Good old Valve. Sure, they're ultimately doing it for the money like every corporation, but at least they make that money with dignity, and with customers in mind rather than the shareholders. They've got more reason for people to like them than EA Games.
If EA somehow manages to take control of Valve, total war would occur.
As long as Gabe Newell is around I'd like to think EA would never have a shot in hell; at least not for a piddly billion.
And if that ever did happen, it would be a merger not a buyout (ala Activison Blizzard, exact same scenario essentially) so we'd end up with something like that.
Something tells me if the deal is ever actually struck, it would play out something like this:
1) EA pays umpteen bazillion dollars to acquire Valve
2) 2 weeks later, all former Valve employees offer their resignation
3) 1 week later, all former Valve employees get together and make another, brand new company called "Faucet" or somesuch
4) 1 week after that, Faucet releases a digital distribution platform called Vapor that users can point at Steam accounts and get all of their game library transferred for free.
Whoa! The damn headline gave me the chills, but luckily, one billion (and some) will be too small amount of cash for Valve to even consider selling... On the apocalyptic side of the scenario, I'd be forced to close my account and pirate every last one of the games on my (then obsolete) games archive. Much hassle and a bad taste in my mouth, since Steam cured my piracy by making things easy and accessible...
See, I said the same exact thing when EA bought BioWare. "That's no big deal," Spake I, "BioWare is a huge name in the industry. What they're doing works. EA would be stupid to mess with that."
And BioWare is still doing what BioWare always does, only now they have someone else to take the flak if they fuck something up.
But they haven't yet. I've seen one lackluster title from them, and three Internet wide tantrums from spoiled brats.
Signa said:
I think you're underestimating what Valve does for us as a gaming community, and overestimating what good EA does. I know you're no fan of Valve, but their respect for their customers is something that is almost unseen in today's corporate world. Yes, they want that respect to earn money, but there's nothing wrong with earning that money through more ways than just offering a service or product that no one else can.
EA on the other hand sees no value in their customers. They only see the value in their products, and if those products don't display that value, they shut them down without a second thought. Since EA isn't smart enough to value their customers, they would make every effort to start squeezing Valve's fandom for as much cash as they are willing to shell out. You might see some echos of what Valve did under EA, like constant TF2 updates, but items probably would become more expensive, and updates would include more unbalanced items. I mean, you'd hope they would just leave Valve alone to do their work, but all their other studios have suffered because of the demands they make. Bioware is only the most recent example.
I have yet to see BioWare suffer in any major regard.
But aside from that, if Valve wants to pretend they're some kind of messiah for gaming, fine.
But they're not a developer. They're a retailer. They make money by selling other people's products. And they've build up such a rabid dipshit fanbase that anyone developing on the PC has two options:
1. Have your game not make a dime.
2. Give 30% of your money to a middleman to have it put on the most buggy, lagging, invasive asshole of a DRM scheme ever created.
Wasn't digital distribution supposed to make gaming easier and more convienient? Wasn't it supposed to eliminate the need for mandatory updates, constant verification codes (I uninstalled it after it asked for an email verification for the 50th time) and userbase that makes the average XBox Live chatroom sound like NPR.
And you know what the sad part is? Everyone has a fucking double-standard in this regard.
Why does EA get away with pulling shit like Always Online DRM, Day one DLC, mandatory client requirements and the like?
Because they looked at Valve's success and saw the truth nobody wants to admit: That's what gamers wanted.
The endless blowjob given to Steam tells everyone else that gamers want Mandatory and invasive updates, long installation and wait times for games, client and account based DRM that's one ban away from losing everything a customer has, and less and less owning of a product. Why does it feel like you don't own a game anymore, but rather a license? Because that's what Valve created when they brought in Steam. It's right there in the TOS. You are not buying a game. You are buying a license. A license that can be revoked whenever they feel like it.
And you agreed to it. And then every gamer under the sun threw a fit when every other company started going into the future that gamers were begging for.
A while back, I saw the reality of the situation when it came to companies like EA and Activision.
They are not even close to as evil as everyone likes to say they are. Gamers (just like everyone else on the planet) love to ***** and whine and blame everyone else when their stupidity has a negative affect on them.
All the terrible things about gaming today? DRM? DLC? Endless patches? Client attachments?
No publisher would have done any of this shit that gamers are whining about if gamers themselves had not made it perfectly clear to them that it was exactly what they wanted. A businessman can be trusted to follow money wherever it goes. That makes them very easy to manipulate.
Now that the time constraints of printing and shipping discs is no longer an issue, DLC doesn't have to be sold as a standalone title anymore. Meaning more and more and MORE DLC.
Now that they can wire a game to an account, they don't need to bother with the CD check anymore. Leading to more and more and MORE DRM.
Digital Distribution: Gamers begged for it, and it slapped them in the face. Now they blame everyone else for their own impulsive nature and inabilty to examine the obvious downside.
There's 2 primary things that create the difference you're asking about here.
1) Valve knows how to do/maintain/keep good PR. This is something EA is absolutely godawful at.
2) Valve actually understands the concept of customer service.
That's why it's different when Valve buys an IP and the devs for it.
Also, the vast majority of the games Valve has acquired were not created in a professional studio. They basically poached college students and modders who made good shit. It's a pretty dramatic difference between offering a position at your company for modders to turn professional (and then greenlighting their projects) and buying out a full dev studio employing 100+ people and then driving them out of business.
Dont care about Valve, they have lived off Half Life 1 and 2, which wernt even that great although was fun to play......basic fps games. Its no lost, they dont make games anymore anyway, have done nothing for years. Ea want them for steam i think, not for their game making skills.
If this had happened (this was multiple years ago, according to said articles, maybe 5+?) Valve would right about now be producing Free2Play and Facebook games according to the "new company strategy", half their staff would have probably been laid off and Steam merged with Origin in a corporate campaign to "Streamline Digital Distribution" or something.
Hey look, yet another person holding the delusion that EA is evil and Valve is Superman, rather than the reality that both are just neutral and will follow money.
Then again, nobody ever accused gamers of being bright... or sane for that matter.
They're both neutral, but EA is also evil. EA is neutral evil, Valve is chaotic neutral or true neutral. You're right that neither one of them is the paragon of virtue that so many people around here think Valve is, though.
Dunno about keeping their identity, but they did buy and then shut down one studio, Turtle Rock Studios [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Rock_Studios], the original makers of L4D.
As long as Gabe Newell is around I'd like to think EA would never have a shot in hell; at least not for a piddly billion.
And if that ever did happen, it would be a merger not a buyout (ala Activison Blizzard, exact same scenario essentially) so we'd end up with something like that.
Dont care about Valve, they have lived off Half Life 1 and 2, which wernt even that great although was fun to play......basic fps games. Its no lost, they dont make games anymore anyway, have done nothing for years. Ea want them for steam i think, not for their game making skills.
As long as Gabe Newell is around I'd like to think EA would never have a shot in hell; at least not for a piddly billion.
And if that ever did happen, it would be a merger not a buyout (ala Activison Blizzard, exact same scenario essentially) so we'd end up with something like that.
Thankfully Valve doesn't have a parent company. It doesn't even have shareholders, it's an entirely private enterprise and the largest and most influential independent games developer out there now.
They're both neutral, but EA is also evil. EA is neutral evil, Valve is chaotic neutral or true neutral. You're right that neither one of them is the paragon of virtue that so many people around here think Valve is, though.
They're both neutral, but EA is also evil. EA is neutral evil, Valve is chaotic neutral or true neutral. You're right that neither one of them is the paragon of virtue that so many people around here think Valve is, though.
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