Gabe Newell wants your money, doesn’t care about piracy |
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| BY Nick Coffman Jul. 20th, 2009 | More on: |
In an interview with Good Game, Gabe Newell painted an amazing picture of gaming in general. First off, who cares about piracy? With EA losing millions before launch on The Sims 3, the VP of SCEA saying PSP piracy is a serious concern, and one of the only features confirmed yet on Command & Conquer 4 is the required constant internet connection, how can that be true. It’s simple, at Valve “… [they] don’t really worry about piracy.” Why? “What we saw more and more is piracy is a result of bad service on the part of game companies.” Huh.
Next we come to financing. Imagine you wanted to make a game and you don’t have 10 million lying around. Then imagine how safe your idea must become to get other people’s money involved. Mr. Newell has another way. “What I think would be much better was if the community could finance the games.” Ok, I’ll bite you starry-eyed dreamer, how would it work? “In other words, “Hey, I really like this idea you have. I’ll be an early investor in that and, as a result, at a later point I may make a return on that product, but I’ll also get a copy of that game.’… So move financing from something that occurs between a publisher and a developer… Instead have it be something where funding is coming out of community for games and game concepts they really like.”
Community driven funding huh? I just have one question Mr. Newell, how many zombie games do you want to make?
July 20th, 2009
at 6:16 pm
it worked for Obama
July 20th, 2009
at 6:26 pm
Frag Mortuus, you would be surprised by how much of Obama’s funds came from big donors. There are ways around campaign finance laws.
July 20th, 2009
at 11:18 pm
Gentlemen, we’re talking games not politics. A better question is how much money is Obama planning on using to buy a kickass Plasma for the oval office?
July 21st, 2009
at 9:09 am
im just saying ill do the same thing for steam and i did for him
July 21st, 2009
at 9:09 am
ps plasmas suck. burn in and lower contrast ratio. come on!
July 21st, 2009
at 4:22 pm
The idea will never work, unfortunately, it’s too good to work. Think about it: Millions of gamers will hear about this, thinking, “Hey, I should totally invest my money in Valve because their games are awesome!” While about less than 10,000 WILL actually invest, most likely giving low sums of 5-60 dollars.
Though, if anyone can pull it off, it’s definitely Valve, they have the fan base for it. Hmmm..Perhaps Valve COULD actually pull it off. But ONLY them. I can’t think of one company that could actually pull it off other than Valve.
July 21st, 2009
at 4:32 pm
Frag Mortuus should own or test a plasma or two before spouting general garbage. Also, Valve rules.
July 21st, 2009
at 5:28 pm
Because Valve actually listens to what their players like/want? And because they support their games for most of the lifetime of the game.
July 22nd, 2009
at 6:23 am
well those 2 statements contridict each other dont they?
i want your money meaning i want your money.
i dont care about piracy meaning i dont care if you play our games for free, meaning i dont want your money.
???????????????????????????????????????
if hes implying that piracy has no effect on their sales as in its not to popular hes a fecking idiot.
its amazing how many torrents you can find of PC games months before release to.
i found fallout 3torrent 6 weeks before release.
i hate piraters there destroying the PC gaming market.
July 22nd, 2009
at 6:28 am
if were the ones funding the game.
well 1 game budgets will drop they dont have millions to spend on games but we do?
2 if its our hard earned money funding the game technically were a publisher so wouldn’t we get a share of the games sales?
July 22nd, 2009
at 8:16 am
He is only saying that because most of valve’s games are multiplayer only and thus are affected very little by piracy; plus they have a huge fan base to sell them to. Think of it TF2 pirated, you need a pirated server and that’s not easy to find; plus not everyone like MP only games. Whatever piracy Valve’s games get, it surely doesn’t hurt them at all; that’s why this guy can talk about it nonchalantly. I’d would love to hear his opinion on the mater when piracy is the source for a 50% drop on the expected sales for his next great big game. In conclusion, Gabe Newell is being a jackass like always …