Valve

[spoffle]

OK, maybe you are right in some sense, but my real point is that their output of quality games is fairly slow, yet they sell loads of other peoples games and make a lot of money out of it. Which seems to be pretty close to the reason everyone hates EA.

It's completely different. Valve's Steam is basically a shop platform that games are sold on. Valve have little input to the content on Steam, they don't own the IPs on it, they don't tell the developers how to make their games or what to put in them, they simply provide a service to developers.

EA take developer (that they've bought), strip them down and make them churn out content at the expense of quality.

EA has to please its shareholders, which is why it does what it does.

Valve have no shareholders as it is completely privately owned by its employees. The games they make (very slowly) don't compromise on quality because a publisher is telling them to hurry up, they have no higher ups to answer to basically.

These companies are there to make money and anyone who begrudges them making money is an idiot, the difference is the way that they do it really.

This is where people's issues with EA are. They rush and push devs that they've stripped down to push out subpar content, and make them push out unfinished games with the intention of selling the customer the rest of the game as "DLC" for an extortionate price. It's the same reasons that people hate Activision/Blizzard.

Valve will slip up when they slip up. People hold them in such high esteem because they've earned it, they seem to respect and value custom (at least in the case of those who run Valve, Gabe and the rest). They aren't perfect, obviously but they're doing things a lot better than most.

They are like small "indie" developer with loads of money and no one to answer to.

I buy games I like, so I'm not going to avoid a developer in general, what I do avoid is rubbish though. I am completely uninterested in the likes of the Call of Duty games, more so considering that each new iteration is basically a small expansion on the latter, yet they want big money for it. I find it offensive how Activision keep their game's prices artificially high considering the poor quality of them.

 

[AndyT]

WTF, I never thought I'd agree with you .

I'm sure most of this has been mentioned but the main reasons I "dislike" (I don't really care that much tbh) are:

EA etc release games and then either charge for DLC which should have been a part of the game or make it pre-order/Limited Edition only etc, Valve offer new content for their already sold games for free.

Valve's micro-transaction stuff for their free games (TF2/DotA2, I play neither game ) are all just cosmetics (again, I don't play, so this is afaik), skins and all that, they have no ingame benefit. Other companies basically force you to spend money to be able to actually play properly.

Valve don't buy up smaller/indie devs, then make them release rubbish games until they just close the studio, instead they publish their games on Steam giving them a much larger audience to sell games (that they made/decided stuff on, not Valve) to while taking a cut of the proceeds. Making money is fine, doing it to the detriment of the consumer is what people dislike.

Yeah, I kind of agree with most of this, but Valve's EULA means we are effectively renting the games we buy. Other companies would certainly not be allowed to get away with this, but for Valve - it seems ok.

 

[spoffle]

No but they do buy them, absorb and then release their games under the "valve" banner.

Left For Dead, Portal and of course DOTA 2 being prime examples.

That's not really what happened with Portal.

Portal is totally and completely Valve original. It was inspired by a university project called narbarcula drop.

The only similarity between them is that the games use portals as a game mechanic. Gameplay, themes, setting and everything else is entirely different.

What Valve did though was hire the students who made narbarcula drop because they liked their ideas, rather than purchased a studio already making a game.

 

[spoffle]

Yeah, I kind of agree with most of this, but Valve's EULA means we are effectively renting the games we buy. Other companies would certainly not be allowed to get away with this, but for Valve - it seems ok.

The contents of Valve's EULA doesn't bother me because they wouldn't be worth the paper they'd be printed on.

Completely unenforceable.

That goes for any EULA, they're done by lawyers for legal purposes. They really mean next to nothing and don't override statutory rights, so they may as well not even bother with them.

 

[Omaeka]

Let's see why EA/Activision get so much hate shall we, compared to Valve;

EA

Pros

+ Have some of the best game IPs out there which they are supporting (Sims, Need for Speed, Battlefield, Mirror's Edge etc.)

+ Decent customer support (compared to Valve anyway)

+ Their client they force on us isn't that bad, it at least has it's own convenient downloader (unlike uPlay, for example)

+ Decent ports across the board, can't remember the last time a game ran like **** that had an EA logo (I know EA don't develop a lot of them, but still, they must at least respect the PC platform enough to make sure their games work unlike others *cough* Bethesda *cough*)


Cons

- Ruined Command and Conquer with Tiberium Twilight, absolutely murdered it in the name of dumbing it down to sell to idiots

- Absolved almost every single developer they bought out

- Killed Bioware, buried them, and then blew their grave up with C4

- Started this bull**** trend of locking half the game before release and selling the rest as DLC

- Too obsessed with the success of CoD/Battlefield and spending all their resources trying to cash in on them, neglecting amazing games like Mirror's Edge

- Never listen to the fans; where is NFS Underground 3? Must not like money then...

- Pompous and arrogant upper management, "If Dead Space 3 doesn't sell 14 million units we are killing it'' or something along those lines, lol just lol.


Activision

Pros

WiP (not looking promising)

Cons

- Showed everyone that bad crap sells, and the less skilfull and less intelligent you make your games, the more they sell, which is a trend that's crashing into most developers. Blame Activision for the poor state of Far Cry 3.

- Overprice their games, what makes them think they have the right to sell CoD for £39.99 on PC? The standard price for a game is £29.99 due to no licence fees, understandable on the consoles but on PC? Talk about arrogant, but then again, they know their fanbase are the exact same idiots that fill their coffers for their pile of turds.

- Killed Tony Hawks, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Guitar Hero and countless other games

- Will butcher Deadpool

- Release nothing but ****, gimmicky arcade titles these days

- Removed Radical Entertainment from the industry, despite the fact they make the best game under Activisions banner (Prototype 1 + 2)

Valve

Pros

+ Steam, and it's features

+ Okayish games, never really made a bad one

+ Steam sales

+ Seem to respect the PC platform

• They've given me free games
• Let me mod their games with their blessing
• Given indie developers a good platform to publish on
• Allowed me to make money from thier game items
• Made it easy for me to install/reinstall my games
• Given me more free software to make machinima
• Every few months good discounts are given
• Produced a great platform to keep in contact with my gaming buddies

As well as this, they've kept their integrity and stayed a private company so there are no shareholders dictating them.

Cons

- Steam is a broken mess, that they refuse to fix, even though it's what gives them their billions of $

- All their IPs are gimmicks, except Half Life

- Never make any games, have a huge studio, yet are clearly lazy

- Way too many blind fanboys

- **** customer support

 

[AndyT]

Yup, agreed with OP, except personally I don't think they make great games anymore, and heavily use(and have used) the promise of future titles to keep people coming back while putting in seemingly next to no effort or profits into their "big" titles of their own.

Its become a commercial selling platform, not just the program they use for their own games.

Portal is great, but short, and portal 2 for me was significantly worse, easier and less daring than the original like any other series. Likewise HL1 was the best, HL2 was good but not as good for me, all the episodes I think have been complete crap, rehashed rubbish, reusing much of the same stuff, same area's, same feel, nothing new, overpriced and way too short and years between small games without much new content.

The only reason people have complained less is... they're only making one or two series worse because they only have one or two.

Is steam fantastic, no, its a basic shop and game launching client, it offers me no more or less functionality than any other app that does the same crap for me. As said in the OP, they keep offering you stuff that is a great price... and humans in general(me included) hate passing up a good deal just in case, however I haven't been sucked into the Steam experience of spending on stuff I'll never play. There are guys who bang on about steam sales who also say they have 100's of games they've never played, never will play, never really wanted to play. I'd prefer to pay £30 on a game I want than 20p each for 100 games I don't want to play JUSt because they are cheap and I might eventually open one of them.

Steam suck on pricing for stuff you actually want, offer nothing no one else doesn't, spends a lot of time and effort getting you to buy stuff you don't really want and spends seemingly very little of its vast profits actually making games, and not making great games.

In terms of being a good platform for indie's to get their games up.... I honestly don't know if thats true, it is, lots of people use it and people can put their games on it, but I have no idea if they make much from each sale, if Valve are good, or have become a giant and take most of the profits.

I see nothing brilliant about Steam, origin, Uplay or anything else, nor anything particularly bad with them, the love for steam I don't get, its an application, its a list of short cuts, you can put a list of shortcuts to all your games in a folder and have identical "all my games are here" functionality people keep banging on about.

Its like people think shortcuts and arranging all your game ones in one list is... magic? I find how much people like a list of shortcuts so valuable, but thats just me.

If they aren't charging indie game makers through the teeth for each sale, good for them, but ultimately I see Valve as a massively profitable retailer... who very occasionally release a game.

This is pretty much what I think, but you've said it in probably a much better way. It's just a game shop. HL Episodes 1/2 weren't great, let's be honest. There is nothing ground breaking on the horizon. I just think, so what?

Games I have enjoyed by other developers in the last 2 years:
Battlefield 3
Far Cry 3
Tiger Woods
F1 2012
Max Payne 3
Sleeping Dogs
Skyrim
etc.

Games I have enjoyed by Valve in the last 2 years:
.........

I have nothing against them, just not convinced by people's devotion to them. They are just a shop that slowly makes good games.

 

[spoffle]

God, I was presuming his posts were the ranting of a teenager. LOL.

He's 34? Uhhh I'm gonna have to go and sit outside to get some fresh air before my ears and nose start bleeding.

 

[AndyT]

Let's see why EA/Activision get so much hate shall we, compared to Valve;

EA

Pros

+ Have some of the best game IPs out there which they are supporting (Sims, Need for Speed, Battlefield, Mirror's Edge etc.)

+ Decent customer support (compared to Valve anyway)

+ Their client they force on us isn't that bad, it at least has it's own convenient downloader (unlike uPlay, for example)

+ Decent ports across the board, can't remember the last time a game ran like **** that had an EA logo (I know EA don't develop a lot of them, but still, they must at least respect the PC platform enough to make sure their games work unlike others *cough* Bethesda *cough*)


Cons

- Ruined Command and Conquer with Tiberium Twilight, absolutely murdered it in the name of dumbing it down to sell to idiots

- Absolved almost every single developer they bought out

- Killed Bioware, buried them, and then blew their grave up with C4

- Started this bull**** trend of locking half the game before release and selling the rest as DLC

- Too obsessed with the success of CoD/Battlefield and spending all their resources trying to cash in on them, neglecting amazing games like Mirror's Edge

- Never listen to the fans; where is NFS Underground 3? Must not like money then...

- Pompous and arrogant upper management, "If Dead Space 3 doesn't sell 14 million units we are killing it'' or something along those lines, lol just lol.


Activision

Pros

WiP (not looking promising)

Cons

- Showed everyone that bad crap sells, and the less skilfull and less intelligent you make your games, the more they sell, which is a trend that's crashing into most developers. Blame Activision for the poor state of Far Cry 3.

- Overprice their games, what makes them think they have the right to sell CoD for £39.99 on PC? The standard price for a game is £29.99 due to no licence fees, understandable on the consoles but on PC? Talk about arrogant, but then again, they know their fanbase are the exact same idiots that fill their coffers for their pile of turds.

- Killed Tony Hawks, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Guitar Hero and countless other games

- Will butcher Deadpool

- Release nothing but ****, gimmicky arcade titles these days

- Removed Radical Entertainment from the industry, despite the fact they make the best game under Activisions banner (Prototype 1 + 2)

Valve

Pros

+ Steam, and it's features

+ Okayish games, never really made a bad one

+ Steam sales

+ Seem to respect the PC platform



Cons

- Steam is a broken mess, that they refuse to fix, even though it's what gives them their billions of $

- All their IPs are gimmicks, except Half Life

- Never make any games, have a huge studio, yet are clearly lazy

- Way too many blind fanboys

- **** customer support

Pretty much says it all, they each have good/bad points, yet Valve are treated as though they give out free ****-jobs and EA/Activision as though they murdered your Grandma. Strange.

 

[Nerusy]

Yeah, I kind of agree with most of this, but Valve's EULA means we are effectively renting the games we buy. Other companies would certainly not be allowed to get away with this, but for Valve - it seems ok.

Rent implies periodic payments. I do not pay valve money every month, how is it effective renting? I do not think it is fair to use that word as it is misleading.

Back to the topic, EA marks bad games simple as that, I personally do not know the actual reason for that, perhaps it is because EA rushes developer, limits their creativity by forcing them to make something safe and popular (ala copy of a copy of a copy) while valve has this "when it's done" attitude.

It all comes down to results, EA marks a bad game, valve logo marks a good game.

 

[spoffle]

This is pretty much what I think, but you've said it in probably a much better way. It's just a game shop. HL Episodes 1/2 weren't great, let's be honest. There is nothing ground breaking on the horizon. I just think, so what?

Games I have enjoyed by other developers in the last 2 years:
Battlefield 3
Far Cry 3
Tiger Woods
F1 2012
Max Payne 3
Sleeping Dogs
Skyrim
etc.

Games I have enjoyed by Valve in the last 2 years:
.........

I have nothing against them, just not convinced by people's devotion to them. They are just a shop that slowly makes good games.

So you don't like Valve games all that much = everyone doesn't?

They take their time, which is very frustrating, but I have very much enjoyed all of their games.

You might not like the HL2 Episodes, but speak for yourself, I enjoyed them a lot and looked forward to each one.

Also people don't like Steam because it's a shop, they like the functionality of the Steam platform.

Automatic game updates, community features, integrated features in to games like Steam overlay, voice chat over Steam, being able to download your games when you want as many times as you want (others give you a time limit/limit the amount of downloads you can have before having to buy the game again or pay to download it again).

Steam Workshop, the community features like screenshots and videos and being able to share them with Steam contacts, and probably the most important feature, it deals with the online portions of Steamworks games. It deals with the mutiplayer lobbies, servers/listing that is directly integrated within the games rather than messing around with things like Gamespy and whatever else.

Honestly, I think people struggle to comprehend that Steam is anything but a game launcher that does nothing else but launch and sell games.

 

[AndyT]

I detest the direction the industry has been guided towards and the manner within which the self proclaimed AAA publishers go about their work, they have no respect for the industry, those who work within it or the consumers of it.

I singled out E.A and Activision but just look at all the **** which they have caused within the industry over the last decade.

Look at all the EXCELLENT studios they have purchased and either shutdown or merged with the rest of their operation. Look at the quality of games they now produce. With the budgets they have, they should be making the best games, EVER. Not the same rehashed ******** with added day one DLC.

Look at their execs who have the bare face cheek to tell us that sales are bad and DLC is their shning beacon. The same execs who enforce decisions regarding the direction of a game based on monetary gain alone and not taking gameplay into account.

Look at Valve...

To add to the discussion - If I don't like the look of a game I don't buy it. If I buy it and it's rubbish I learn not to buy the sequel or the DLC. I can't actually think of an game since the previous MOH that has made me curse the developer. Maybe only the colour tweaker with BF3/DICE recently, but really, that's not up to me. I didn't make the game. I knew what I was buying. How can I complain?

Sequels often, but not always get stale anyway. Where is the guarantee that these software houses wouldn't have ruined their own IP if they hadn't been bought out? We've seen it before. id for example, haven't made a decent game in ages.

 

[LizardKing]

Valve could have milked the Half Life brand for all its worth and sold millions of copy's of copy and paste content ALA EA and they would be far richer/bigger for it.

But they haven't sold out and for this alone puts them head and shoulders above EA's and Activition in my estimation.

Not to mention
EA, Activision etc are faceless corporations in a sea of commercialisation. Valve on the other hand have Gabe and that brings a human touch to the company. Much the way Steve Jobs humanised Apple and Bill did with MS.

Gabe has the mass to hide the corporate bull a lot better though

 

[Shamikebab]

Valve

Cons

- All their IPs are gimmicks, except Half Life

Jesus wept....what?!?

 

[spoffle]

Cons

- Steam is a broken mess, that they refuse to fix, even though it's what gives them their billions of $

- All their IPs are gimmicks, except Half Life

- Never make any games, have a huge studio, yet are clearly lazy

- Way too many blind fanboys

- **** customer support

I hope the "broken mess" isn't based on the fact that you've been having issues with it on your PC.

If so, you should know better than that!

I'm not sure how you see their IPs as gimmicks. Portal games are part of the Half Life series, they actually put a lot of effort in to them story wise, but they are essentially half life games.

They have a large studio, but they aren't lazy. The issue isn't laziness, it's the fact that everyone has the freedom to work on whatever project they want to work on. The issue is a lack of structured direction, not laziness.

Fanboys are their own issue, they are moron but it's not really Valve's issue or fault.

I've heard all sorts about their customer support, it seems to lowly peons aren't all that helpful, I've also heard (first hand too) that when these peons aren't doing their job, an email to Gabe often gets things worked out for you.

He'll either do it himself, or it'll be passed on to some one in the "executive" office to deal with which usually results in a positive outcome.

Not to say that it's not a negative aspect, but rather nearly every company I've experienced has morons at the bottom of its customer service "ladder".

 

[Myshra]

EA

- Never listen to the fans; where is NFS Underground 3? Must not like money then...

The latest NFS wasn't a bad stab at this to be fair (except for the exclusively high end list of cars). It's not as fun as underground was but it's pretty close. Thinking back to it, NFSU1/2 were absolute crackers, I can't even comprehend why they didn't make more.

 

[Nerusy]

Cons

- Steam is a broken mess, that they refuse to fix, even though it's what gives them their billions of $

- All their IPs are gimmicks, except Half Life

- Never make any games, have a huge studio, yet are clearly lazy

- Way too many blind fanboys

- **** customer support

1) I never knew that's the case, is that a widely accepted claim or your personal view of it? Could you explain as to how it is broken, I would like to understand.

2) I don't really see how their IP are gimmick? I don't see how you can put it under negatives, gimmick usually implies a bad game however all their games have been good to excellent, they don't make bad games, you said it yourself. You are essentially contradicting yourself here unless you don't mean a gimmick makes a game bad but if that's the case then why is it a negative if a game is good?

3)What do you mean never make any games? Making constant stream of games every year makes a good developer? Well if you like that sort of thing then COD related games are for you but that doesn't make developer good or bad, one concentrates on quantity the other one on quality. Some people like games that are nurtured to perfection other like COD-like system.

4) I have not seen any fanboism, I don't go to any other forums so don't know how people react to steam as a whole, I think people on this forum are generally quite rational and won't fall for silly things. In any case, the way people form their bias have nothing to do with how good the company is, it's not their fault.

5) I had to deal with customer service once and it was a quick and painless event. Again I do not know the actually full opinion, if valve is notorious for bad customer support then sure that's a big negative point for a company but I never or at least rarely see any complains (and the complains are usually made as a result of user-related mistake).

I would like to make a point if valve is indeed a bad company then it shouldn't be put on a pedestal of the "best" pc developer out there but the points you put here seem to be silly.

 

[Gimpymoo]

you've misquoted me. Only the final paragraph in your quote is mine.

I apologise, I quoted drunkenmaster in error, post edited.

It is not just about the quality of their games Andy, it is about the way within which they treat their consumers, the lack of respect they show towards their employees.

Ironically, the quality of their games is of least concern to myself as I do not purchase them, however I do think the content would be much be better across the board were it not for the likes of E.A and Activision doing their best to produce unoriginal content year after year.

I cry myself to sleep thinking what Mirrors Edge 2 will be like, especially after one of the execs waded in. You can imagine the design meeting:

"WE NEED MORE GUNS, ILLUMINATED DIRECTION SIGNS AND LEVEL PACKS SOLD AS $5 DLC, WE NEED TO SHIP IN A YEAR, EVEN IF IT IS BUGGED TO ****"

Do I see that happening at Valve, no.

That does not make me a fanboy, just a perception of how two companies are perceived.

One has stupid execs and shareholders, the other has a well informed game developer/gamer at its helm.

I know which one I prefer and be it right or wrong, I am vocal with my choice.

 

[AndyT]

I apologise, I quoted drunkenmaster in error, post edited.

Thanks, I also apologise and have edited my post accordingly. Cheers.

 

[Hedge]

I forgive Valve for anything they have ever got wrong because they simply provided me with the platform for Counter Strike which took my early years, and DOTA2 which is taking my current time. No games have come close for hours played (except for WoW but I like to pretend I never played that lol)

 

[Calabi]

I think Valve is becoming a bit dodgy. The whole store aspect with the social aspect is very clever, almost unethical.

Why not get what your friends are getting. They dont have to bother manipulating people, they've just stumbled on the perfect means to so they can do it to one another.

If they just had games then they would not have such a huge lead over all their competitors.

They have the huge embedded users, with all these social environment, which they keep adding to more and more over time, so that once your in you cant do without it or it just beats the competitors by a mile.

No one else has a chance really. Its just as well they are good, but then again you can do some bad things whilst being good.