prices on Steam because that would cause problem with the brick and mortar retailers.

Exactly. Left 4 Dead 2 was released last November as a full priced game and now it costs half as much and has had sales taking it much lower. That's exactly what they promised us and exactly what they gave us.

Really? So Steam couldn't cut their percentage and go for volume instead? 100% of something is better than 100% of nothing. Regardless, it's only a matter of time befor the publishers start doing this themselves and Steam, D2D, etc will be gone.

You mean like the EA Store or the Ubisoft store? Oh wait, they already exist and have had *fuck* *all* impact. The prices on the EA Store are even more unbelievable than on Steam.

Really? So Steam couldn't cut their percentage and go for volume instead? 100% of something is better than 100% of nothing. Regardless, it's only a matter of time befor the publishers start doing this themselves and Steam, D2D, etc will be gone.

The most expensive game from Valve on Steam is The Orange Box at 30 bucks, which is still a great deal. Everything else of THEIRS is 20 or less. So yes, I think they have decent prices.

They don't decide the prices for other company's products, so it's wrong to blame them. Publishers don't want to always offer cheap prices on Steam because that would cause problem with the brick and mortar retailers.

Oh, and Pachter is an idiot.

According to a source close to me, Gabe Newell is working on getting gastric bypass surgery. By sources close to me I mean I pulled this out of my ass. Can I has a job at the Wedbush Morgan?

This complete fucktard is like a panic attack for those of you who have ever suffered through a medical one, if you simply ignore it will cease to trouble you...blue you've wasted more than enough time with this.

Hey right on! Nice to see this published.
While we're at it, let's publish the predictions of every loony like they were fact.
Hell, everyone who comments on these boards qualifies!
Check it, Blue! You've got 'news' for weeks!!


Why the hell would NowGamer even publish this?

Fact of the matter is that apart from the discounted games Steam puts on each week there's really no reason to buy on Steam, unless the game needs Steamwork and is cheaper to get on Steam.

That I can get Civ V for about 30 to 40% cheaper off Amazon and it's a game that uses Steam is a testament that Steam as a service that promised cheaper games releases has failed. All other online stores are actually cheaper than Steam.

I am indifferent towards Steam but the fact is, apart from their weekly sales there's really no reason to buy on Steam if you want to save money. Valve has failed to deliver the promise of making games cheaper by going digital. If anything they made them more expensive and I view that as either a spectacular failure or an outright lie and I never could understand why Steam has so many fierce defenders when stores like GamersGate, which give us the files on out own PC just in case the store goes away one day, doesn't have defenders.

Sad fact of reality is that it's still cheaper to order games from Amazon or getting it from Gaamestop than to buy it on Steam or other online digital distributors. Most indies have cut the middlemen so I tend to buy indies directly from their site.

Sepharo wrote on Oct 14, 2010, 21:13:
So what are all those great sales then? Valve can't force companies to lower their prices but Valve sure as hell does so itself. Also free weekends.

Shut up and fuck off with the sales, kthx . The guy you quoted is 100% correct. Valve (and other publishers) first promised HUGE savings from going from manly box format to DVD box format and then again going from DVD boxed format to digital, well, and the simple matter of the fact is that the fucking savings never ever happened.

Sure, some Steam sales (which only happen like a couple times a year or MONTHS or YEARS after a game's original release) sometimes aren't too shabby for older titles to complete your collection but Steam really isn't an option for new games unless you're a retarded Valve fanboi who feels like making major donations to Gabe's ever growing FAT ASS is the way to go.

Sepharo wrote on Oct 14, 2010, 21:13:
So what are all those great sales then? Valve can't force companies to lower their prices but Valve sure as hell does so itself. Also free weekends.

As a side note, I'm pretty sure valve doesn't put on sales unless the publishers agree. Thats why you have some steam games that never go on sale.

Cutter wrote on Oct 14, 2010, 20:54:
Yeah, well, remember when Valve was starting how they said it was going to be a great benefit for consumers because we'd see big savings on new titles since they didn't need to make physical copies and ship to brick and motar anymore. Yeah, right.

So what are all those great sales then? Valve can't force companies to lower their prices but Valve sure as hell does so itself on their own games. Also free weekends.

This comment was edited on Oct 14, 2010, 21:29.

Yeah, well, remember when Valve was starting how they said it was going to be a great benefit for consumers because we'd see big savings on new titles since they didn't need to make physical copies and ship to brick and motar anymore. Yeah, right. This is why the only games I buy online are bargain bin. At least I can still trade or sell my physical copies. Developers should start cutting out the middle-men and just sell the games online themselves for a heavily discounted price.

Dev wrote on Oct 14, 2010, 18:41:
After reading the replies, I don't think either he or I are saying he's trying to hurt a specific company. The way I read his argument is that its more that this guy is hurting the game industry by giving ideas to the gaming companies that are bad from the consumer point of view. Such as charging for multiplayer. Thats great for good ole bobby if he can get more money off of it, but bad for the consumers who have to pay for that on top of the DLC and everything else.

Yes, you've nailed it on the head.

Tumbler wrote on Oct 14, 2010, 18:31:

Yes, I'm aware, but I don't think he's spreading stuff he KNOWS is false, and trying hurt a company. I think he's just a moron, like in that youtube video

I'm having trouble understanding why this change would hurt the company? When he predicted CoD Black Ops was going to be pay for play, or should be, activision didn't go down, the game pre-orders didn't dry up, and this suggestion is somehow destructive? This would drive more consumers to steam...

Is this like a developer nightmare basically, now that pc gaming has become drm land if steam were to allow trades then they'd be like the gamestop of pc gaming and rob all the profits from you guys and no one would buy new games because there would be thousands of copies available for less on steam? Then you'd have to go back to online activations and running those servers yourselves and then you make less money?

Because that's crazy. Not only did PC games thrive when they could be easily traded but you have another industry that is running past you with retail chains renting, trading, and reselling their games...

I don't see anyone being able to buy a used digital copy of anything, why? The point of buying used is the product has suffered wear and tear so you're paying at a discount because of that.

When valve buys back your copy of Half-life 2, they get to sell it full price to someone else, as all you've done is put your key back into the bank.
I guess they could sell 'used' keys without 0day DLC or something like that, but to me I would imagine that being relatively ignored as the price break between the used and non-used copy probably wouldn't be that great.

The only leg pachter has to stand on as to why he would say this (and think it's credible) is the steam wallet, which exists for nothing, unless of course you were concerned about handing out credit to people, which would certainly make valve buying your keys back from you easier on their end.

Tumbler wrote on Oct 14, 2010, 18:31:

Yes, I'm aware, but I don't think he's spreading stuff he KNOWS is false, and trying hurt a company. I think he's just a moron, like in that youtube video

I'm having trouble understanding why this change would hurt the company? When he predicted CoD Black Ops was going to be pay for play, or should be, activision didn't go down, the game pre-orders didn't dry up, and this suggestion is somehow destructive? This would drive more consumers to steam...

Is this like a developer nightmare basically, now that pc gaming has become drm land if steam were to allow trades then they'd be like the gamestop of pc gaming and rob all the profits from you guys and no one would buy new games because there would be thousands of copies available for less on steam? Then you'd have to go back to online activations and running those servers yourselves and then you make less money?

Because that's crazy. Not only did PC games thrive when they could be easily traded but you have another industry that is running past you with retail chains renting, trading, and reselling their games...

After reading the replies, I don't think either he or I are saying he's trying to hurt a specific company. The way I read his argument is that its more that this guy is hurting the game industry by giving ideas to the gaming companies that are bad from the consumer point of view. Such as charging for multiplayer. Thats great for good ole bobby if he can get more money off of it, but bad for the consumers who have to pay for that on top of the DLC and everything else.

Yes, I'm aware, but I don't think he's spreading stuff he KNOWS is false, and trying hurt a company. I think he's just a moron, like in that youtube video

I'm having trouble understanding why this change would hurt the company? When he predicted CoD Black Ops was going to be pay for play, or should be, activision didn't go down, the game pre-orders didn't dry up, and this suggestion is somehow destructive? This would drive more consumers to steam...

Is this like a developer nightmare basically, now that pc gaming has become drm land if steam were to allow trades then they'd be like the gamestop of pc gaming and rob all the profits from you guys and no one would buy new games because there would be thousands of copies available for less on steam? Then you'd have to go back to online activations and running those servers yourselves and then you make less money?

Because that's crazy. Not only did PC games thrive when they could be easily traded but you have another industry that is running past you with retail chains renting, trading, and reselling their games...