Valve does it again (in a bad way)

[CoverYourHead]

So... You're mad because they're offering some neat cosmetic bonuses for a paltry sum to people who are interested? It's not stopping you from enjoying the game (unless you have a severe case of OCD and must have everything available all the time), people who want it can pay a whole TWO DOLLARS (dear god, that's like... a cup of coffee) to get something cosmetic for themselves.

Seriously, it's not greedy, it's just Valve getting a bit of extra change to provide long-term financial capability from a game. Calm down, don't buy it if you don't want to. Go get mad at companies charging 15 bucks for 30-45 minute bundles of content that should be part of the game in the first place (looking at you, BioWare).

 

[Sansha]

Games are supposed to be fun. Remember fun?

Who remembers fun before video games were expected to have the same narratives and themes as films?

Videogames are not supposed to be mindless fun, they've just got stuck with that name, it doesn't define them. It's like saying films are supposed to be silent because they're called "movies" and not "talkies". I can have fun playing sports and multiplayer games. Singleplayer is not just fun, it's for engaging experiences like fallout, mass effect, gta, yakuza etc. It's easy to create a linear shooter, stick some bots in it, and put in a mute protagonist and one or two other characters. It's 5 hours of mindless entertainment. Multiplayer/sports games give you hundreds of hours, and deep singleplayer games give you a memorable intellectual experience. That we're still regularly giving these primitive games 90%+ reviews is ludicrous. The only reason they haven't gone extinct is because they're cheap and easy to make and sell well.

Okay I agree with you there. I had way more fun with Fallout3 than Half-Life2.

 

[TiefBlau]

What makes your complaint utter bullshit is that these features are completely superfluous. If you don't want it, you seriously don't need to buy it and the gameplay experience will be exactly the same.

What's interesting though is that Portal 2 is not a multiplayer game. It's based only on two campaigns, after which you're pretty much done with the game. The market for this kind of cosmetic content is small enough as it is; I don't understand why you would buy it if you don't play on a regular basis.

 

[valleyshrew]

It's so weird how Gabe has talked about games being too expensive before and yet he's willing to charge $2 for a hat, while actual decent deep games that took years to make get sold on sale for barely double that. Valve are no different than EA or activision, they're all about the money. Steam has over $1b in revenue a year according to Forbes estimate, and Valve get a huge cut of that, but what do they do with it? They certainly don't pump it back into making more games and buying development studios like EA or Sony do. They make primitive shallow cheap games that are polished and well marketed, it's mind boggling how people seem to think they're a great gaming company. I'm always seeing people say that Valve do things right and know how to treat their customers. Fuck that, customers want their money spent making more good games and so far Valve have only made 1 deep game (half-life 2), took 6 years to do it, and the rest of the games they've made are on the same level as call of duty or any other of the standard ea/activision trash. They're really clueless, have no idea how to make an engaging narrative or setting, and only get highly rated because of simple easy to understand gameplay gimmicks that appeal to a mass audience, like the gravity gun, zombie AI, or the portal gun. Left 4 dead is one of the most lazy attempts to cash in on a trend I've ever seen. That people are happy with a game that has 5 levels, no narrative at all, and generic shooting mechanics is just crazy. They have no ambition to make an outstanding game, they're simple minded and unambitious, and people love them because people are idiots.

I mean shit, you contradict your own damn self multiple times in that blob of poorly-written text.

So when you read "Valve are no different than EA", you think I literally mean Valve are EA and thus I can't say "valve don't buy up other developers like EA do"? The meaning of the former phrase was clarified with the statement "they're all about the money", and it's a fact that valve don't buy up other developers, so no contradiction. The only other possible contradiction you could be referring to that I can see is calling half-life 2 a deep game (it's not really deep but it's got enough variety in the gameplay, characters and setting to stand out from the rest of their games), while criticising them for making shallow games, but there's no contradiction there. Perhaps next time you could have the courtesy to argue about the actual point instead of irrelevantly talking about monkeys and insulting me just because you disagree.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

You're ridiculous. You know that right? You're complaining about cosmetic, optional DLC. You're not missing out on any gameplay whatsoever. I think you need to read this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/8819-Experienced-Points-DLC-for-Dummies].

 

[MrMoustaffa]

If you seriously think Valve is screwing you over by selling purely cosmetic hats, then you need to go play a game like Combat Arms. You think you hate DLC when its purely cosmetic, wait till you play a game where a person with a credit card can buy upgraded versions of every single weapon of the game, buffed characters, and personal Airstrikes, grenade launchers, and frickin miniguns. The community's motto for the game for a long time was "play for free, pay to win" if that gives you an idea of what to expect.

Combat Arms would be a game that would have legitimate reason to post a thread like this. Go play Combat Arms for an hour (its free so you have no excuse not to), and if you can come back here and still honestly say that Valve is screwing you over, then you either have severe brain damage, or you just hate Valve in general.

Valve is one of the few companies that has an honest to god fair DLC plan (at least for portal, cant speak for other games) its all cosmetic, and purely optional stuff. Buying a certain hat doesn't make the game easier, or make Glados nicer to you, or make you shoot three portals. It makes your character look different, that's it. They didnt put any extra maps that you have to pay for, they dont charge you for multiplayer, and they dont charge you on anything else that you actually need. All the stuff thats available to buy is more of a way to say "hey Valve, you did awesome, here's some cash to make another cool game" as opposed to "shit, I cant beat this level, I guess I'll have to buy 5 more portals"

 

[Lyri]

Lemme just get this out of the way by saying that I love Portal 2 to 42 extremes of awesome and it was fun as any fun sauce I've tasted in a while. This is what bothers me.

So stop me if you've heard this one before. There's this thing in the Portal 2 co-op called 'Robot Enrichment' which allows you to customize your own Atlas and P-body. In order to get some of the features (e.g. skins, taunts, flags, and of course HATS) you have to pay real money. The flags represent different potato sack games, but you still have to buy them. I would think that they would just give you watever flags that matched the games you had, but no you have to buy them for two bucks each. Also even though most of the bought taunts are exactly the same (Atlas fist pump, P-body fist pump) you have to buy them for each individual robot. So if you bought a cool Atlas spin dance and got stuck playing as P-body, well sucks for you.

I know Valve kinda needed the money when the did this with TF2 to make better games and keep the servers running but haven't they made enough? Are they going to do this with every game now? I don't want to see my favorite video game company become corrupted with greed trying to make a quick buck every chance they get.

And just in case you were wondering, no I wasn't stupid enough to buy any of it (although I WAS stupid enough to buy a few keys in TF2)

You're ranting about something you didn't buy?
Something that has no bearing on any part of the game?
Something purely cosmetic and for "funsies"?

Well by jove, I think you might be a very rational person.

I know Valve kinda needed the money when the did this with TF2 to make better games and keep the servers running but haven't they made enough?
Bills are a reoccurring cost, there is not some magical number that quantifies as "enough". If they can make money off of a product besides the original sale of the product itself then of course they will.
In game items are no different than Valve selling out of game items, like a plushy companion cube.

The dislike here is simply irrational and pretty fucking stupid.
Do gamers understand how business' works or is there some kind of "making money = bad" vibe you just aquire as a gamer.
No wonder people don't like Bobby Kotick.

 

[Smooth Operator]

It's a zero cost way to make money, so ofcourse they went there.
Needed to do it because they were strapped for cash? Ya it's not like they have one of the biggest online game stores...

Anyway these buyable unlockables don't break the game, but they gave them a taste of easy money and next time they will do more, and there is no shortage of Dick Dastardly ways to squeeze the customer for more.

 

[valleyshrew]

I'm not usually so quick to jump to "Valve's defense"... but wait... whaaaaat?

I don't hate valve, counter-strike is perhaps my most played game of all time, and I've played most of their games, I just hate the undeserved praise and love they get.

Did you just really say that? Portal has "no engaging narrative or setting"

Chell is not a character, she's a floating portal gun. Glados is the only character in portal, and there's what 2 plot points in the whole game? It's the narrative equivalent of a comic strip, and that people seem to think it's one of gamings best narratives, and that it's the best example of humorous game (there's maybe 2, 3 jokes total), is what pisses me off. I actually enjoyed portal a lot and forced myself to play only one level per day so it would last longer. And are you really going to say the aperture science labs are an engaging setting? They're just a bunch of plain white rooms designed purely for the gameplay mechanics.

and L4D/Portal is "standard EA/Activision trash"... seriously? Did you play the same games I did?

Call of duty, etc. are not that bad but everyone hates on them and loves valve games and I don't see much difference. Maybe harsh to call it trash, but Valve seem to get a pass just because they don't release a new game every year. If I love a game series I don't want to wait 5 years to play the sequel.

Also didn't you just say Half Life 2 was a "deep game"? (personally I prefer Portal a lot more), why are you saying that the gravity gun is an unneeded "gimmick"?

When did I say unneeded? Gimmicks are the core part of gameplay in games like this. "A gimmick is a unique or quirky special feature that makes something "stand out" from its contemporaries." I don't know why gamers use the word with negative connotation, it can be a negative thing when the game has nothing else to offer (e.g. angry birds), but that's rarely the case and half-life 2 had a lot more to it than gravity gun puzzles/gameplay. But it's the gimmicks like that that make valve games stand out from other generic shooters, and without them they wouldn't be so loved.

And please show me different first person shooters in todays market that have more creative weapons than Valve does... I'm sorry but I largely prefer their arsenal over the Handgun/Shotgun/P90/Assault Rifle/Sniper Rifle variety in almost every FPS...

Other than the gravity gun and portal gun, valve games have just the same generic weapons as anything else? I didn't criticise them for weapons. I think left 4 dead 2 had some new things but it's not a particularly amazing innovation to reskin the crowbar as a guitar etc.

 

[Drexlor]

As long as its just cosmetic or can be unlocked in another way, I don't have a problem with it.

 

[one of them]

Until Valve starts charging money for DLC or content that effects gameplay, I won't give two shits whether or not my co-op partner paid $2 so he could have a cool sticker on the side of his robot. If you're honestly finding time to complain about stickers, hats, and other non-essential things then you are a tiny baby man.

 

[Nfritzappa]

The Xbox 360/PS3 version of the game don't even get this stuff, so how should one who has no idea what you're talking about feel about this? Seriously, would it just be better to not know of this cosmetic DLC at all?

 

[one of them]

Actually they do get this stuff, just in their own marketplace instead of a "Robot Enrichment Center".

 

[Bags159]

They are cosmetic hats. You're not going to get much replay value out of CO-OP, and you barely see the hats anyhow. One person is going to see what you have bought, so I doubt many people will buy them.

Get over it. If this is the only complaint you have against P2 then VALVe has done a great job.

I know Valve kinda needed the money when the did this with TF2 to make better games and keep the servers running but haven't they made enough?

Apparently you don't know, because besides the download servers all of the TF2 servers are run by players. Unless this has changed since I stopped playing TF2 in early 2010.

 

[Racecarlock]

Games are supposed to be fun. Remember fun?

Who remembers fun before video games were expected to have the same narratives and themes as films?

Videogames are not supposed to be mindless fun, they've just got stuck with that name, it doesn't define them. It's like saying films are supposed to be silent because they're called "movies" and not "talkies". I can have fun playing sports and multiplayer games. Singleplayer is not just fun, it's for engaging experiences like fallout, mass effect, gta, yakuza etc. It's easy to create a linear shooter, stick some bots in it, and put in a mute protagonist and one or two other characters. It's 5 hours of mindless entertainment. Multiplayer/sports games give you hundreds of hours, and deep singleplayer games give you a memorable intellectual experience. That we're still regularly giving these primitive games 90%+ reviews is ludicrous. The only reason they haven't gone extinct is because they're cheap and easy to make and sell well.

Not all games are supposed to be lord of the rings epics either. Frankly, I prefer fun. If you want a big, epic story then that is perfectly fine, but for fucks sake, quit complaining about the fun games already! You can find plenty of good game stories without constantly spewing pretentious crap at those who just want to have a good time.

 

[Laser Priest]

Yeah, I mean making people pay for extra, purely cosmetic additions to the game? Additions that only people who really care enough will actually buy?

I mean, it's almost like it's an actual business trying to turn a profit or something.