Game News Entertainment as a Service

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Scars of War

It's a little late but <a href="http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/693342/Live-Blog-DICE-2009-Keynote---Gabe-Newell-Valve-Software.html">here's something interesting from Valve</a> about one of the Codex' favourite topics:
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<blockquote>Gabe beileves the old way of entertainment: Indirect customer relationships, product orientation. The new way of entertainment now: Direct customer relationships, service orientation. Valve aims to touch its customers in some way every three weeks, not every three years when a new game is shipped.
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Through this perspective, Gabe and Valve have observed the following:
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* 30-year old songs with a little service (Rock Band, Guitar Hero) generate huge profits
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* Pirates are ahead not just on price, but on service
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* DRM appears to increase, not decrease piracy
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* Privacy and transparency
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* Shrinking distance to customer empowers content creators
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[...]
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Valve has seen a great turnaround rate on guest passes. Friends invite their friends to play a game they already own. Game invites that also walk a gamer through a purchase process are also effective.
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Time to look at the sales of Team Fortress 2 to see the impact of the updates on revenue. Holy s#!%. The sales spike by huge amounts everytime there's a sale or major update. Steam sales went up 106% after a free update. Player minutes went up by 105%. Gifting has thrown a 71% sales increase. Surprisingly, sales from retail stores also went up by 28%. Finally, it saw 75% increase in new users. Knock knock. Who's there? Steam. Steam who? Steam is so successful it hurts.
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[...]
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Valve was afraid that too many price changes would "confuse and anger" customers. It isn't the case.
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Last weekend, Valve decided to do an experiment with Left 4 Dead. Last weekend's sale resulted in a 3000% increase over relatively flat numbers. It sold more last weekend than when it launched the game. WOW. That is unheard of in this industry. Valve beat its launch sales. Also, it snagged a 1600% increase in new customers to Steam over the baseline.</blockquote>
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Lower prices and more updates beat piracy? There are a few more stats but I've mentioned it because <a href="http://scarsofwargame.com/DevBlog/">Naked Ninja talks about it a bit more in his blog</a>. He has intentions of doing the same thing for his indie game. You know, once he actually completes it of course.
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Spotted @ <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPGWatch</a>

 

[phanboy_iv]

I still don't understand how come Newell acts so surprised that price cuts and weekend deals make sales skyrocket. I mean, sellers have known for centuries that limited deals and price cuts can actually make you more money than not. How is this news to Valve? This is basic economics. Do grocery stores have to deal with "angry customers that feel cheated" when they put pork sirloin on sale? No, they just move a whole lotta pork sirloin.

Item on sale at a good price=people buy more.

I'm a sucker for the deals. My recent acquisition of DHSGIT is why I'm still up, actually.

 

[Angthoron]

Sort of makes one wonder how many more bicycles the gaming industry has to invent before it can cast off the diapers.

 

[racofer]

* DRM appears to increase, not decrease piracy

Ok, so will they drop STEAM?

 

[Andhaira]

Well service irather vey high, though the global recession has put a damper on things. unless service is free :D

 

[Kingston]

That's all well and good, but their 1 Euro = 1 USD policy is horseshit. I don't know how much the publishers are to blame for this, but even Valve's own games have the same conversion. Since the price change near the end of last year I haven't bought a single thing off Steam.

Steam was supposed to have cheaper games since the costs that come with retail (packaging, shipment etc.) don't come into play. Instead it's now more expensive than retail.

So while they tout the greatness of their customer relationship they are also fucking Europeans up the ass. Double-faced much?

 

[FeelTheRads]

Valve aims to touch its customers in some way

They'd better not TOUCH me in ANY way.

 

[rpgcodexusername]

Steam is one big DRM nightmare, they even keep track of you when you are playing a game, e.g. how long it takes you to complete a level.

 

[doctor_kaz]

If Valve aims to touch its customers every three weeks, then where's my free Portal and Half-Life 2 downloadable content?

 

[racofer]

Steam is one big DRM nightmare, they even keep track of you when you are playing a game, e.g. how long it takes you to complete a level.

STEAM is the definition of spyware. That shit tracks how long I play, when I play, how I play, where I died, what weapons I used, how long I took at a certain level...... And I'm never asked if I want to submit that data. Not to mention the unasked patches that I can't refuse unless I completely turn off patching altogether. A prime example is here, on a thread I started some time ago where valve dumbed down episode one based on their amazing spying shit. A lot of dumbasses died on a challenging area of the game, so valve with their infinite wisdom dumbed the whole shit to appeal to a bunch of fags and to promote their innovashunive <s>spyware</s> STEAM technology.

 

[Foamhead]

Valve aims to touch its customers in some way

They'd better not TOUCH me in ANY way.

The first time is always scary.

Steam is one big DRM nightmare, they even keep track of you when you are playing a game, e.g. how long it takes you to complete a level.

STEAM is the definition of spyware. That shit tracks how long I play, when I play, how I play, where I died, what weapons I used, how long I took at a certain level...... And I'm never asked if I want to submit that data. Not to mention the unasked patches that I can't refuse unless I completely turn off patching altogether. A prime example is here, on a thread I started some time ago where valve dumbed down episode one based on their amazing spying shit. A lot of dumbasses died on a challenging area of the game, so valve with their infinite wisdom dumbed the whole shit to appeal to a bunch of fags and to promote their innovashunive <s>spyware</s> STEAM technology.

Is there an option to scale the difficulty?

 

[racofer]

There are three difficulty settings, but valve dumbed down that level in a way that it doesn't matter. The only way to play that level the way it was meant to be is to use a warez version of EP1 that is unpatched.

 

[Davaris]

Steam is one big DRM nightmare, they even keep track of you when you are playing a game, e.g. how long it takes you to complete a level.

STEAM is the definition of spyware. That shit tracks how long I play, when I play, how I play, where I died, what weapons I used, how long I took at a certain level...... And I'm never asked if I want to submit that data. Not to mention the unasked patches that I can't refuse unless I completely turn off patching altogether. A prime example is here, on a thread I started some time ago where valve dumbed down episode one based on their amazing spying shit. A lot of dumbasses died on a challenging area of the game, so valve with their infinite wisdom dumbed the whole shit to appeal to a bunch of fags and to promote their innovashunive <s>spyware</s> STEAM technology.

Spying on you is all part of the service. It helps us make the games you love, even better.

 

[phanboy_iv]

STEAM is the definition of spyware. That shit tracks how long I play, when I play, how I play, where I died, what weapons I used, how long I took at a certain level...... And I'm never asked if I want to submit that data.

Is it not in the EULA somewhere?

Not to mention the unasked patches that I can't refuse unless I completely turn off patching altogether. A prime example is here, on a thread I started some time ago where valve dumbed down episode one based on their amazing spying shit. A lot of dumbasses died on a challenging area of the game, so valve with their infinite wisdom dumbed the whole shit to appeal to a bunch of fags and to promote their innovashunive <s>spyware</s> STEAM technology.

Patches that you don't want are quite rare, I'd rather have an autopatch that is a benefit 95% of the time, than no autopatch, which would be helpful only about 5% of the time. If you don't like Ep1's difficulty curve, don't play it. If Steam han't been a factor, they would simply done it the old way and buried the balance changes in a patch with fixed a bunch of real bugs, and you would have still been screwed.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

What I hate is when Steam decides it needs to download the latest update to a game when I'd rather spend the time playing it and download the update later.

Though I'm sure you can fuck around turn it on and off like that whole offline / online crappola. Still, I've not been upset with Steam so far.

 

[HanoverF]

So many tards started playing when they cut the price for Left 4 Dead I had to quit

 

[M_I_C_K_E_Y_M_O_U_S_E]

Steam is one big DRM nightmare, they even keep track of you when you are playing a game, e.g. how long it takes you to complete a level.

STEAM is the definition of spyware. That shit tracks how long I play, when I play, how I play, where I died, what weapons I used, how long I took at a certain level...... And I'm never asked if I want to submit that data. Not to mention the unasked patches that I can't refuse unless I completely turn off patching altogether. A prime example is here, on a thread I started some time ago where valve dumbed down episode one based on their amazing spying shit. A lot of dumbasses died on a challenging area of the game, so valve with their infinite wisdom dumbed the whole shit to appeal to a bunch of fags and to promote their innovashunive <s>spyware</s> STEAM technology.

Hi. The FPS difficulty rating you want is that way *points to the various pugs, pick ups, gathers, scrims and matches of TF2, Quake, CS etc*