Where did it all go wrong?

Where did it all go wrong?

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youtube.com/watch?v=NszI8b9bevM
metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/year/pc/filtered?year_selected=2006
metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/year/pc/filtered?year_selected=2005
youtube.com/watch?v=mpCv12q6fFI
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When they stopped making and funding games and started taking a chunk of every other PC game companies' profits.
Also Greenlight

When they decided to ruin TF2

Cash shops.

When they stopped making games and focused on steam

They wanted to become Nintendo.
Without making games.

They realized that their games aint worth shit.
Mark my words next game they make will be season based.

Season based?

When they released Half Life 2

ftfy

You know like a tv series,one episode of a game every few months like new Hitman did.

half life 2.

When they stopped being a plumbing company and started making games.

They already tried that and failed miserably though

Right around 2013 when all focus went to Dota, VR and the Steam platform, instead of making (good) games. Hell, TF2 went to shit because they downsized the dev team and pretty much abandoned it. Valve's desk-on-wheels corporate policy pretty much fucked us getting any good games any time soon.

VR is a waste. It's a gimmick that will never catch on.

And Steam Greenlight tanked quality control on Steam. Steam looks like fucking Newgrounds now.

when Steam suddenly took off

When they realized they could make money by doing nothing

Paid mods

When they realised microtransactions were far more profitable and required far less effort.

>that shitstorm was two fucking years ago
youtube.com/watch?v=NszI8b9bevM

>tfw we're all Nintendos

...

This is where their journey to the dark side began.

>horse genitals
>$100
why.

If it hadn't been for the rampant mod theft, I'd be perfectly happy for it to remain as a tax on stupidity.

>yfw they bring it back and people start accepting it

DOTA2

/thread

lol, fucking total biscuit

For a company that's sitting on an endless stream of money it's amazing how powerless they are to push new things (Steam machines, Steam controllers, Linux gaming or their VR headset getting less support). They are a lot like Microsoft, both would go bankrupt in a couple of years of they had to work for their money.

>have corporate culture where nobody is forced to work on anything specific as long as they do something
>people constantly taking vacations
>people constantly working on pet projects that go nowhere
>Team Fortress 2 is run by a skeleton team of less than 20 people, only 5 of which are programmers
>all this retardation that would destroy any other company is subsidized by Steam, a platform so ubiquitous people get annoyed if major publishers try to push games on other platforms' exclusively, where they get the standard 30% of everything sold
>also own three of the biggest multiplayer franchises in Dota 2, CS:GO and Team Fortress 2, where beyond the initial buy-in, there is also an incredibly lucrative digital aftermarket shop of cosmetics and things

They are a company that literally has to only make sure their shit is functional and they make billions. They have no incentive go all-in on making a new game, a new Half-Life, a new Left 4 Dead, whatever, simply because it's not as lucrative as just making sure Steam stays the premier PC gaming platform and people are happy with Dota 2 and whatever the latest incarnation of Counter-Strike is.

>>have corporate culture where nobody is forced to work on anything specific as long as they do something

wait, what?

Never had corporate job?
As long as you act like you are doing something no one will bother you.

Gabe Newell constantly touts the virtues of Valve's non-stratified hierarchy.

You can see the appeal, give people complete freedom to work on whatever they want, attract top industry talent, and see what they crank out.

But you also see what happens. It takes forever to get shit done, people will just start making random shit that never gets any real traction, and when it does get done, it's dead on arrival like Steam machines, pretty much anything that doesn't let them sell hats or paint for guns and knives isn't going to have weight thrown behind it, so Half-Life is dead in the water, especially since the recent hemorrhaging of big Half-Life-associated names like Chet Faliszek.

>2 years ago
How do I stop time for a few months?

How do I stop time forever?

You know precisely how.

>Two fucking years ago

i'm sure valve would be thrilled to hear your ideas on how to run a company. they must be absolutely dying for your advice on how to turn all their failed business ventures around.

It was wrong when they decided to start Steam.

Look at every feature on steam: it's all made to encourage addiction and/or screw gamers over.

Steam's policy of not letting you own anything more than a database entry is horrible. They can revoke games at any time for any reason (even if it was a glitch). Period. Glitch revokes are so common it's in the FAQ.

Add groups to make people feel some sort of attachment. Achievements are there to drive that competition streak in everyone and further encourage attachment. "but if I leave I lose my achievements and groups!"

Add a marketplace so people can ruin each other's experiences by selling in-game items. This drives profit for Valve while allowing people to think they are "earning" money (valvebucks!) for shafting other players.

Don't quality check anything and make it a pain in the ass to get refunds. While you're at it, take an unfair cut from developers/publishers and start to demand that they be steam-only if they want a less crappy deal. If they pick Steam Only then they also are cutting themselves off from all other revenue streams. However the meme of "steam is good" makes developers worry that if they don't pick Steam Only then they will have trouble reaching an audience. This audience is already distracted by the billions of halfassed games on steam, anyway, so they're going to have to pay Valve for more exposure so maybe someone will buy their game.

And then there's the key thieves, keygens, and other key piracy going on that ends up badly for gamers overall...

And this is why I hate Steam/Valve and applaud CD Projekt Red/GoG for stepping up and not being like them.

>It was wrong when they decided to start Steam.


>It was wrong for Valve to singlehandedly save PC gaming from the clutches of death

Where the hell did I say they were failing?

They're very successful to the point that they can do all this dumb stuff and barely take a hit.

But it also means they're barely making games, and I'm certain I'll have to start being worried about prostate cancer and high blood pressure before Valve releases another single player title.

Thinking Valve saved PC gaming is silly.

PC gaming has always had a steady growth trajectory as computers improve and their prices go down. Also the prices of consoles keeps going up. Mix the two and you get the fact that PC gaming will eventually be where people who care about things like framerate and better sound will go.

This is where we are now.

Valve didn't invent the online game store. They just made a brandable name and hoped nobody would read the TOS ot look too closely at why they put the features in that they did.

>graph starts in 2009
stop acting like you know a single fucking thing underage

when they realized they could get money for doing nothing

that is generally how real estate works yes

It's an example of the growth rate I was talking about. Older charts would take longer for me to dig up than would be prudent for just replying to a post on Sup Forums.

Dig up a better chart if you want. I'm just calling it like I see it from common sense and having been into PC gaming since the 90's.

Even so, just because they do one good thing doesn't mean they're now entitled to do bad. All his other points are right.

>steam
Steam is a shit service in my book.
>it never works properly
>always pops up in the middle of something
>slows down your PC
>forces you to log into its account just to play games
>has tendency to fuck up and you need to delete it and reinstall it
(all of these are in my case at least)
Plus i felt like Valve has always forced it way too much(Steam controller,Steam machine)

I just never quite understood why anyone would use it as there are torrents which are simpler to use and you get to play your games without any bullshit and on top of that it's completely free
I just hope it dies soon...

For me it was when they kept worsening TF2. It was their only game I cared about, and since 2014 all of the updates have been total horseshit. Also, fucking account restrictions that are getting worse and worse every time. Trade delays, forced mobile authetification, not being able to gift games properly all make me really mad.

This is true, I hope they go bankrupt.

I never understood why people went apeshit about Greenlight, Early Access, trading cards and paid mods, though. All of these are literally 'if you don't like it, ignore it and let people who want these things pay for them'. I think you Sup Forums just hates Valve and uses anything to excuse jumping on them. Look at these shitter, for example:
>Look at every feature on steam: it's all made to encourage addiction
That's how stores work.
>and/or screw gamers over.
That's a lie.
>Steam's policy of not letting you own anything more than a database entry is horrible
In what way?
>Glitch revokes are so common it's in the FAQ.
I've been actively using Steam since 2011 and only time I heard about them revoking a game is when GTA V got an 99% discount In Russia before release because of the glitch. Justified move.
>Add groups to make people feel some sort of attachment. Achievements are there to drive that competition streak in everyone and further encourage attachment. "but if I leave I lose my achievements and groups!"
Alright, you are clearly just using every excuse possible to attack Steam. Oh noes, they have achievements to encourage you to play games, what an evil corporation!
>Add a marketplace so people can ruin each other's experiences by selling in-game items.
Alright, I can't do this any more.
You know why all these things (achievements, community market, etc) exist and bring Valve profit? There was a demand and Valve satisfied it. You basically accuse baker of being evil because he makes tasty buns and that brings him customers.

>Company makes games out of buying the rights to popular mods
>Expecting them to come up with new, original ideas

They're not that far above Blizzard in that respect. Blizzard just outright copy other people's games and casualize them for free cash.

Nothing went wrong user.

>paid mods is automatically a good idea since people willingly pay for them on console versions, AND people willingly bought Mario Maker, which is a 60 dollar ripoff of SMBX and Lunar Magic

>they're allowed to not make games because consumers are entitled and aren't allowed to ask for more games (see: anytime a metroid fan asks for a new installment)

>they can make as much money as they want because they're not your friend

>they're allowed to have tons of shovelware in greenlight because "only tryhard virgin neets care about quality control"- quote directly from Sup Forums

>they're allowed to ruin their games with cosmetics and DLC because it was never a problem when sony and Nintendo and MS did it

If you have a problem with anything they do, yet you support it when another company does it, you have no right to complain.

2005, 2006, the top selling pc games were fucking sims 2 expansions and wow. the rest of it was a pretty barren landscape full of flops. pc barely got any ports, whatever ports that existed were usually shit. it was literally just watching dev after dev moving their attention to consoles because that's where the money was (you don't remember cliff blezinski saying pc was dead?) and GFWL was fucking terrible. so yeah once steam started hitting its stride and showed that there was an audience for pc game sales outside of shitty brick and mortar shops. if you had been in pc gaming since the 90s you would be aware of all this.

so yes pc gaming was dying. i've still got copies of pc gamer from 2006 and 2007 with articles about how dire shit was.

>forces you to log into it's account just to play games
You know for most games you can just go to the install folder and run the game's .exe just fine, right? Try playing less online multiplayer-only games.

> Fanboi in denial detected

>pc gaming
>ever dieing

fpbp

>pc
>gaming
Pick one and only one

Where did it all go wrong Mr Best?

To be fair, if I could get millions of dollars for doing nothing I would stop making effort to do anything too.

Mark my words, there will always be games on the pc, but one day there might be no consoles

>no right to complain
>reddit spacing
Oh gee I-woonder who is behind THIS post

I don't know where you were, but there were some good games those years and many games overall to pick from. I didn't console so I can't compare quality, but I was OK with things for the most part.

metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/year/pc/filtered?year_selected=2006

> A few from 2006
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Company of Heroes, Medieval II: Total War, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade, LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas

>A few from 2005
metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/year/pc/filtered?year_selected=2005

Sid Meier's Civilization IV, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Battlefield 2, Guild Wars, F.E.A.R., Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Psychonauts

Noticing the console crossovers yet?

Also people are STILL saying PC gaming is dying. It's just now they blame cell phones instead of consoles.

I actually enjoy comparing steam achievements, it lets me know that I beat games on higher difficulties than my friends or that I've done more obscure shit in the game than they have. That's about the only upside to steam though, I do kind of like the shift + tab menu for chatting with friends and inviting them to your game without any hassle. I really haven't had to delete or reinstall it either, maybe I've just been lucky though. Just set it to auto boot and log in when you start up your PC, I don't think I've even seen the log in menu in months. Maybe try creating categories for your games, you'll realize that it's much easier to navigate than finding your game folder and navigating through binaries to find the .exe, which you can still do anyhow. It also adds native support for my DS4, so that's handy.

Indeed.

This.
youtube.com/watch?v=mpCv12q6fFI

Meh,everything Steam tries to do i believe old Xbox Live did better
Be it achievements,chat,community,functionality,features and overall online experience

you'd think a studio full of the creme of the crop of the vidya industry would make some really fucking good video games when given infinite funding but apparently not

>wrong
What's wrong? It's still one of the few platforms outside of GoG that doesn't require you to get into bed with company as unsavory as EA or Ubisoft.

PC physical is dead, staying dead, and the publishers want it that way.

...

I never had any consoles other than the N64, Sega Genesis and the PS2, so I wouldn't know shit about Xbox. All I know is that steam is working pretty well at what I want it for right now.

Steam basically a monopoly right now, just like youtube and twitch.

came here to post this, the half life 2 beta content looked alright tho.

...and Gog does it better than Steam.

It's sort of sad that outside of a few limited edition indie releases it's really hard to find box versions of games anymore.

That's what happens when you turn your company into this post-modern concept that has only been conceptualized in the past 10 years.

Publishers won't release without DRM anymore. Physical DRM hits its peak with Starforce and TAGES. A lot of gamers were soured on the driver level nastiness those schemes engaged in, and they had to release driver removal tools at some point. Capcom tried some driver level nonsense recently with PC SFV and immediately got shit on for it.

Steam's auto-patching really is a convenience I would hate to do without. I don't miss the days of having to root around for developer or publisher websites for day 1 patches or having to stockpile them in case the devs went under or the publisher decent to pull the plug.

The GoG library is mostly older games. They have some newer stuff, but the bulk of it is on steam, uplay, or lolrigin.

Wow, only four minutes in and I can already tell this is going to be full of autistic nit picking. I'm definitely open to criticizing HL2, but if he wants anyone to take him seriously he needs to pick arguments that are worth a damn and refrain from saying "fuck" every other sentence. He sounds like an edgy teenager.

Hat Fortress 2

DotA2

He probably is an edgy teenager, and he acknowledges that Half Life 2 is a fun game on it's own, but misses the things that the original did better, weapon variety as one example, another being enemy variety as well as claiming that Half Life 2 effectively retcons the first game. Also that physics engines are nothing new and call of dootdoot was the more influential game.

the f2p update

>Sup Forums user complaining about someone acting like a Sup Forums user

>dumb haters resort to ad hominem when faced by arguments
I'm not really surprised.

I just want one more single player valve game.

...

>tfw Alien Swarm had a great base to build off of but fuck all maps

In an interview with gabe he said they were going to try to bring paid mods back. Prob when the new Elder scrolls comes out.
As if valve doesn't make enough money with their 500$ CS:GO knifes on the market.

There are hl2/portal 2 mods on in the store now.

When the head starting turning towards you

And I definitely agree with some of those points, but he needs to work on the presentation of his video. I know when forming a persuasive argument that you want to build up to and end with the most important topic, but that doesn't mean he should begin with inane non-issues. Trying to pass off half-second pauses between sentences as laugh track breaks isn't going to convince people to stick around for thirty more minutes. I'd rather watch anyone else present the same arguments.

Would you want to listen to a Sup Forums user complain for 35 minutes? I get enough of that in text.

To think they could shut all this talk up if they released a new half life for at least 10 years (If it was as much of a hit as hl2)

half life 3 this year, it is comfirmed user

>not posting Natascha

Honestly, I want to say Half-Life 2, but Portal and L4D were good, so...

HAHAHAHAHAH

okay gabe

The moment they started making money, like all others

When everyone who bought HL2, the most hyped game of all time, got the fun surprise of being forced to install Steam if they wanted to play it.

25%

25%

25%

CS:GO

Forcing people to install a client to play a video game.

So, 2004.

They made a game out of buying games.

This. They learned the ways of the Jew and became the middleman