Valve: Xbox Live policy is 'such a train wreck'

pivot said:
I hate these stupid ass publicity stunt announcements. Just shut up and make games. I don't give a fuck about your opinion of them or anything related
He was asked in an interview. What was he supposed to say?
 
MikeE21286 said:
where in the world is the L4D PS3 collection?

IIRC, Sony has a policy that if a game is released on PS3 after other platforms, it has to include bonus content.

Might correct me if I'm wrong tho.
 
RSTEIN said:
I hate Sony! Er, no, I hate Microsoft! :lol
I guess when Valve realized that they can use steamworks on PS3, they got all giddy-up with it.

Majine said:
IIRC, Sony has a policy that if a game is released on PS3 after other platforms, it has to include bonus content.

Might correct me if I'm wrong tho.

Includes DLC and Portal. DONE SON!
 
electroshockwave said:
Doesn't MS already have a policy of letting DLC be free if it's free on another system? By which they probably just mean PS3 as I don't thing PCs exist according to Microsoft's game division.

No, they've charged for DLC that was free on PS3. One case I can remember is Brutal Legend DLC but it's happened other times.
 
pivot said:
Gabe Newell's opinion != consumer opinion

Gabe's wrong because Xbox Live subscribers actually don't want to receive more bug fixes and free DLC than they're already getting?
 
Gabe is complaining, like always, that Valve can't release free updates on the 360.

Why are some of you upset at his remarks?
 
aeolist said:
MS doesn't want customers expecting free content releases on 360 games, it sets a bad precedent for them.
That would be great for Microsoft if the 360 was the one and only option consumers have. This is not the case, even less so now that Sony actually appear to be getting their shit together in regards to this kind of thing.

Put it this way, I've picked up everything Valve have ever produced on 360, assuming the same things that Valve themselves have assumed. I won't be doing so again, and that's no fault of Valve's at all.

I can get a better experience on a PC that isn't even as powerful as a 360 in some ways, at a reduced cost (dramatically so, when you compare the cost of brand new retail games on 360 and add the cost of DLC to get even close to a comparable experience), with the promise of support for months or even years to come.

I can understand the foundations of Xbox Live, but this is 2010, not 2005, so Microsoft are very quickly biting themselves in the bum.
 
Maybe we'll get free updates for Portal 2 and future Valve games! It doesn't matter to me though as I'll be buying the pc version where I know all my updates will be free.
 
Prime crotch said:
Besides the fact he can be a consumer as well, this is a thread about Gabe's opinion and... I dont know what you're getting at, don't make sense

Gabe has a lot of interest in you NOT using XBLive in the very near future. Are you dense?
 
I wasn't aware MS was charging developers to update their own games. No wonder 360 games get late patches and add-ons sometimes..

I'm pretty sick of MS' stances on Live. They grab you by the ankles, shake you for cash and tell you they'll see you tomorrow.

Wait, what?
 
Rad- said:
It was MS's plan to fight unfinished games on release. Sadly it didn't really work as companies still release their games unfinished. :lol Might as well let go of that rule now. I doubt they will though, at least not this gen.

If they really wanted to make sure games weren't released unfinished, they'd make their certification process way more stringent. This one patch crap was just a lazy cop out..
 
Xbox fans are hurt when he is just stating a fact ? For a company like Valves which prolongs the lifetime of their games with many free updates/patches xbl doesnt sound that hot.
 
stuminus3 said:
In which case he's completely correct.

The actual full quote is quite unambiguously referring to Live's policy, not Valve's assumptions, and he's completely correct. Live the service is very polished and successful, but their paranoid unwillingness to allow any alternate content streams or anything that isn't monetized in their pre-specified way has been rapidly eroding their initially immense lead over the PSN service. Already Microsoft's lousy Live policy has cost them even a late-to-the-party FFXIV release and now it's turned what was previously a de facto Valve exclusivity into a scenario where the PS3 versions of all future Valve games will be dramatically superior.

This is just another example of tight-ass Microsoft shining through now that the investors have a tighter hand on the pursestrings. I don't think a single person with forward-thinking ideas about how to develop the Xbox platform is left at the company.

electroshockwave said:
Doesn't MS already have a policy of letting DLC be free if it's free on another system?

The original policy was that DLC could be free if and only if it was free on PSN, but my guess is that they've tightened even that up in the interim.
 
pivot said:
I hate these stupid ass publicity stunt announcements. Just shut up and make games. I don't give a fuck about your opinion of them or anything related

So a video game company that has released games for a console is not allowed any opinion about that console developer or anything related, such as video games?

You'll excuse me if I give more weight to his opinion than yours, him heading a top tier video game company and you being, well, a forum poster.
 
speculawyer said:
Well . . . bandwidth does cost money. I often wonder when Valve will change their own strategy at least a little bit. It is weird how when I log in, Steam starts updating 5 different games. Why? What if I never play game X, why bother?

But I agree that xbox live is too stingy with updates. I guess that is because they want the disc versions of the games too be good. No shipping shitty games and then fixing them later with updates since that doesn't work for the people w/o internet connections. That is something Valve does not have to contend with.

Damn, I'm going back & forth here. :lol
If you don't play game X, why bother installing it in the first place? You don't have to install every game on your game list.

Back on topic. I really can't see MS changing their policies. Games sell a lot; both on XBLA and retail. Not to mention how much DLC sell. I don't see why MS would want to back away from all that money.
 
Darkshier said:
If there is only 1 free update per game, how come I have had to download 2 500+ MB patches for Bad Company 2?

Both MS and Sony charge for patches. MS gives you the first one free but then all the rest of them are $10,000 last I heard. Sony charges each time and their patch cost is in line with MS's. It's put in place so that developers/publishers don't release an unfinished game and then patch it a thousand times... like they do on PC sometimes.

Valve could do all the updates they want, they just don't want to pay for it. Not sure how this is going to change on the PS3 as the updates still need to go through certification at Sony which costs money.
 
Valve, why was TF2 released on the 360 in such an unplayable state? what is the reason? how did it get pass q&a?
 
pivot said:
Gabe has a lot of interest in you NOT using XBLive in the very near future. Are you dense?

...

This thread has brought out the fanboys! :-3

And yet we, the master race, will still get all the goodness all over our faces.... YUM YUM YUM.
 
pivot said:
Gabe has a lot of interest in you NOT using XBLive in the very near future. Are you dense?

Think harder before you call people dense. This game will also release on Xbox and so on XBL. Therefore he wants it to sell as much as possible on both platforms.

His complaints are entirely legitimate also.
 
EuropeOG said:
MS needs some feel-good PR announcements already.

Fixed.

They've been woefully silent since the announcement of the Slim console on anything that could be considered "good news", aside from XBLA announcements. I'm not a chicken little who thinks this means everything is falling apart, but it's pretty obvious that the suits at MS don't know or don't care about good PR. Everything announced since has been a cash-grab or a feature removal.

Every company makes pig-headed decisions, but you have to eventually peak your head out and assure people that their dedication to your platform is not misplaced.
 
OldJadedGamer said:
Both MS and Sony charge for patches. MS gives you the first one free but then all the rest of them are $10,000 last I heard. Sony charges each time and their patch cost is in line with MS's. It's put in place so that developers/publishers don't release an unfinished game and then patch it a thousand times... like they do on PC sometimes.

Valve could do all the updates they want, they just don't want to pay for it. Not sure how this is going to change on the PS3 as the updates still need to go through certification at Sony which costs money.

Sony is letting Valve port Steamworks and cert their own patches and deploy them by themselves. For free.
 
Zenith said:
Really? I had no idea they charged companies just for updates that fixed bugs.
Ridiculous and the limit on free content? Come on Microsoft, I'm guessing you don't want people to develop/develop exclusively for the 360?
 
LabouredSubterfuge said:
Think harder before you call people dense. This game will also release on XBL. Therefore he wants it to sell as much as possible on both platforms.

Oh my bad.. I didn't realize Steam was being brought to XBLive
 
RSTEIN said:
I hate Sony! Er, no, I hate Microsoft! :lol

Valve never hated Sony, they hated the PS3. They're not saying how great it is to develop for the PS3's architecture, but it seems to have come to a point where policy reigns supreme, and any issues with coding will work itself out eventually.
 
pivot said:
I hate these stupid ass publicity stunt announcements. Just shut up and make games. I don't give a fuck about your opinion of them or anything related
The hell? Why are you here?

Also, he speaks the truth.
 
Stumpokapow said:
Sony is letting Valve port Steamworks and cert their own patches and deploy them by themselves. For free.

And of course they allow free DLC, which Microsoft have consistently objected to.
 
OldJadedGamer said:
It's put in place so that developers/publishers don't release an unfinished game and then patch it a thousand times... like they do on PC sometimes.
This is the crux of the matter. Sometimes, games get released on PC and they're junk until they get patched 50 times. Sometimes, games get released on PC and they're awesome and the developers put out patches that make them even more awesome.

The closed console solution to all of this seems to be "let's make this really expensive, and pass the cost on to the consumers". Which is kind of crappy on a closed platform, where the hardware is all the same and there's (apparently?) more quality control on what actually gets released on the platform in the first place.
 
OldJadedGamer said:
Both MS and Sony charge for patches. MS gives you the first one free but then all the rest of them are $10,000 last I heard. Sony charges each time and their patch cost is in line with MS's. It's put in place so that developers/publishers don't release an unfinished game and then patch it a thousand times... like they do on PC sometimes.

Valve could do all the updates they want, they just don't want to pay for it. Not sure how this is going to change on the PS3 as the updates still need to go through certification at Sony which costs money.
That's the joke of it though. Publishers aren't going to wait on QA to finish bug fixing, they are going to release the product when they want to. Games now, more than ever, need more post-release title updates. All the major online multiplayer games require AT least 2-3 bug/balance patches and most could use more than that. Hell, how many did Gears of War 2 have?

The fact that you would literally piss on the consumer by charging the publisher to fix their broken game, is just plain fucked. With game companies running on shoestring profit margins where it seems like every new game can make or break a studio, you would want that game to be as playable and supported as possible, IMO at least.
 
sony friends get a sniff of what its like to be pc gamers, run out and rejoice in the streets in a state of wild euphoric ecstasy.
 
He is right... from a Industry POV not a consumer.

MS charge out the end for re submission and other content. They promote the "sell DLC within 3 months of launch" for reductions in submission.

The whole process is very tedious for an open developer such as Valve. PSN is totally open at a charge yes, but the overall control and options for movement is alot more developer friendly.
 
Stumpokapow said:
Sony is letting Valve port Steamworks and cert their own patches and deploy them by themselves. For free.

And when the steamworks app needs patched? I'm not sure I feel good with Valve being unchecked and patching willy nilly without Sony double checking their shit.
 
charlequin said:
And of course they allow free DLC, which Microsoft have consistently objected to.

Of course, by contrast Sony charges 16 cents a gig for bandwidth and Microsoft doesn't.
 
pivot said:
Oh my bad.. I didn't realize Steam was being brought to XBLive

Steamworks isn't, no. I don't see how you think that this is such a lucrative vested interest that it would cause him to make extraordinary claims about XBL which everyone else knows to be damn-well true.
 
stuminus3 said:
This is the crux of the matter. Sometimes, games get released on PC and they're junk until they get patched 50 times. Sometimes, games get released on PC and they're awesome and the developers put out patches that make them even more awesome.

The closed console solution to all of this seems to be "let's make this really expensive, and pass the cost on to the consumers". Which is kind of crappy on a closed platform, where the hardware is all the same and there's (apparently?) more quality control on what actually gets released on the platform in the first place.
Broken, unfinished games get released on consoles about as often as they do on PC

The main difference is that it takes a whole lot longer for them to fix the console versions
 
OldJadedGamer said:
And when the steamworks app needs patched? I'm not sure I feel good with Valve being unchecked and patching willy nilly without Sony double checking their shit.

Steamworks will be integrated into the game. It's not a separate application.
 
OldJadedGamer said:
And when the steamworks app needs patched? I'm not sure I feel good with Valve being unchecked and patching willy nilly without Sony double checking their shit.
:lol
 
pivot said:
Gabe has a lot of interest in you NOT using XBLive in the very near future. Are you dense?
If he had any wants on what I use or not it would be over Steam; but putting your paranoia aside, you posted on a thread about a topic you proclaimed no interest over it. And yet here you are.
 
Stumpokapow said:
Of course, by contrast Sony charges 16 cents a gig for bandwidth and Microsoft doesn't.

Which is unfortunate, but it's a system that aligns the incentives correctly, at least. "You can release a free DLC -- but you have to understand that it'll cost money and so if it's really big and really popular it'll cost you a lot." As opposed to "we don't want you introducing any competition into our cartelized marketplace, jack up your prices or no sale."
 
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