Call of Duty: Black Ops - Multiplayer Gameplay Footage

[Soviet]

In before Soviet and Valve.

Pretty much.

[Drofder2004]

In before Soviet and Valve.

Pretty much.

Honestly, its a matter of time. Remember, OB is now practically a STEAM game...

[[SoE]_Zaitsev]

Sorry but what does OB stand for ? It's probably something really obvious

[Drofder2004]

Mistype for BO - Black Ops.

[[SoE]_Zaitsev]

Ah ok, thanks.

[Pedsdude]

No doubt if it's a flop there'll be many 'body odour' jokes.

[[SoE]_Zaitsev]

Well the chance for flopping is still there tbh

[Soviet]

In before Soviet and Valve.

Pretty much.

Honestly, its a matter of time. Remember, OB is now practically a STEAM game...

You're right, because Valve taking advantage of a company willing to pay for getting more people to download Valve's free application is completely equivalent to continuously fucking over and exploiting an entire industry due to unhindered, unconstrained greed

[Drofder2004]

You're right, because Valve taking advantage of a company willing to pay for getting more people to download Valve's free application is completely equivalent to continuously fucking over and exploiting an entire industry due to unhindered, unconstrained greed

CoD:MW - Sold 13 million copies.
CoD:WW - Sold 12 million copies.
CoD:MW2 - Sold 10 million copies.

On average, we would estimate 11 millions copies of BO, will be sold.
The game will probably make approx £300 million in sales.

According to Valve CEO (2002) on a $50 (£32) sale, they can gross profit $30 (£19).
With an exclusive deal, you would probably make only half the portion of a normal sale. so lets say Valves sales cut is approx 25%, that would give them a £75 million take.

Next, you would also need to consider the use of VAC, I wouldn't know where to start with this, but it is certainly not cheap.

I'm not quite sure the intentions of Valve and Steam is simply to "get their product downloaded".

---

And the second argument of "fucking over the industry", yes it is true, but this will become standard practice and STEAM will be happily selling us these additional features so they can also get their greedy hands on the money.

I do like STEAM and Valve as a company, but realistically speaking, a business is a business. No business is happy with simply sitting at their current profit margin, everybody wants more, its human nature, and if systematically fucking over the industry is a way of making money, I doubt Valve will be questioning the moral purpose first.

[Soviet]

Yeah, they get more money by selling more games on Steam. That means that they attempt to increase their profit margins by selling other people's games, allowing them to put more resources into releasing quality updates, downloads, sales, and games of their own making. Valve was one of the first to do DLCs, they've done more DLCs than just about anyone else, and all their DLCs are still free. Most game companies never even have sales, yet we saw them literally give away Portal for free for a month, I've seen TF2 below $5 multiple times, the L4Ds on half price several times, and HL2 for as little as $2.

[Drofder2004]

"Still free" being a crucial work.

All PC games had Addon packs being applied after development for free, it was the norm.
The majority view of gaming companies was that paid DLC was not in the interest of the comsumer. After several companies weighed up the pro's and con's of paid DLC, a large majority now sell addon DLC. This percentage is getting larger and larger.

Valve may be putting on the good guy mask, but the fact they sell other peoples DLC and make profit from it, is clear eveidence that they support paid DLC.

This is what keeps Valve product DLC's free, but there is nothing stopping Vavle from deciding to pull in more revenue from their own products. The majority of their customers (I would imagine even yourself) would happily part with £1/$2 to buy an extra map on L4D2 or extra weapons in TF2.

They may not be doing it now, they may even be the last to do it, but I would happily place money on the eventual charge for Valve DLC.

[Soviet]

So your fundamental ideology is that Valve is 'evil' because they make people pay for games made by other companies? You seriously have no idea what you're talking about. You're using the concept of company = evil to describe a company run by a billionaire that has stated over and over again that he just wants to make good games. He's dumped millions of his own dollars in the company to keep it going at various points and all along the way never ripped off the consumers. Your concept of universal consumer exploitation falls apart in the face of a company with endless funds whose core philosophy is making quality games.

[Drofder2004]

No, my idealogy is that NO company is evil in the gaming amrket, but every company si greedy.
The more you have the more you want.
I may not live in the gaming industry, but I have common sense and no bias.

So your fundamental ideology is that Valve is 'evil' because they make people pay for games made by other companies?

No, I actually like Valve as a company, but I don't see through black and white goggles when ti comes to the realisation that they are in the industry to make money.

...a billionaire that has stated over and over again that he just wants to make good games. He's dumped millions of his own dollars in the company to keep it going at various points and all along the way never ripped off the consumers. Your concept of universal consumer exploitation falls apart in the face of a company with endless funds whose core philosophy is making quality games.

And in the process of dumping millions and millions, he regained billions and billions. roll:

You got to speculate to accumulate.

[Soviet]

There are exceptions to every rule, this is a pointless argument because you obviously know fuck all about the company and are content to make generalizations based on absolutely no evidence.

[Drofder2004]

There are exceptions to every rule, this is a pointless argument because you obviously know fuck all about the company and are content to make generalizations based on absolutely no evidence.

To what part of my arguement do I not know?

I know Valve are a medium sized company who have a piece of cake in game development, anti-cheat and distribution. I also know they are responsible for some of the most population series of games in the FPS genre, along with the source engine. I know they do not sell any shares to outside buyers and therefore have freedom of actions with no say from shareholders. I know they have invested money into small time game developers (and selling independent games at low percentage take) and help them develop games and push them into a larger market.

Valve as a developer are a great asset to the PC gaming world, but Valve as a corporate identity are in it for the profit.
I am making generalisations and assumptions but predicting the future is not something I have the ability to do, so I have two choices, let the world revolve or make predictions.

Paid DLC started on PC around 2006 with Oblivion, the horse armor to be precise. Now, 2009-2010 we have had:
- Dragons Age [BioWare]
- Mass Effect [BioWare]
- Empire: TW [Creative Assembly]
- Kane and Lynch [IO Interactive]
- MW2 [Infinity Ward]
- Borderlands [Gearbox Software]
- GTA [Rockstar]

Whether you believe it or not, Valve are not the Godsend of the gaming industry, they are not setting examples and trends, they are just pathing their own route. The fact they started allowing the distribution of paid DLc on their software, is proof enough to me that they are not against the idea.

From my point of view there are two potential reasons:
1. They are not agains tthe idea. [In which case, what is in the way of them having their own paid DLC]
2. They are making a profit. [In which case, greed. Like a hindu selling beef]

When you can present me with a signed document saying Gabe will never allow paid DLC on Valve games, I will always have a reason to believe there is a potential, and if you hoenstly do not beleive there is a chacne Paid DLC from Valve will happen you are either a fanboy in denial or you just don't quite grasp business.