Notch speaks again about Minecraft not being on Steam

Starbuck2907 said:
I've never understood why non-Steam games don't just have an "import fee" or a slightly higher price.

For example, I can't buy Mass Effect 3 on Steam. Why can't Steam charge that extra 30% over the price of the game, so that EA does not lose that revenue (not considering the DLC policy problems). EA would not lose money, and Steam would not lose money. I would be paying a small premium for the luxury of using the game on Steam. EA, especially, is being short sighted.

Same thing for Minecraft. Just sell the game on Steam for a slightly higher price. Or, perhaps let Valve charge me a small fee for allowing me to activate a game key on the service because I bought the game through the web site.

Notch, EA, everybody is being very short-sighted here. Steam is much more than a store. It is a storage facility, a social site, a store, a community, and much more. Many people, would be more than happy to give Valve a small fee just to keep *one unified game library* using one piece of software.

Steam, as a service, has value to a lot of people. Many would probably pay a small additional fee, enough to make up the lost 30%, just to have ALL their games in that one library.

To top it all off Notch, EA, Valve, everybody is leaving money on the table here. I mean, how many people on here have bought Battlefield 3 through Origin, but would happy give EA/Valve and extra $5 to activate the game on Steam? Or, at launch, would people have paid $69.99 instead of $59.99 for a "Steam enabled" version of the game? ...EA were using BF3 as their foothold to get Origin started, but now that it is up and running, I don't see why such things couldn't be done in the future.
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I've always kind of wondered about this too. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for a dev/publisher to do something like this, especially if they were transparent about it. It might go over better if they said "we'll split the cost, only 15% bump in price."

Edit: The price of the game isn't going up. You're just paying to get it on Steam from a developer/publisher who isn't willing to lose 30% of their revenue to Steam. This already happens, people regularly buy games that are more expensive on Steam than elsewhere because they are on Steam.
 
Skilotonn said:
If you have the means to sell your own product via your own means, do it.

That's how us entrepreneurs think, don't see what's so hard to get about that.
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What are you talking about? Valve is amazing. Godlike. They deserve 30% of your revenue. Think of all the PCs they've sold at a loss so that you have a platform to put your game on! The marketing dollars put behind your product!


Truthfully, I find it ridiculous. I like Steam, and I like knowing my saves are in the cloud, that I can redownload any time, and I don't need to keep track of keys. But it has scared me since the beginning that Valve holds all the cards, in more ways than one. I pray I never have reason to regret getting on board.
 
RadicalVelocity said:
What are you talking about? Valve is amazing. Godlike. They deserve 30% of your revenue. Think of all the PCs they've sold at a loss so that you have a platform to put your game on! The marketing dollars put behind your product!


Truthfully, I find it ridiculous. I like Steam, and I like knowing my saves are in the cloud, that I can redownload any time, and I don't need to keep track of keys. But it has scared me since the beginning that Valve holds all the cards, in more ways than one. I pray I never have reason to regret getting on board.
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Holds all the cards in what way? Just buy from someone else.
 
Now I haven't really read most of the thread, so I have to ask, has anyone thought of the possibility of Minecraft incorporating steam workshop? If Minecraft ever got sold on steam, and added steam workshop, modding the game would be made a lot easier, and it would only take Mojang coding in the Workshop. That said, I'm not quite sure how compatible it is on either end to incorporate Workshop into Java code, but there are a bunch of mod launchers and such already, surely it can't be that hard.

It could be an interesting step to see two companies that both seem to have the consumer at heart work together for something.

Edit: Also, something similar to the client Evolve might be an interesting future for the gaming industry, where instead of a storefront for a game that limits functionality for games you don't buy from their store, you have a seperate client that can launch and track any game you play, provided it has an entry in the client's library. It currently doesn't have a launch functionality, but it is planned, and I'm very interested in it.
 
I prefer to give my money straight to devs over getting achievements any day of the week anyway

I'd love to get the chance to do that more and pump 100% of the money to fund/reward the creators of the game
 
Steam achievements are absolutely meaningless. You can spend five minutes downloading a program and pressing three buttons, and bam, you now have everything unlocked with no repercussion (Valve has said just as much.)
 
Odrion said:
Steam achievements are really meaningless. You can spend five minutes downloading a client and pressing three buttons, and bam, you now have everything unlocked with no repercussion (Valve has said just as much.)
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Cool, you go ahead and do that while I enjoy earning them for fun.
 
Gez said:
People need to listen to this edition of TotalBiscuits mailbox on Steam fanboyism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW5tn7NoRqo&feature=plcp

There should be a thread about this. Watch the video before flaming my comment, it has context.

There are scary as fuck comments in this thread. Remember when you put a faceless corporations intrests above you're own, you lose as a consumer.



You don't know what a Monopoly is sorry.
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Let me guess: that's the "Dota 2's business model is too fair and is a ploy to get people on Steam" video, right?
 
Exuro said:
Who said I did?
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Do you even know the context of my post before you replied to it?

edit: There are people that refuse to buy DRM free products because they are not Steam integrated, even if adding them as "Steam Shortcuts" adds the overlay and other functions such as "screenshots." Or because it doesn't have Steam integrated achievements that they can show off to their friends. Which in that "social" sense are pointless because anyone can turn an achievement on in a cat's yawn. That 40 hour Hell Difficulty achievement that you proudly endured? Three seconds for me, and no one will ever be the wiser.

If you want to unlock achievements for the sake of unlocking them. Then go ahead! It shouldn't matter what those achievements are tied to. If you want to unlock achievements on Steam for the sake of bragging, then oh boy are you overvaluing something.
 
Odrion said:
Do you even know the context of my post before you replied to it?
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Apparently not. Someone posts about Steam achievements being meaningless, then you do too. Don't see what the reason for bringing it, especially if you think that's the reason people would buy a steam version over a non steam version.


Cartman86 said:
The second you go from a store (Humble Bundle, Direct2Drive etc.) and include a library, achievements, and more importantly DRM like Steam you have me in your ecosystem. I will try my best to never buy from anyone else if I don't have to. It's just the sad truth of it. That being said The ability to add non-steam games into that interface is a major saving grace for buying content from outside that system. But if I have to boot up 5 different stores/UI's to play games then we have a problem.
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Thankfully competitors like Amazon are offering Steam versions of games for those that want them. I doubt that's somehow monopolizing Steam as a whole. Other than summer/winter/whatever sales, I generally don't buy from Steam itself because competitors have better prices.
 
The second you go from a store (Humble Bundle, Direct2Drive etc.) and include a library, achievements, and more importantly DRM like Steam you have me in your ecosystem. I will try my best to never buy from anyone else if I don't have to. It's just the sad truth of it. That being said The ability to add non-steam games into that interface is a major saving grace for buying content from outside that system. But if I have to boot up 5 different stores/UI's to play games then we have a problem.
 
Aaron said:
There are people on Steam that won't buy games anywhere else.
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But there are probably also people who are OK with buying it somewhere else but would rather buy it on Steam. Putting the game on Steam means getting 30% less revenue from that group.

It would be a mixed bag to put Minecraft on Steam, whether it would be worth it overall or not, who knows...
 
To clarify before I am called a Steam Hater, if you have to mentally stop yourself from buying an item that you want just because it is offered somewhere else, then you're not really doing yourself any favors.

Unless, of course, you have moral issues with buying from one place over another. Such as you would be funding puppy farms or something.
 
I would like if it came to Steam. One less icon on my dock. : )
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Odrion said:
Steam achievements are absolutely meaningless. You can spend five minutes downloading a program and pressing three buttons, and bam, you now have everything unlocked with no repercussion (Valve has said just as much.)
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You can do the same on Xbox Live and PSN. Sony doesn't ban trophy hackers. MS will reset gamerscore if they detect a cheat, but people that edit the timestamps rarely get caught. Anyway, if you value them, they aren't meaningless.
 
Gez said:
People need to listen to this edition of TotalBiscuits mailbox on Steam fanboyism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW5tn7NoRqo&feature=plcp

There should be a thread about this. Watch the video before flaming my comment, it has context.

There are scary as fuck comments in this thread. Remember when you put a faceless corporations intrests above you're own, you lose as a consumer.



You don't know what a Monopoly is sorry.
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A faceless corporation? They are privately owned. The face is Gabe Neweell. If he wanted to he could sell everything at a loss and run the place into the ground. He doesn't have any stockholders to answer to.

I will say it again, Steam has no real competition now. I dont see them using their position to rip people off. However other publishers are starting to reel in the games they publish into their own DD services. EA already, and barring a split of the two companies it wouldnt surprise me to see all of ActiBlizz being sold from one storefront. Ubisoft Uplay is the beginning of them drawing in all of their software to their own storefront. You arent going to like the results when this happens. And you will deserve it.

How is it going to look? It's going to look like Origin. A DD storefront where 100% of the revenue goes to them, compared to maybe 50% through brick and mortar and 70% through Steam. Do you see EA passing the savings on to you from all that extra money they are taking in via DD? Nope. Instead they still charge $60 for new games. For those of you who don't know any better, $60 is a console price point. PC games are supposed to be $10 cheaper since there is not a $10 royalty charge on PC.

Once they have their own established digital storefront they will charge whatever they want. Right now Steam is the neutral location where they are visibly forced to compete against games from other publishers.
 
I don't understand why anybody would avoid buying the game because it's not on Steam. It has no DRM after you buy it, it has it's own achievements, it auto-updates through it's own launcher etc. What is the advantage to gamers? since it's clearly not appealing to Mojang.

Is it a payment issue? I remember that I had to use Paypal when I bought the alpha, so I could understand some people avoiding the purchase for that reason.
 
Willy Wanka said:
I don't understand why anybody would avoid buying the game because it's not on Steam. It has no DRM after you buy it, it has it's own achievements, it auto-updates through it's own launcher etc. What is the advantage to gamers? since it's clearly not appealing to Mojang.
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I honestly don't know. I know there are people out there (especially those on the cesspit Steam forums) that are purposelessly avoiding stuff like PoE, Minecraft and even Tribes before it was on Steam because it just wasn't on Steam. I don't get why people can't just add a shortcut to Steam if they want it so badly on there. TB's video goes into the thought process of these people.
 
Gez said:
I honestly don't know. I know there are people out there (especially those on the cesspit Steam forums) that are purposelessly avoiding stuff like PoE, Minecraft and even Tribes before it was on Steam because it just wasn't on Steam. I don't get why people can't just add a shortcut to Steam if they want it so badly on there. TB's video goes into the thought process of these people.
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Count me among those who just don't get why you'd purposely avoid the games that aren't on Steam. If anything, I prefer my games NOT to be on Steam, since I don't have to wait for Steam to load before I play Minecraft, Toribash, Kerbal Space Program, or any of my other non-Steam games.

The only reason I've ever bought games on Steam is because there have been incredible deals on them, like their Summer/Holiday sales and the Humble Bundles. Heck, I'm more likely to buy a game at full price if it's not on Steam, since I know that it most likely won't be 50%+ off during one of the huge sales.
 
Gez said:
I honestly don't know. I know there are people out there (especially those on the cesspit Steam forums) that are purposelessly avoiding stuff like PoE, Minecraft and even Tribes before it was on Steam because it just wasn't on Steam. I don't get why people can't just add a shortcut to Steam if they want it so badly on there. TB's video goes into the thought process of these people.
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I love Steam, and it's a great piece of software for community functions and launching my games, but the Steam-only cretins do annoy me.

I'm pretty happy to buy games from anyone who I trust to:

1) Employ robust security if I have to give them my credit card.
2) Not fuck me over and ban my account if I have the temerity to complain about their game on their forums.

I don't care if I have to put the key into Steam, or if it's DRM-free, or if it uses a third party downloader/installer.

The only thing that would stop me from buying a game is if I know the DRM is either too draconian (like Diablo III's), or if the game doesn't function when launched from Steam. Example: I got some free Sega games when DSG launched their PC DD store (Curry's, Dixons and PC World Downloads -- all merged into PC World now), and the store is basically Ztorm's digital storefront with DSG Retail's high street brands licensed to it. I downloaded Alpha Protocol and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, added the game's executables to Steam, but when I launch them the games fail and crash.

Apparently, Ztorm's DRM wrapper doesn't like the Steam overlay, meaning I can't launch the games from Steam. In such instances, I'm really not likely to play the games as I like to launch them from Steam, even if I'm not buying or activating them through Steam, so I've decided to not buy any which use that DRM. Other companies use Ztorm too, like GAME, so I know not to buy from them either.

Besides that, I'm pretty comfortable buying games that use GMG's Capsule, or are downloaded through GamersGate's website, or are DRM-free from GOG.com. So long as I can chat with my friends and have the ability to launch my games from one location, I'm pretty happy.

-----

On another note...

I should say, however, that I think TB's video is a bit tinfoil hat conspiracy whacko. He has every right to be cynical about TF2 and Dota 2's ability to turn a profit, claiming that they're going to be loss leaders to get people onto Steam, but I'm not entirely sure that's true. Even prior to Steam, Valve had a good track record of rock solid post-release support, and doing stuff for free. They subscribe to the same view that CDPR do: good post-release support, with free DLCs and such, firstly doesn't divide the userbase (important in multiplayer games), and secondly breathes new life into the original game and keeps it selling for many years. I'm sure they also have faith in the f2p model working out for them, and if it doesn't then Dota 2 will be the last f2p game they do.

Half-Life sales were pretty good years later because Valve supported the game with Counter-Strike updates for years after release, all before Steam had arrived, and well after that too. I don't think Valve are cynical enough to plan for such an outcome years in advance; they just know that treating their customers right is better than pulling the rug from under them.

It's sad that we're fans of an industry where we're used to being screwed, so any company which doesn't default to trying to extract as much money from us in the most bullshit and underhanded ways possible is met with cynicism, but I genuinely think Valve's business model relies entirely on treating their customers well. Of course the endgame is to sell us more stuff (this is what businesses do), but I don't think for a moment that Valve has any interest in screwing us once they've got us where they want us, which is the tone I got from his rant in that YouTube video.

I suppose he's called the Cynical Brit for a reason...
 
Gez said:
I honestly don't know. I know there are people out there (especially those on the cesspit Steam forums) that are purposelessly avoiding stuff like PoE, Minecraft and even Tribes before it was on Steam because it just wasn't on Steam. I don't get why people can't just add a shortcut to Steam if they want it so badly on there. TB's video goes into the thought process of these people.
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balladofwindfishes said:
Steam has this nasty bug where if it crashes or shuts down wrong, it erases all your non-Steam shortcuts. It's a pretty terrible bug I wish they'd fix, but it makes it a lot harder to just stick games to run through Steam.
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^^^ That bug is the only thing that gives me hesitation. I'll still buy games outside of Steam though -- I prefer them to be Steam-redeemable, but I'll make an exception if the price is right or if I can buy from the developer directly.
 
I would be more likely to buy minecraft if it was on steam, as of right now I have no plans to. How can they put it on xbla and not steam?
 
Gaogaogao said:
I would be more likely to buy minecraft if it was on steam, as of right now I have no plans to. How can they put it on xbla and not steam?
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Why is that, though? What's the benefit of buying it on Steam vs just buying it as a standalone program?
 
2MF said:
But there are probably also people who are OK with buying it somewhere else but would rather buy it on Steam. Putting the game on Steam means getting 30% less revenue from that group.

It would be a mixed bag to put Minecraft on Steam, whether it would be worth it overall or not, who knows...
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Minecraft has been out for a while now. The vast majority of these people very likely have already bought it. Now personally I don't care where a game comes from. I bought Minecraft direct, and have zero complaints. But some people do care, and Notch isn't getting any of their money. Plus even more exposure can only lead to more sales.
 
Gez said:
People need to listen to this edition of TotalBiscuits mailbox on Steam fanboyism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW5tn7NoRqo&feature=plcp

There should be a thread about this. Watch the video before flaming my comment, it has context.

There are scary as fuck comments in this thread. Remember when you put a faceless corporations intrests above you're own, you lose as a consumer.



You don't know what a Monopoly is sorry.
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I agree with some of the sentiment, but Totalbiscuit with an actual opinion or stance is actually painful to listen to more often than not. Guy is missing a few screws for sure and I can only really appreciate his work when hes doing beta footage and I can mute it.
 
Alex said:
I agree with some of the sentiment, but Totalbiscuit with an actual opinion or stance is actually painful to listen to more often than not. Guy is missing a few screws for sure and I can only really appreciate his work when hes doing beta footage and I can mute it.
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I liked how unbiased he was, although there was a bit too much "I need to preface this with saying Steam is good".
 
I would have bought Minecraft much sooner if it were on Steam. But Notch would have gotten less of my money on the transaction, too.

I think keeping Minecraft off of Steam was a good decision, business-wise. He sells direct and cuts out the Steam middleman, and Minecraft certainly hasn't needed Steam's exposure to sell like crazy. And hell, he can always throw it up on Steam later and milk the Minecraft cow even more after sales start to dry up. (Which has to happen eventually... right?)
 
balladofwindfishes said:
remembering you own it is a big one for me
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Then you make a desktop shortcut.

Or add it to your steam library. Oh wait, Steam might crash and you'll have to add it again!

Is... Is it just the convenience of Steam adding the game to it's library automatically? No patience for stores outside of the client? Is that really your barrier between a purchase?
 
CharmingCharlie said:
It's bad for consumers because it keeps prices artificially high there is no price competition.
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Umm.dude. Have you ever used digital distribution? There's no price competition. Majority of games cost the same on all DD services. So..what the hell are you talking about?
 
balladofwindfishes said:
remembering you own it is a big one for me
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Comments like these make me wonder if I've had a superhuman memory my entire life and nobody told me. You seriously can't remember which games you own? If I name a title, you couldn't immediately tell me "Yep I bought that one" or "Nope, never bought it"? Like the same way if you name a movie I can tell you whether I've seen it or not.
 
1. A lot of people who have a bug up the butt about a popular service don't understand it / don't use it fully if they have it, so they undervalue what Steam actually accomplishes.

2. A lot of other people who are easily given to arrogance about the service / lifestyle brand they use go on about Steam to a silly degree and act like fanboys.

3. Steam does deserve nearly all the credit it gets, as it has accomplished much, but it is absolutely true that not every single game is suited for Steam as it is now. The simple fact that you can still launch X game via Steam and enjoy most Steam features almost entirely mitigates this.

In the end, most 'debates' about Steam end up seeming kind of pointless. It does what it does better than anything else, and most of the things that don't fit it aren't on it. Compared to the shit going on in console land, the PC is like a god damned utopia right now.
 
Everyone and their dog knows about Minecraft, I don't see how it being on Steam would increase it's sales significantly to make that 30% cut worthwhile.
 
Vane_MagicCity said:
If he did that I bet most people would choose to buy it off of Steam.
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I wouldn;t say most people would (Steam still is used by only small percentage of PC gamers), but definitly a large part of Minecraft users would. At the same time there aren't enough Steam fanboys who refuse to buy everywhere else is big enough to justify the loss of revenue to Valve.

Big companies simply do not need Steam, it's not just Minecraft, but there's no League of Legends or World of Tanks on Steam either. Same with Blizzard. Steam is great, but many devs can easily do without it.
 
Gez said:
People need to listen to this edition of TotalBiscuits mailbox on Steam fanboyism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW5tn7NoRqo&feature=plcp

There should be a thread about this. Watch the video before flaming my comment, it has context.

There are scary as fuck comments in this thread. Remember when you put a faceless corporations intrests above you're own, you lose as a consumer.



You don't know what a Monopoly is sorry.
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i'm not sure whats happened lately but it seems like some people are finally realizing what Steam and its platform within a platform actually means for PC gaming. ive been ridiculed quite a bit for my beliefs so its nice to see well-respected and more eloquent people espouse similar ideas.
 
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