Newell Talk at UT

[MrHat]

Great talk from GabeN regarding Valve philosophies ranging from attracting and keeping employees, management as a service, TF2 hats virtual economies and waving virtual banners in DOTA2, to not competing with their user base in creating and distributing content.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QEOBgLBQU

Super enjoyable hour.

[Nebu]

Great talk.  It made me want to go back to school and get a PhD in economics. 

Thanks for the link.

[tgr]

And nobody asked him a joke question about episode 3.

[Kageru]

It's a talk that roams widely, has a strong economic bent (in terms of Valve as a company) and reveals that he really does see the world differently to most. But there's some real gems in there.

It says he did a second talk for the overflow crowd, hopefully we'll get that one as well.

[Soln]

So Steam as YouTube?

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/186168/Gabe_Newells_vision_for_Steam_More_choice_more_democracy_less_Greenlight.php#.URLqx1pxck4

[K9]

Seems more like Etsy than YouTube. After the WarZ debacle I'm slightly wary about movement away from curated stores. It may be boring, but curation is generally a positive thing.

[tgr]

Huh. Doing away with the greenlight process is quite the surprising move, but I have to say I do like the way he's thinking.

I do hope they'll have some basic requirements on base requirements, and I'm thinking of dependencies of online content in particular (activation servers etc). Currently that part is very haphazard and inconsistent.

[Kageru]

It is a positive thing... it just doesn't scale, which is the problem.

The idea in the interview about allowing user based stores is clever. Something like a "Total biscuit" store which listed the games he was focusing on would sell a lot of whatever took his fancy. While I find most of the internet gaming celebrities superfluous and irritating they do have a following and that trend is like to grow.

And then they use that "niche" store to spot games to consider for "main" store listing when they have proven themselves through purchases and game time (which Valve will have the mectrics for).

I like the fact that they do actually think problems through and evolve.

[Scold]

This is a terrible idea on so many levels, I'm not sure where to begin.

For starters:

This basically already exists. It's called Desura. You can put up any goddamn thing on Desura and charge money for it, and Desura is actually a really well-run, attractive service with a major team behind it. The indie gaming community has embraced it wholeheartedly, with every Humble Indie Bundle or Indie Royale bundle dumping a new round of Desura keys on me. A lot of games that are now coming to Steam through Greenlight, such as Unepic, have been on Desura for a while.

...and yet it's shit as a replacement for Steam, because you don't have any idea if a game is any good, there's no quality control, and for a small indie game, the 'ratings' system will completely fall down since most of the people rating will be friends/family/sockpuppets of the developer as nobody else has heard of their game and it's not like you have Metacritic to fall back on.

Many, many people like how curated Steam is, and think if anything it should be more so -- there's a fair bit of shovelware on Steam. Greenlight was actually perfect for getting cool Indie games on Steam without opening the floodgate.

[Kageru]

... that's pretty much what he's talking about though. At least from what I can tell, it's not that specific.

The problem they want to solve is the current binary situation of "on steam" and "not on steam". Because that means if they get picky they miss some games that maybe a lot of people really want (which is what greenlight was about). The new solution they seem to be considering is to have a main steam store (curated by them) and steam as a service so niche stuff can have a specialist / community store with steam as the back-end. That also allows community leaders to have their own store. And people who don't care can just focus on the main steam store without the distractions of these niche titles.

That also allows steam to cherry pick titles that are really polished and popular from what sells on the "fringe" and give it a big break on the main steam store. So they basically get green-light for free.

[Scold]

... that's pretty much what he's talking about though. At least from what I can tell, it's not that specific.

The problem they want to solve is the current binary situation of "on steam" and "not on steam". Because that means if they get picky they miss some games that maybe a lot of people really want (which is what greenlight was about). The new solution they seem to be considering is to have a main steam store (curated by them) and steam as a service so niche stuff can have a specialist / community store with steam as the back-end. That also allows community leaders to have their own store. And people who don't care can just focus on the main steam store without the distractions of these niche titles.

That also allows steam to cherry pick titles that are really polished and popular from what sells on the "fringe" and give it a big break on the main steam store. So they basically get green-light for free.

Either there's some filter on these niche stores as well, in which case it'll take far more of their time and resources to police than Greenlight ever did, or I eagerly look forward to getting warez and stealthy malware loaders through my niche Steam Store purchases. Steam's famously generous returns policy will only add to the delight.

But rest assured, when Steam finds out nefarious deeds are afoot, I'm sure they'll bring the full hammer of the law down on the random Guangzhou/Lagos net cafe user whose information they have on file. That'll learn 'em.

Remind me again why Valve should stab themselves in the balls with a jagged piece of glass, as opposed to simply hiring some more grunts to staff Greenlight and product QA? "Gabe Newell thinks he's Jeff Bridges in Tron" and "e-commerce just wants to be free, man" are not  valid answers.

[KallDrexx]

... that's pretty much what he's talking about though. At least from what I can tell, it's not that specific.

The problem they want to solve is the current binary situation of "on steam" and "not on steam". Because that means if they get picky they miss some games that maybe a lot of people really want (which is what greenlight was about). The new solution they seem to be considering is to have a main steam store (curated by them) and steam as a service so niche stuff can have a specialist / community store with steam as the back-end. That also allows community leaders to have their own store. And people who don't care can just focus on the main steam store without the distractions of these niche titles.

That also allows steam to cherry pick titles that are really polished and popular from what sells on the "fringe" and give it a big break on the main steam store. So they basically get green-light for free.

Which now means that I go from having 1 store I know has quality games and *reliable* information about games (or at least the ability to act on bad ability, a la War Z) I now have to check several storefronts to get information about games I may like, and shift through a bunch of BS store fronts that are misleading.  It also means that I can't rely on steam to provide me reliable information about games if random  schmo #5 can put a game up there without any approval status.

From a developer side it also isn't 100% roses and unicorns.  Now instead of trying to get on steam (which admittedly you may get denied for legitmately good games) you now have to somehow sweeten up to 10+ other popular stores so they will possibly put you up in their front. 

Valve hasn't done anything terribad, so I can easily think that most of us are just taking the talk to extremes, but there is definitely a huge boon to a heavily curated store and there is a lot of evidence out there that non-curated storefronts turn out to be a lot of garbage and ends up turning people off of legitmate ones.

[Kageru]

I honestly don't know what the issue is. If you weren't interested in the "fringe" stuff that some fringe community supports you wouldn't go looking for it or care that you don't see it on the "main" steam store. Meanwhile valve can tighten control on the main store and rely on the "fringe" community to pick up and self select the interesting stuff they miss. And both stores will be curated, but only one directly by valve.

And valve wants to encourage that fringe because they are smart enough to know that in the long term the big names of tomorrow start off learning the ropes by making some terrible games now. Exactly the same way you need things like a live music scene or fringe theatre, where much of it is pretty bad, so that interesting acts can work things out and maybe get noticed by the mainstream once they're ready for that.

I mean here's an example. Some people are making Japanese style romance sims. Extremely niche, of no interest to most steam users or the Japanese gamers who have access to better. Should they be on the steam main store? probably not. So you let whatever community is really into those run their own store, maybe getting a small cut to support themselves doing so. The curation will be superb because they are really into that and probably have the authors as members of their community, steam provides the mechanics for the shop front, the billing and the delivery and keeps an eye on the metrics for any hidden gems it might want to have a look at. The mainstream store users are happy that stuff they are not interested in isn't cluttering up the site. Win Win. Valve can safely say no to such games and redirect them to a site that will take them, Valve gets some community with more interest than them in that type of game to do the greenlight process. That site gets a bit of money, a nice shop front they don't have to manage, can establish themselves in that tiny niche and brag some of their games might end up on steam.

That railway sim game is another example of something that could just as easily be on a store driven by that community. And most of the steam user base would be delighted not to see the 300 DLC it has.

That's what I think he's saying.

[Ginaz]

I honestly don't know what the issue is. If you weren't interested in the "fringe" stuff that some fringe community supports you wouldn't go looking for it or care that you don't see it on the "main" steam store. Meanwhile valve can tighten control on the main store and rely on the "fringe" community to pick up and self select the interesting stuff they miss. And both stores will be curated, but only one directly by valve.

And valve wants to encourage that fringe because they are smart enough to know that in the long term the big names of tomorrow start off learning the ropes by making some terrible games now. Exactly the same way you need things like a live music scene or fringe theatre, where much of it is pretty bad, so that interesting acts can work things out and maybe get noticed by the mainstream once they're ready for that.

I mean here's an example. Some people are making Japanese style romance sims. Extremely niche, of no interest to most steam users or the Japanese gamers who have access to better. Should they be on the steam main store? probably not. So you let whatever community is really into those run their own store, maybe getting a small cut to support themselves doing so. The curation will be superb because they are really into that and probably have the authors as members of their community, steam provides the mechanics for the shop front, the billing and the delivery and keeps an eye on the metrics for any hidden gems it might want to have a look at. The mainstream store users are happy that stuff they are not interested in isn't cluttering up the site. Win Win. Valve can safely say no to such games and redirect them to a site that will take them, Valve gets some community with more interest than them in that type of game to do the greenlight process. That site gets a bit of money, a nice shop front they don't have to manage, can establish themselves in that tiny niche and brag some of their games might end up on steam.

That railway sim game is another example of something that could just as easily be on a store driven by that community. And most of the steam user base would be delighted not to see the 300 DLC it has.

That's what I think he's saying.

I think the biggest concern is that Steam turns into an app store, where you have to sift through the mounds of shit to get to the good stuff.  For every Angry Birds you get 10x the shovelware from companies like Zynga.  That being said, I have some faith in Valve and whatever they do will ultimately work out.

[Kageru]

Yes, which is what they are solving. If there's a "off-steam" store they can curate the main store more firmly because edge cases can be directed somewhere else.

And if they get it wrong, and some weird game ends up being hugely popular, they can react to that once it has proven itself.

Plus they get to encourage development on the PC platform, even if it's stuff they don't want to sell, which is a long term strategic goal. It's pretty brilliant really, though the devil will be in the details and not losing control of the platform.

[Teleku]

As long as they keep the main Steam store intact, I don't really see any drawbacks to this.

[tgr]

As long as there's a bare minimum of QA being performed, to make sure malware etc isn't put onto the upcoming part of steam.

[schild]

A point of order, Angry Birds is shovelware at this point.

[Scold]

And if they get it wrong, and some weird game ends up being hugely popular, they can react to that once it has proven itself.

...or they could glance over at Desura and GOG and do the exact same thing without having to alter their platform in any way (which they're already doing -- a number of successful Greenlight games are from Desura and GOG).

[/quote]

As long as there's a bare minimum of QA being performed, to make sure malware etc isn't put onto the upcoming part of steam.

That "minimum of QA" will take a fuckload more time/man-hours than Greenlight takes.

[Kageru]

That would probably be because they don't generate any cash or good statistics watching someone else sell games.

I very much doubt steam does significant QA before listing, and why would they, they're a retailer. Plus it would be pointless as there's more than enough information on-line for broken games to be discovered and publicized. In any case that's a separate problem from what is being addressed here which is trying to find a balance between widest possible range and acceptable quality.