Notch on Steam "I worry about the PC as a gaming platform becoming owned by a single entity that tak
303 replies, posted
Valve should release a free version of Minecraft with hats just for the lols.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;36969314]and on the source engine so the map caps off really early and it crashes whenever you view the motd[/QUOTE]
And you get [i]'map not found'[/i] when joining [b]any[/b] server.
[QUOTE=ShaunOfTheLive;36968513]Notch is the god of money.[/QUOTE]
And vacations.
As far as I know Steam/valve cares a lot about the customers [i]and[/i] the developers. The DRM side is that it's a very convenient DRM, it's not just a DRM, but a really good platform for gaming, with the steam community, shop, friends, and a place to keep all your games in one account. Why would you hate on steam? I understand the "But they're taking up all the place, blablaaa", but so what? It's what the users want.
[QUOTE=Philly c;36969244]Don't you understand that the whole point of what notch says it that you don't need steam, nor a service that can compete with steam.
This whole thread is really annoying to read, it seems like everybody left their brains at the door to join the notch lynch mob. I don't like him either but I actually read what he's saying first.
Developer independence is something we should be happy about, now you guys seem to think it's a good thing we're all wired up to steam permanently.[/QUOTE]
Yes, but a lot of indie devs need a publisher in order to get noticed. If they think they can self-publish, then that's their choice.
[QUOTE=brainmaster;36970080]As far as I know Steam/valve cares a lot about the customers [I]and[/I] the developers. The DRM side is that it's a very convenient DRM, it's not just a DRM, but a really good platform for gaming, with the steam community, shop, friends, and a place to keep all your games in one account. Why would you hate on steam? I understand the "But they're taking up all the place, blablaaa", but so what? It's what the users want.[/QUOTE]
Why does steam drm get a free pass? It's widely thought that all drm sucks, and fact that it only affects people who pay. It's not convenient in any way. What annoys me the most about it is that I see no reason why it even needs to exist. All those extra features can still work for people who actually bought from steam and log in with it if they choose to.
[editline]28th July 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=ShaunOfTheLive;36970221]Yes, but a lot of indie devs need a publisher in order to get noticed. If they think they can self-publish, then that's their choice.[/QUOTE]
That's true but it's a separate issue, valve don't publish with steam, they just distribute. Theoretically there's no reason why a publisher can't sell a drm free game.
aka: a lazy swede wants more money
[QUOTE=Purple Robot;36971044]aka: a lazy swede wants more money[/QUOTE]
So fucking stupid. And why exactly shouldn't he? He sure didn't need steam to sell minecraft to 6.5 million people. In fact it's probably one of the best decisions he made.
Lovely how Valve mentioned Minecraft a while ago and got the game a fuckton of popularity, yet Notch is enough of a dumbshit to backlash Valve.
[QUOTE=legolover122;36948354]Notch himself said all F2P games are a scam. (which is fucking stupid)
(Even though he could make it like minecraft where you buy it once and you own the game.)
([B]I wonder if he has played TF2 before[/B].)
I am guessing he convienently fails to see that F2P can be done right so he can have an excuse to charge extra money for his game.
Why make less money and look smart when you can look like an idiot and be smart.[/QUOTE]
funny thing is, valve practically is saying "hey notch come put your game on steam"
they gave him a unique hat in tf2 for christ's sake
Notch is just a greedy dumbfuck, he used to be a good dev on pre-alpha Minecraft and kept going worse after the game got popular. Notch got so fucking retarded once the game started to get a whole lot of income.
[QUOTE=mixshifter;36971191]This depresses me.[/QUOTE]
Game gets a shitload of money every week, but only updates once a year with nothing new...
:downs:
[quote]He’s not kidding about Minecraft still selling fast. In the last 24 hours, Minecraft sold another 11,660 copies at $27.95, a daily revenue of $314,237. In other words, it’s still taking almost a million dollars every three days.[/quote]
This depresses me.
[QUOTE=Philly c;36971023]Why does steam drm get a free pass? It's widely thought that all drm sucks, and fact that it only affects people who pay. It's not convenient in any way. What annoys me the most about it is that I see no reason why it even needs to exist. All those extra features can still work for people who actually bought from steam and log in with it if they choose to.
[editline]28th July 2012[/editline]
That's true but it's a separate issue, valve don't publish with steam, they just distribute. Theoretically there's no reason why a publisher can't sell a drm free game.[/QUOTE]
Except who actually finds steam annoying? have it launch at start up, you never have to login, practically zero downtime
[QUOTE=Philly c;36971023]Why does steam drm get a free pass? It's widely thought that all drm sucks, and fact that it only affects people who pay. It's not convenient in any way. What annoys me the most about it is that I see no reason why it even needs to exist. All those extra features can still work for people who actually bought from steam and log in with it if they choose to.[/QUOTE]
Aww man, it so hard to login.
Uh... Does Notch even have any of his games on Steam? :v:
[QUOTE=Kegan;36971547]Uh... Does Notch even have any of his games on Steam? :v:[/QUOTE]
Does Notch even have a game that he can call "finished" ?
notch: i am a spoiled brat with an army of sperg-peons and i want ALL my money! you can't have it steam (unless of course you're willing to grant me sexual favors. i'll warn you though; it's musty down there).
Well, I can understand his point, but so far there hasn't been anything bad coming from steam, right? I surely agree that there shouldn't be a single entity owning the whole market, but if everyone's winning - what's wrong about it?
[QUOTE=mixshifter;36971191]This depresses me.[/QUOTE]
I know people place different values upon different things, but I can't see Minecraft being worth almost thirty fucking dollars.
I can see the point of notch's words.
The problem is all the alternatives to steam suck complete cocks. If there was a better alternative I'd nab it, but there isn't. There's just horrible horribleness like Origin.
Steam isn't a monopoly. Not by a long shot. It still has to competitively price with retail console games.
Notch is an idiot. That's old news.
A 30% commission on a relatively inexpensive consumer product is FUCKING AMAZING. Most food is sold at 50% commission in grocery stores and musicians get about a third of the money from every album sale IF THEY'RE LUCKY.
[QUOTE=Kabstrac;36972609]what's so horrible about Origin? it seems fine when I've used it.[/QUOTE]
The customer service is abysmal, The range of games is quite limited in comparison to steam, EA said they wouldn't do sales, than did them anyway and I personally hate EA.
There's other reasons that I CBF to list but that's enough to show why I personally choose Steam over Origin.
[QUOTE=Melonious Monk;36972464][B]Steam isn't a monopoly. Not by a long shot. It still has to competitively price with retail console games.
[/B]
Notch is an idiot. That's old news.
A 30% commission on a relatively inexpensive consumer product is FUCKING AMAZING. Most food is sold at 50% commission in grocery stores and musicians get about a third of the money from every album sale IF THEY'RE LUCKY.[/QUOTE]
Nice to see so many bright and up coming economists, Steam is for all intents and purposes a monopoly on the service of the digital distribution of games - physical copies in another market don't really come into play apart from defining a price ceiling on cross platform games, everything else is fair game.
Notch is right to be worried in this case, Valve are a business and despite the fact they don't answer to shareholders like a company their size usually would - they still are a business and trust me they act like one. (euros -> usd conversion?? any takers no? what about AUD?)
A 30% commission on what is essentially bandwidth for one time purchases from customers is terrible depending on your game size and price, let's take an example for the cheapest game I can find with a moderate size, Orcs must Die! which from what I gather is roughly 2GB in size, it's on sale now which means that at £2.24 - steam have a) enough profit from 30% of that to cover the costs of bandwidth and their fair share of actually distributing the game and b) enough to pay the developer.
Let's do some math and it turns out that it's ~ 34 pence per gigabyte (being generous and not taking out distribution costs) that it costs steam to provide. Now with those prices on bandwidth, it's not exactly hard to figure out why BIG developers are hesitant to distribute their games with steam - with it being on average these days about £40 for a game that's 10gb in size that's £8+ of distribution costs per sale.
At $25 per minecraft sale, that's roughly $8.50 per sale taken off notch for a game that has a tiny file size. Ask yourself why should he put it on steam if a) it's already selling $300,000 units a day and b) the cut steam are asking is ridiculous.
tl:dr; valve arent god and youre all fuckin idiots if you think third party developers arent right in being skeptical about placing their games on steam, the only reason you think their service is personal and oh so amazing is because of a fucking clever business model.
[QUOTE=weedfart;36973311]Nice to see so many bright and up coming economists, Steam is for all intents and purposes a monopoly on the service of the digital distribution of games - physical copies in another market don't really come into play apart from defining a price ceiling on cross platform games, everything else is fair game.[/QUOTE]No, they aren't. There are several other services. GoG, Direct2Drive/GameFly, GamersGate, Origin. Just to name a few out of several others.
[QUOTE]Notch is right to be worried in this case, Valve are a business and despite the fact they don't answer to shareholders like a company their size usually would - they still are a business and trust me they act like one. (euros -> usd conversion?? any takers no? what about AUD?)[/QUOTE]All conversions outside of Valve titles are done by their respective companies. And even still, bad conversions has nothing to do with their quality of business.
[QUOTE]A 30% commission on what is essentially bandwidth for one time purchases from customers is terrible depending on your game size and price, let's take an example for the cheapest game I can find with a moderate size, Orcs must Die! which from what I gather is roughly 2GB in size, it's on sale now which means that at £2.24 - steam have a) enough profit from 30% of that to cover the costs of bandwidth and their fair share of actually distributing the game and b) enough to pay the developer.
Let's do some math and it turns out that it's ~ 34 pence per gigabyte (being generous and not taking out distribution costs) that it costs steam to provide. Now with those prices on bandwidth, it's not exactly hard to figure out why BIG developers are hesitant to distribute their games with steam - with it being on average these days about £40 for a game that's 10gb in size that's £8+ of distribution costs per sale.
At $25 per minecraft sale, that's roughly $8.50 per sale taken off notch for a game that has a tiny file size. Ask yourself why should he put it on steam if a) it's already selling $300,000 units a day and b) the cut steam are asking is ridiculous.[/QUOTE]Irrelevant mathematics obvious to anyone who has made it out of grade school.
[QUOTE]tl:dr; valve arent god and youre all fuckin idiots if you think third party developers arent right in being skeptical about placing their games on steam, the only reason you think their service is personal and oh so amazing is because of a fucking clever business model.[/QUOTE]Nice hostile tone and condescending attitude. As a point of fact, the commission Valve takes has never been officially stated by them or any third-party developers. The closest we actually have is from where a Valve representative has spoken to classes and said that the commision is around 10% to 12%. We do know however that retail does take a much heftier commission of every sale, and can't say for other services since they don't release their numbers either. But as a fact, Notch has showed on more than one occasion that, first of all, he has poor knowledge of the gaming industry and, second, typically says a lot of things about subjects he has no knowledge of in general.
[QUOTE=Doctor Zedacon;36973573]No, they aren't. There are several other services. GoG, Direct2Drive/GameFly, GamersGate, Origin. Just to name a few out of several others.
All conversions outside of Valve titles are done by their respective companies. And even still, bad conversions has nothing to do with their quality of business.
Irrelevant mathematics obvious to anyone who has made it out of grade school.
Nice hostile tone and condescending attitude. As a point of fact, the commission Valve takes has never been officially stated by them or any third-party developers. The closest we actually have is from where a Valve representative has spoken to classes and said that the commision is around 10% to 12%. We do know however that retail does take a much heftier commission of every sale, and can't say for other services since they don't release their numbers either. But as a fact, Notch has showed on more than one occasion that, first of all, he has poor knowledge of the gaming industry and, second, typically says a lot of things about subjects he has no knowledge of in general.[/QUOTE]
Yeah and like we all know just because there are lots of small independent less successful services it ain't a monopoly, just kidding here in the UK it's over twice the limit it needs to be for a defined monopoly power:
[img]http://www.deals4downloads.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/digital_marketshares_2010_2011.jpg[/img]
(figures are from 2011 yeah, but those are the most recent estimates I can find - it's likely steam now has a higher share anyway considering services like impulse, gamesplanet and good old games have went down the shitter since 2011)
If you'd like to cite some sources confirming your second statement and not shrug off the maths without saying it's irrelevant with absolutely no basis whatsoever that'd be awesome too okay? cool thanks!
Really I think I deserve the "hostile and condescending" attitude it brings a nice contrast to the 7 pages full of brown nosed fan boys who have literally 0 capacity to think as an independent human being? Again you post no citation and act as if you had, and that the sensible estimation of 30% is completely unconceivable.
Heck do the maths at 15%-30% and it's still enough for a third party developer to be cautious of when you take into account it's on a per sale basis, especially if they already have an established place in the market without using it.
And as a fact, Notch has shown himself to be a brilliant business man I don't think he'd be dumb enough to distribute through steam if it wasn't needed.
P.s. the only time I've heard notch be criticized is that one time he said something at some stupid convention, are you sure you're not imagining up some anecdotal claims??? just sayin that's what it sounds like to me bro.
P.p.s. by no means am I saying they charge a flat rate for distribution across the board either, I've heard some claims that they increase the cost of licensing for source simply cause they aren't fond of the final product. sounds pretty corrupt to me...
[QUOTE=weedfart;36973685]Yeah and like we all know just because there are lots of small independent less successful services it ain't a monopoly, just kidding here in the UK it's over twice the limit it needs to be for a defined monopoly power:
[img]http://www.deals4downloads.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/digital_marketshares_2010_2011.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]Actually, yeah. A monopoly would mean it holds incredible control and actively seeks to maintain it by preventing competitors from prospering. And, as a point, your graph doesn't do you much favors anyway since it shows a pretty marked decline for Steam over a single year as well as a large boost over the same time period for four different businesses.
[QUOTE]If you'd like to cite some sources confirming your second statement and not shrug off the maths without saying it's irrelevant with absolutely no basis whatsoever that'd be awesome too okay? cool thanks![/QUOTE]Wait, what? The math was irrelevant and didn't even make a legitimate point in the end.
[QUOTE]Really I think I deserve the "hostile and condescending" attitude it brings a nice contrast to the 7 pages full of brown nosed fan boys who have literally 0 capacity to think as an independent human being? Again you post no citation and act as if you had, and that the sensible estimation of 30% is completely unconceivable.[/QUOTE]And again with being condescending. Why not just come out and go "I'M BETTER THAN ALL YOU DUMB SHEEPLE! I DON'T ANSWER TO THE STEAM CONSPIRACY!"
[QUOTE]Heck do the maths at 15%-30% and it's still enough for a third party developer to be cautious of when you take into account it's on a per sale basis, especially if they already have an established place in the market without using it.[/QUOTE]Its actually not a major take, especially since the 30% is just Notch's speculation, and most other estimates are below 20% which is actually fairly generous.
Second, putting it on Steam opens it up to a wide market and much better advertising and resource management.
[QUOTE]And as a fact, Notch has shown himself to be a brilliant business man I don't think he'd be dumb enough to distribute through steam if it wasn't needed.[/QUOTE]No he has not. Not by any means. He got incredibly lucky with Minecraft, and had to hand development of that over to Jeb and the Bukkit team.
[QUOTE]P.s. the only time I've heard notch be criticized is that one time he said something at some stupid convention, are you sure you're not imagining up some anecdotal claims??? just sayin that's what it sounds like to me bro.[/QUOTE]There was the whole debacle with him making a claim over the "Infinite Detail" tech demo a year or so ago that was resoundingly criticized by developers and programmers as basically being hysterically wrong. He is also criticized heavily for the fact that he takes such frequent vacations, which directly impeded development of Minecraft. That's just a two of many.
[editline]28th July 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=weedfart;36973685]P.p.s. by no means am I saying they charge a flat rate for distribution across the board either, I've heard some claims that they increase the cost of licensing for source simply cause they aren't fond of the final product. sounds pretty corrupt to me...[/QUOTE]They're not required to license source at any given rate to anyone, its their own proprietary engine and they are free to license it at whatever cost they wish. And I'd be interested in seeing what exactly this comes from.
[QUOTE=Doctor Zedacon;36973786]Actually, yeah. A monopoly would mean it holds incredible control and actively seeks to maintain it by preventing competitors from prospering. And, as a point, your graph doesn't do you much favors anyway since it shows a pretty marked decline for Steam over a single year as well as a large boost over the same time period for four different businesses.
Wait, what? The math was irrelevant and didn't even make a legitimate point in the end.
And again with being condescending. Why not just come out and go "I'M BETTER THAN ALL YOU DUMB SHEEPLE! I DON'T ANSWER TO THE STEAM CONSPIRACY!"
Its actually not a major take, especially since the 30% is just Notch's speculation, and most other estimates are below 20% which is actually fairly generous.
Second, putting it on Steam opens it up to a wide market and much better advertising and resource management.
No he has not. Not by any means. He got incredibly lucky with Minecraft, and had to hand development of that over to Jeb and the Bukkit team.
There was the whole debacle with him making a claim over the "Infinite Detail" tech demo a year or so ago that was resoundingly criticized by developers and programmers as basically being hysterically wrong. He is also criticized heavily for the fact that he takes such frequent vacations, which directly impeded development of Minecraft. That's just a two of many.[/QUOTE]
Oh right I guess you know better than the experts over at the Bank of England regarding the economics of the situation then? Just cause you say it so doesn't make it so. Also the graph is based on estimates from composites of ad data, not sales figures because that's not disclosed but I'd be willing to bet it's horrendously high. Also if you'd take care to notice, any service that was newly established experienced a hike in users which is rather obvious, with the exception of GFWL (probably a set of new releases).
The point of the math, which isn't actually hard to discern was to show that valve pay next to nothing for bandwidth and effectively punish certain developers - I thought that was rather clear...
Because I'm better than that.
It's actually not a major take, take my word over the countless other developer estimations and trust me for it. As I said if it's anything like their engine licensing it's an incredibly bias figure depending on if they like that game or not. 30% is probably an extremity with ~8% being the lower extremity but it demonstrates my point that there are actual reasons for developers to be cautious about marketing their game through Steam. Not everyone is an idiot for not choosing steam as their solution and Notch is not an idiot for worrying. Let's face it, he's probably had figures told to him and if he's being this wary about it then they obviously weren't good...
Yes the developer of the most successful indie game in existence isn't a good businessman. Ok.
He said it was a scam assuming they had used a certain technology he was familiar with, he was wrong and got an incredible backlash from nerds around the globe. The dude just became a millionaire too, power too him for using his success to take vacations, he definitely earned it? Or am I wrong?
[editline]28th July 2012[/editline]
[quote="doctor whatever"]They're not required to license source at any given rate to anyone, its their own proprietary engine and they are free to license it at whatever cost they wish. And I'd be interested in seeing what exactly this comes from.[/QUOTE]
I know, I never said they weren't. I did say it's not exactly the good behaviour that one would expect from 90% of this forum's would be deity. The place I remember reading was the Sourceforts thread, cba looking it up.
Man this thread is just shitty now. Weedfart, as much as I like your name, you keep modifying your argument with every post and it's [I]not really going anywhere[/I]. If Notch doesn't want to be on Steam, he doesn't have to be - the whole stupidity around it is throwing out figures and opinions of a company who's workings are actually relatively hidden from us. As long as Valve is playing nice and keeping people happy, I will continue to use their service, simple as.
:suicide:
[QUOTE=arg_zombies;36974518]Man this thread is just shitty now.[/QUOTE]
It was kinda shitty from the start, I mean the first 40 posts or so were the most rabid of valve fanboys doing a total 180 on their opinion of Notch and raging hard that anyone would insult their beloved steam :v:
Don't get me wrong here, I use steam all the time and for the most part it's great, but there's certainly tonnes of criticisms and Notch's criticism here is 100% valid, why would you ever want a single company to have a complete and total monopoly, even if a company is perfect at the moment it could turn for the worse later.
[QUOTE=Elspin;36978835]why would you ever want a single company to have a complete and total monopoly, even if a company is perfect at the moment it could turn for the worse later.[/QUOTE]
Valve don't have a total monopoly, you're free to buy your games from Origin or GOG or anywhere else. It's just the service Valve provide is what the users want.
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