This piece is very one-sided. It's treating its supposition like it's true, not like it's making an argument. Chiefly, it omits a lot of major milestones in Valve's career, or glosses over them...
Exemplary
This piece is very one-sided. It's treating its supposition like it's true, not like it's making an argument.
Chiefly, it omits a lot of major milestones in Valve's career, or glosses over them entirely. Like, where is any mention of Steam hardware? Link? VR?! What about CSGO and the longterm support behind TF2 and DOTA2? Yeah, Valve have disappointingly moved away from developing games, but they switched over to GaaS years ahead of the curve, and managed to support three distinct games for years successfully.
Sure, great capitalism probably helped out, but it's worth remembering they never cashed out on their consumers like other companies have repeatedly tried to since with other, crappier GaaS models. If the worst of capitalism is about maximizing profits, nobody can really say that Valve did that. They experiment a ton and experience many failures—and they're not shy to admit it. Just compare their paid mod situation with... well, what Bethesda continued with. Valve pulled out of that deal because they saw gamers didn't want it—how successful has Bethesda been?
I can't stress how much an oversight the Steam hardware is, including VR. That's a huge passion project of theirs, and they have driven some gigantic strides in VR tech. And they shared so much of they learned for free (especially how to prevent users from getting nauseous). But this article is going to claim that Valve is dead because they chased capital and went where the money is?
I remember back after L4D2 released Gabe Newell was very excited about some upcoming biotracking hardware. Using the player's heartrate to affect the game would really up the ante on the L4D series' Director feature. He was so excited, he kept it in mind for a long time. It hasn't really panned out, but it's easy to see that Valve switched from being interested in making games to using hardware to make playing games better when you consider what they're doing with VR.
If we're talking about capitalism ruining game development, I feel like there are many, many better examples out there than Valve. But this is a company that's trying to pioneer new ways to play video games while paying for their own R&D (with no VC funding or plans to IPO in sight), it seems ridiculous to claim they're dead just because they're not making actively making a game.
Any argument about capitalism ruining gaming seems to completely ignore the fact that capitalism is the only reason AAA games can realistically even exist at this point in time. It's an argument...
Any argument about capitalism ruining gaming seems to completely ignore the fact that capitalism is the only reason AAA games can realistically even exist at this point in time. It's an argument I've seen mentioned in conjunction with multiple developers and publishers.
The author seems more interested in blaming the system rather than Valve's own greed. And as you and others have pointed out, Valve hardly comes off as particularly greedy when you paint the whole picture instead of pretending they just sitting on their asses raking in Steam money.
Wellllllll, AAA game industry isn't doing too hot. A lot of notable developers have abandoned the AAA scene because it has become too capitalistic. Many gamers are turning more to indie and...
the fact that capitalism is the only reason AAA games can realistically even exist at this point in time
Wellllllll, AAA game industry isn't doing too hot. A lot of notable developers have abandoned the AAA scene because it has become too capitalistic. Many gamers are turning more to indie and mid-market games to get their fix of satisfying games whereas AAA has become more associated with cash farming than providing a singular experience.
AAA games in the 2000's was a completely different world than AAA games in the current 2010's.
Yeah this argument always winds up sounding like “the British built trains in India so colonialism wasn’t all bad.” Do people not think Indians wouldn’t have built railroads for themselves if they...
Yeah this argument always winds up sounding like “the British built trains in India so colonialism wasn’t all bad.” Do people not think Indians wouldn’t have built railroads for themselves if they ran things? Do people think people wouldn’t be making video games without the particular financial systems in place now?
In Valves case though I’m not really seeing “capitalism” as a culprit so much as monopoly rent-seeking, which happens in socialist systems as well.
AAA games are leisure products require hundreds of thousands of hours of tedious work to get made. Without monetary incentive to work on large scale games I think all we would see are small...
AAA games are leisure products require hundreds of thousands of hours of tedious work to get made. Without monetary incentive to work on large scale games I think all we would see are small passion projects made by small numbers of people.
Wow, let's just forget the many other projects valve has invested their revenue in, ya know, steam play and proton, steamos, source 2, dxvk, developing and funding wine. Nah, let's just forget all...
Wow, let's just forget the many other projects valve has invested their revenue in, ya know, steam play and proton, steamos, source 2, dxvk, developing and funding wine. Nah, let's just forget all of those things and focus on the video games they haven't made even though they purchased Campo Santo to develop future games.
The explanation I usually hear about why Valve mostly got out of creating their own games comes down to their management structure that, the explanation goes, works on a sort of "do what you want"...
The explanation I usually hear about why Valve mostly got out of creating their own games comes down to their management structure that, the explanation goes, works on a sort of "do what you want" ethos. It gives people creative freedom but removes any kind of pressure to actually publish. The article even touches on this:
Artists are often very anxious about how their creations will be received. A game studio which makes its money from selling games has no choice but to publish at some point. But one with a monopolist platform that essentially prints money can keep neurotically tweaking and polishing their work forever, until they either give up or their abilities rot away to nothing.
But how is that an argument that Valve-as-a-gaming-studio has been destroyed by capitalism? Their near-monopoly has given them so much cash that, as the article hints at, their gaming division no longer feels the ordinary pressures of capitalism. They make so much from running their store that they don't need profit from their games. That ever-corrupting profit motive is moot. And, as the article argues in part, without that profit motive or the dangers of running out of cash they now feel free to endlessly tinker without any pressure to publish their own games.
If you want an example of a games studio being ruined by the incentives and structures of capitalism look to the giants of the industry that buy up smaller studios with creative IPs which they then turn into heartless pablum meant to sell widely and coast on past good-will. If anything Valve is an example of the problems that might come from different economic systems: that without profit-or-perish incentives a studio might never get around to publishing much of anything.
Valve started under a capitalist system and from 1998-2013 (arguably) they regularly released innovative well-loved games under that capitalist system. There are valid critiques of capitalism as an economic system and of its effects on our society, but this article hasn't convinced me that "capitalism is why we don't have Half-Life 3" is one of them.
GOG is even easier than Steam, IMO, especially thanks to the DRM free installers. Nothing beats being able to buy a game on GOG, download the installer, then throw it on a thumb drive to share it...
GOG is even easier than Steam, IMO, especially thanks to the DRM free installers. Nothing beats being able to buy a game on GOG, download the installer, then throw it on a thumb drive to share it with all your friends at a LAN party so you can all play it together. No muss, no fuss.
This piece is very one-sided. It's treating its supposition like it's true, not like it's making an argument.
Chiefly, it omits a lot of major milestones in Valve's career, or glosses over them entirely. Like, where is any mention of Steam hardware? Link? VR?! What about CSGO and the longterm support behind TF2 and DOTA2? Yeah, Valve have disappointingly moved away from developing games, but they switched over to GaaS years ahead of the curve, and managed to support three distinct games for years successfully.
Sure, great capitalism probably helped out, but it's worth remembering they never cashed out on their consumers like other companies have repeatedly tried to since with other, crappier GaaS models. If the worst of capitalism is about maximizing profits, nobody can really say that Valve did that. They experiment a ton and experience many failures—and they're not shy to admit it. Just compare their paid mod situation with... well, what Bethesda continued with. Valve pulled out of that deal because they saw gamers didn't want it—how successful has Bethesda been?
I can't stress how much an oversight the Steam hardware is, including VR. That's a huge passion project of theirs, and they have driven some gigantic strides in VR tech. And they shared so much of they learned for free (especially how to prevent users from getting nauseous). But this article is going to claim that Valve is dead because they chased capital and went where the money is?
I remember back after L4D2 released Gabe Newell was very excited about some upcoming biotracking hardware. Using the player's heartrate to affect the game would really up the ante on the L4D series' Director feature. He was so excited, he kept it in mind for a long time. It hasn't really panned out, but it's easy to see that Valve switched from being interested in making games to using hardware to make playing games better when you consider what they're doing with VR.
If we're talking about capitalism ruining game development, I feel like there are many, many better examples out there than Valve. But this is a company that's trying to pioneer new ways to play video games while paying for their own R&D (with no VC funding or plans to IPO in sight), it seems ridiculous to claim they're dead just because they're not making actively making a game.
Any argument about capitalism ruining gaming seems to completely ignore the fact that capitalism is the only reason AAA games can realistically even exist at this point in time. It's an argument I've seen mentioned in conjunction with multiple developers and publishers.
The author seems more interested in blaming the system rather than Valve's own greed. And as you and others have pointed out, Valve hardly comes off as particularly greedy when you paint the whole picture instead of pretending they just sitting on their asses raking in Steam money.
Wellllllll, AAA game industry isn't doing too hot. A lot of notable developers have abandoned the AAA scene because it has become too capitalistic. Many gamers are turning more to indie and mid-market games to get their fix of satisfying games whereas AAA has become more associated with cash farming than providing a singular experience.
AAA games in the 2000's was a completely different world than AAA games in the current 2010's.
Yeah this argument always winds up sounding like “the British built trains in India so colonialism wasn’t all bad.” Do people not think Indians wouldn’t have built railroads for themselves if they ran things? Do people think people wouldn’t be making video games without the particular financial systems in place now?
In Valves case though I’m not really seeing “capitalism” as a culprit so much as monopoly rent-seeking, which happens in socialist systems as well.
AAA games are leisure products require hundreds of thousands of hours of tedious work to get made. Without monetary incentive to work on large scale games I think all we would see are small passion projects made by small numbers of people.
oh man that's gonna uncover some deep resentment.....
Wow, let's just forget the many other projects valve has invested their revenue in, ya know, steam play and proton, steamos, source 2, dxvk, developing and funding wine. Nah, let's just forget all of those things and focus on the video games they haven't made even though they purchased Campo Santo to develop future games.
The explanation I usually hear about why Valve mostly got out of creating their own games comes down to their management structure that, the explanation goes, works on a sort of "do what you want" ethos. It gives people creative freedom but removes any kind of pressure to actually publish. The article even touches on this:
But how is that an argument that Valve-as-a-gaming-studio has been destroyed by capitalism? Their near-monopoly has given them so much cash that, as the article hints at, their gaming division no longer feels the ordinary pressures of capitalism. They make so much from running their store that they don't need profit from their games. That ever-corrupting profit motive is moot. And, as the article argues in part, without that profit motive or the dangers of running out of cash they now feel free to endlessly tinker without any pressure to publish their own games.
If you want an example of a games studio being ruined by the incentives and structures of capitalism look to the giants of the industry that buy up smaller studios with creative IPs which they then turn into heartless pablum meant to sell widely and coast on past good-will. If anything Valve is an example of the problems that might come from different economic systems: that without profit-or-perish incentives a studio might never get around to publishing much of anything.
Valve started under a capitalist system and from 1998-2013 (arguably) they regularly released innovative well-loved games under that capitalist system. There are valid critiques of capitalism as an economic system and of its effects on our society, but this article hasn't convinced me that "capitalism is why we don't have Half-Life 3" is one of them.
GOG is even easier than Steam, IMO, especially thanks to the DRM free installers. Nothing beats being able to buy a game on GOG, download the installer, then throw it on a thumb drive to share it with all your friends at a LAN party so you can all play it together. No muss, no fuss.