Epic Games has decided to stop the exclusives and start caring about the consumers

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Quote

Critics and gaming fans, particularly those who are loyal to Valve’s competing Steam marketplace, take issue with Epic’s strategy of securing exclusive games because of the belief that it injects the worst element of the console industry to a Windows ecosystem that has largely escaped the platform wars between PlayStation and Xbox. Epic Games Store chief Steve Allison says the company hears the criticisms and is working to address them. In fact, Tim Sweeney says exclusivity on the Epic Games Store will disappear starting 2020.

“I don’t think we had a plan to do it forever. I expect that we’re already seeing the ecosystem come to life, from a sales and users perspective” - Tim Sweeney

Source : 

https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/1/18276181/epic-games-store-to-stop-exclusives-pc-gaming-to-gain-pc-players-trust

[TetraSky]

For a moment I thought : " Wait a minute, that doesn't sound like Epic Games at all! "
Then I hovered the link and saw that it was to a youtube video. Yup, it's April fools alright. I knew Epic Games couldn't possibly start caring about their consumers. We're just walking wallets to them.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

8 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

For a moment I thought : " Wait a minute, that doesn't sound like Epic Games at all! "
Then I hovered the link and saw that it was to a youtube video. Yup, it's April fools alright. I knew Epic Games couldn't possibly start caring about their consumers. We're just walking wallets to them.

This says otherwise

[TetraSky]

1 minute ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

This says otherwise

r/technicallythetruth/

[zassou]

wait until you see 3 pro-epic mobs drown you with a wall of text and gif about some people making faces

[JZStudios]

22 hours ago, TetraSky said:

I knew Epic Games couldn't possibly start caring about their consumers. We're just walking wallets to them.

Yeah, because GabeN and Steam hasn't ever done shady bullshit to cash in.

[TetraSky]

2 hours ago, JZStudios said:

Yeah, because GabeN and Steam hasn't ever done shady bullshit to cash in.

Don't you dare talk about our lord GabeN, the one true prophet, like that.

[JZStudios]

7 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Don't you dare talk about our lord GabeN, the one true prophet, like that.

God, that picture is so gross. I will never understand the adoration that man receives.

[Lord Vile]

5 hours ago, JZStudios said:

God, that picture is so gross. I will never understand the adoration that man receives.

When you can get 50 games in the summer for a pack of dog food and an expired blockbuster voucher you will begin to understand.

[WereCatf]

14 hours ago, JZStudios said:

Yeah, because GabeN and Steam hasn't ever done shady bullshit to cash in.

What have they done?

[JZStudios]

For formatting reasons, I have articles in hyperlinks, anything underlined links to a relevant article, or directly to the source if possible.

12 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

When you can get 50 games in the summer for a pack of dog food and an expired blockbuster voucher you will begin to understand.

Firstly, I have a PC. Secondly, I could go diving into the Gamestop bargain bin and get that. Thirdly, I can do that on other platforms. I don't know why people have this idea that GOG or anywhere else is more expensive than Steam when it's usually the opposite. Finally, Steam is inundated with absolute garbage, why would I want to pay for that? According to this article, 37% of purchased Steam games are never even launched.

 

12 hours ago, WereCatf said:

What have they done?

They take 30% of sales and forced the entirety of PC gaming to be digital only and have a monopoly stranglehold on all of it. They forced Steam down peoples throats along with crap DRM policies. People also flip shit about Epic accessing literally the exact same things Valve accesses. They only recently implemented a refund feature, which is shit by the way. They were only forced into doing it by global laws. They still claim you don't own what you purchase and withhold the right to remove it from you at any point, despite the fact that they explicitly state they sell you products/goods.

 

• Here's something I didn't know, after the refund stink started a decade too late, Valve recognized the EU refund law and forced people to agree and sign a waiver that "removed" that right before they could purchase a game. Classic "Good guy Valve."
• In that same case Valve tried desperately to hide the fact that they are in fact, actually profitable at all, citing it would somehow hurt their business if people knew the monopoly had money...
• Then Valve tried to claim that they don't operate a business in Australia, they just sell products there for cash.
• After Valve lost the Court has also ordered Valve to "publish information on Australian consumer rights on their website for 12 months" which Valve then purposefully lied about. Valve currently has a FAQ about the EU law here, in which they lie

Quote

 

"European law principally provides a right of withdrawal on software sales. However, it can be and typically is excluded for boxed software that has been opened and for digitally provided content once it has been made available to the end user. This is what happens when you make a transaction on Steam: The EU statutory right of withdrawal ends the moment the content and services are added to your account.

At the same time, Steam voluntarily offers refunds to all of its customers worldwide in a way that is much more customer-friendly than our legal obligations."

 

• And then when the refund was implemented Valve tried to make it only "Steam credits" so you don't actually get your money back.

 

• Moving on from the refund fiasco, there's the Steam Workshop... i.e. a closed source modding platform in which they proudly advertise that you can submit mods and generous overlords Steam will allow you to keep 25% of the profit. They take 3/4s of the cash for doing literally nothing. Meanwhile there's dozens of sites that host free to use and download 3d models/textures/software/etc. In 2011 they state they gave $57 million to creators for TF2, Dota 2, and CS:GO, meaning they made $171 million for doing nothing.
• And because Workshop is closed source, if you buy a game on GOG, go fuck yourself if you want something from the Workshop. Ask the creator maybe, but you can't get it from Steam.
• This shitfest culminated in the Skyrim Paid mods debacle.
• Steam also wants you to keep your Workshop sales data confidential, for reasons I couldn't surmise; "Sales Data. Valve may provide you with access (via web site or otherwise) to Steam data relating to sales of your Contribution(s) (“Sales Data”). Sales Data is provided for your personal use, and you agree to keep that data confidential."
• Of which, Valve also just straight cut the shares to Dota 2 creators to 12%, and then even lower.
• Valve then marketed that you could resell Workshop content, and a portion of those resales would go to the creator. Except it doesn't. Valve just takes all the money. At least 4 years after the Dota 2 First Blood update where it started. Unsurprisingly, Steam/Valve isn't liable to divulge that information.
• There's a Reddit Account of a congregation of Dota 2 creators anonymously talking about the BS Valve pulls.
• Dota 2 tournament prize pool is fueled by the community, with Valve literally stating that 25% of donations/sales/whatever goes to the prize pool, currently sitting at $34 million. Meaning they walk away with $102 mil, while still selling workshop content they didn't produce for a 90% profit share.

 

• Moving on again, after 16 years of fans waiting, Valve finally makes another Half-Life game... except it was only made to market and sell their new VR platform, effectively locking the game from the millions of other users that have been waiting nearly 2 decades unless they want to cough up that sweet green.
• There's some complaints about work environments too, but that can be personal experiences and unreliable. I doubt it though.
• After EGS came in with their more appealing 12% share, Steam updated it's own policy to still be crap and only give a revenue cut to wildly successful games. And at the end, the lowest Steam will go is 20%. i.e. still worse than "evil greedy" Epic.

 

It's not necessarily shady, but Steam itself just sucks.

• It's ugly, it's slow, it's got like 4 or 5 different UI designs based on where you are in it, a lot of shit doesn't work right, basic features don't exist, meaningful updates are very few and far between and usually not for the better.
• Valve otherwise has been sitting on it's laurels doing jack all while Steam continues to have problems. Or they release completely tone deaf games, like the amazing response they got to Artifact
• Steam support is garbage, if not totally non-existant.
• No communication with anyone for anything.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

For all the crap people fling at Epic and the EGS, they're at least open and up front about it. They may be buying exclusivity, but they're also seriously helping out smaller indie devs by giving them actual financial security. They openly published their EGS earnings for 2019, along with the total count of 73 free game giveaways totaling $1,455. 

 

They openly say which games are exclusive and for how long, while also on top of all of that still providing publishers/developers a much more profitable share. Everyone wants to shit on it, but Metro Exodus launched at $60 on Steam and $50 on Epic, while the sales from Epic still give more money to Deep Silver. Epic hasn't really actually done anything shady. The Metro deal was done between DS and Epic, it's unclear how long they were in negotiations, but DS marketing and publishing it on Steam in the mean time is just business.

 

Honestly, talking to my buddy who doesn't have a PC, thus no experience with Steam, he's far more interested in Epic than Steam.

[Lord Vile]

9 hours ago, JZStudios said:

For formatting reasons, I have articles in hyperlinks, anything underlined links to a relevant article, or directly to the source if possible.

Firstly, I have a PC. Secondly, I could go diving into the Gamestop bargain bin and get that. Thirdly, I can do that on other platforms. I don't know why people have this idea that GOG or anywhere else is more expensive than Steam when it's usually the opposite. Finally, Steam is inundated with absolute garbage, why would I want to pay for that? According to this article, 37% of purchased Steam games are never even launched.

 

They take 30% of sales and forced the entirety of PC gaming to be digital only and have a monopoly stranglehold on all of it. They forced Steam down peoples throats along with crap DRM policies. People also flip shit about Epic accessing literally the exact same things Valve accesses. They only recently implemented a refund feature, which is shit by the way. They were only forced into doing it by global laws. They still claim you don't own what you purchase and withhold the right to remove it from you at any point, despite the fact that they explicitly state they sell you products/goods.

 

• Here's something I didn't know, after the refund stink started a decade too late, Valve recognized the EU refund law and forced people to agree and sign a waiver that "removed" that right before they could purchase a game. Classic "Good guy Valve."
• In that same case Valve tried desperately to hide the fact that they are in fact, actually profitable at all, citing it would somehow hurt their business if people knew the monopoly had money...
• Then Valve tried to claim that they don't operate a business in Australia, they just sell products there for cash.
• After Valve lost the Court has also ordered Valve to "publish information on Australian consumer rights on their website for 12 months" which Valve then purposefully lied about. Valve currently has a FAQ about the EU law here, in which they lie

• And then when the refund was implemented Valve tried to make it only "Steam credits" so you don't actually get your money back.

 

• Moving on from the refund fiasco, there's the Steam Workshop... i.e. a closed source modding platform in which they proudly advertise that you can submit mods and generous overlords Steam will allow you to keep 25% of the profit. They take 3/4s of the cash for doing literally nothing. Meanwhile there's dozens of sites that host free to use and download 3d models/textures/software/etc. In 2011 they state they gave $57 million to creators for TF2, Dota 2, and CS:GO, meaning they made $171 million for doing nothing.
• And because Workshop is closed source, if you buy a game on GOG, go fuck yourself if you want something from the Workshop. Ask the creator maybe, but you can't get it from Steam.
• This shitfest culminated in the Skyrim Paid mods debacle.
• Steam also wants you to keep your Workshop sales data confidential, for reasons I couldn't surmise; "Sales Data. Valve may provide you with access (via web site or otherwise) to Steam data relating to sales of your Contribution(s) (“Sales Data”). Sales Data is provided for your personal use, and you agree to keep that data confidential."
• Of which, Valve also just straight cut the shares to Dota 2 creators to 12%, and then even lower.
• Valve then marketed that you could resell Workshop content, and a portion of those resales would go to the creator. Except it doesn't. Valve just takes all the money. At least 4 years after the Dota 2 First Blood update where it started. Unsurprisingly, Steam/Valve isn't liable to divulge that information.
• There's a Reddit Account of a congregation of Dota 2 creators anonymously talking about the BS Valve pulls.
• Dota 2 tournament prize pool is fueled by the community, with Valve literally stating that 25% of donations/sales/whatever goes to the prize pool, currently sitting at $34 million. Meaning they walk away with $102 mil, while still selling workshop content they didn't produce for a 90% profit share.

 

• Moving on again, after 16 years of fans waiting, Valve finally makes another Half-Life game... except it was only made to market and sell their new VR platform, effectively locking the game from the millions of other users that have been waiting nearly 2 decades unless they want to cough up that sweet green.
• There's some complaints about work environments too, but that can be personal experiences and unreliable. I doubt it though.
• After EGS came in with their more appealing 12% share, Steam updated it's own policy to still be crap and only give a revenue cut to wildly successful games. And at the end, the lowest Steam will go is 20%. i.e. still worse than "evil greedy" Epic.

 

It's not necessarily shady, but Steam itself just sucks.

• It's ugly, it's slow, it's got like 4 or 5 different UI designs based on where you are in it, a lot of shit doesn't work right, basic features don't exist, meaningful updates are very few and far between and usually not for the better.
• Valve otherwise has been sitting on it's laurels doing jack all while Steam continues to have problems. Or they release completely tone deaf games, like the amazing response they got to Artifact
• Steam support is garbage, if not totally non-existant.
• No communication with anyone for anything.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

For all the crap people fling at Epic and the EGS, they're at least open and up front about it. They may be buying exclusivity, but they're also seriously helping out smaller indie devs by giving them actual financial security. They openly published their EGS earnings for 2019, along with the total count of 73 free game giveaways totaling $1,455. 

 

They openly say which games are exclusive and for how long, while also on top of all of that still providing publishers/developers a much more profitable share. Everyone wants to shit on it, but Metro Exodus launched at $60 on Steam and $50 on Epic, while the sales from Epic still give more money to Deep Silver. Epic hasn't really actually done anything shady. The Metro deal was done between DS and Epic, it's unclear how long they were in negotiations, but DS marketing and publishing it on Steam in the mean time is just business.

 

Honestly, talking to my buddy who doesn't have a PC, thus no experience with Steam, he's far more interested in Epic than Steam.

I didn’t know GameStop took expired blockbuster vouchers 

[JZStudios]

Just now, Lord Vile said:

I didn’t know GameStop took expired blockbuster vouchers 

Does Steam take a bag of dog food? Am I missing something here?

[Lord Vile]

37 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Does Steam take a bag of dog food? Am I missing something here?

You should ask them 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

 

[JZStudios]

9 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

You should ask them 

...you made the statement in the first place?

[NumLock21]

They do this exclusive nonsense thing, and even have the nerve to say, they saw a significant increase in customer who are using their Epic platform.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

1 minute ago, NumLock21 said:

They do this exclusive nonsense thing, and even have the nerve to say, they saw a significant increase in customer who are using their Epic platform.

clearly EPIC money wasn't enough 

 

[JZStudios]

7 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

They do this exclusive nonsense thing, and even have the nerve to say, they saw a significant increase in customer who are using their Epic platform.

...that's called... business?

[Lord Vile]

6 hours ago, JZStudios said:

...that's called... business?

It’s bringing a console wars type thing to PC just with marketplaces which people don’t want. Especially when people don’t want to download a piece of spyware onto their PC. 

[zassou]

this thread should be about having some fun in these gloomy days by poking some fun at epic and their scummy business, altho some just pretent it's not.

like i said, there always be some pro-epic mobs(troll) hovering around like vultures looking for carcases; should they see one, they will swoop down and defend their parent company with their well rehearsed tactic of whataboutism ,etc.

 

do no entertain trolls, all they want is spotlight.

[Dash Lambda]

On 4/3/2020 at 5:42 PM, JZStudios said:

Moving on again, after 16 years of fans waiting, Valve finally makes another Half-Life game... except it was only made to market and sell their new VR platform, effectively locking the game from the millions of other users that have been waiting nearly 2 decades unless they want to cough up that sweet green.

There are some things in your rant I agree with and others I don't, I don't think any of those are worth a reply, but this one... Oh this one...

 

Alyx is not just to sell the Index, it's to push VR. They've been excited about VR for years, they were the first company to try and make any form of friendly ecosystem for VR games, they threw money at developers making VR games (without requiring exclusives like Oculus), and they made demos that remain among the most well-made content available for the technology. They've been making Alyx for the past four years, as long as the Vive has even existed.

 

They make the Knuckles controllers, the best VR controllers on the market, and they could've designed the game around those without paying attention to any other hardware, but they didn't. They went out of their way to make sure that Alyx would be a good experience on any VR gear someone would reasonably expect to play it with, while most of the companies making that gear didn't lift a finger. They deliberately avoided mechanics that relied on the Knuckles controllers because they didn't want people to need their hardware.

 

The Index isn't even intended for mass adoption. It's a halo-tier product from a company who's only made two other in-house hardware products ever. Even before the COVID-19 fiasco, they still weren't making very many of them.

 

They made Alyx because they want to drive the industry towards VR. Every VR game being made now has people complaining that 90% of the audience is locked out, so Valve made Alyx and put Half-Life 3 on the block, the closest thing the gaming industry has to the second coming of Jesus Christ, hoping to make sure that is no longer a conversation for any game. They pulled out all the stops and dove full-force into a big-budget, AAA, single-player-only, story-based, campaign shooter game, with a suite of mod tools coming shortly after launch and not a hint of recurring revenue, because they're excited and want to set the ball rolling.

 

I have the utmost respect for Valve's work on Alyx, and it makes me very sad to see people ignore all of it.

[JZStudios]

9 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

It’s bringing a console wars type thing to PC just with marketplaces which people don’t want. Especially when people don’t want to download a piece of spyware onto their PC. 

No, it really doesn't. A console exclusive forces you to buy new hardware, a digital store exclusive only forces you to make a free account. Epic accesses literally the same information as Steam, and this spyware accusation is exceedingly tiring with zero actual evidence behind it. Even the reddit post where it originated just said "Their information is encrypted, so therefore it's shady."

 

7 hours ago, zassou said:

this thread should be about having some fun in these gloomy days by poking some fun at epic and their scummy business, altho some just pretent it's not.

like i said, there always be some pro-epic mobs(troll) hovering around like vultures looking for carcases; should they see one, they will swoop down and defend their parent company with their well rehearsed tactic of whataboutism ,etc.

 

do no entertain trolls, all they want is spotlight.

What troll? I vastly prefer GOG over any other platform because they're the most pro-consumer and the closest thing to having physical copies. I could point out the bonuses that GOG has over Epic and Steam. All I'm saying is, Steam is treated like a god send and people willfully ignore the scummy business practices they themselves started and people lament other companies do.

 

But otherwise, no, I don't think Epic offering devs money or a more beneficial share is harmful to the PC gaming community. There's a lot of stuff only sold at certain physical locations, and no one gives a shit about that. Epic even only has a year long deal.

 

1 hour ago, Dash Lambda said:

Alyx is not just to sell the Index, it's to push VR. They've been excited about VR for years, they were the first company to try and make any form of friendly ecosystem for VR games, they threw money at developers making VR games (without requiring exclusives like Oculus), and they made demos that remain among the most well-made content available for the technology. They've been making Alyx for the past four years, as long as the Vive has even existed.

Which they invested heavily in, did they not? I'm not saying they shouldn't make money or do business decisions, or whatever, but if they're such a great, wonderful, innovative company, why not make a new IP instead of reviving a dead franchise? It's more than fine that they're making a VR game, but the last time they did anything with a new IP was like 2009.

1 hour ago, Dash Lambda said:

They make the Knuckles controllers, the best VR controllers on the market, and they could've designed the game around those without paying attention to any other hardware, but they didn't. They went out of their way to make sure that Alyx would be a good experience on any VR gear someone would reasonably expect to play it with, while most of the companies making that gear didn't lift a finger. They deliberately avoided mechanics that relied on the Knuckles controllers because they didn't want people to need their hardware.

I play racing and flight sims, and they could've designed the game around solely steering wheels and yoke+pedal setups without paying attention to any other hardware, but they didn't. They went out of their way to make sure that their product would be a good experience on any hardware someone would reasonably expect to play it with, while most of the companies making that gear didn't lift a finger. They deliberately designed input methods for other hardware setups because they did want the largest possible customer base.

There's people that play Dirt Rally with a keyboard, lots of people play it with a controller, and some play it with wheels. There's generic controllers to deal with, and within the wheels there's 3 different major manufacturers with different models available, and hey look, they all work. And then there's bonus addons like clutch pedals and shifters.

Same thing could be applied to War Thunder. You can play with keyboard, mouse, joystick, full cockpit, triple screens, etc.

 

Now, is it harder to implement other VR hardware? I don't know, maybe. But stop acting like it's good guy Valve when it's literally just the same exact thing that's been happening for decades. Designing their game to work with other pre-existing hardware is just making their potential audience larger, thus they make more sales, and then hopefully people think "Man, this would be even better on the Valve headset, I should buy that!"

2 hours ago, Dash Lambda said:

The Index isn't even intended for mass adoption. It's a halo-tier product from a company who's only made two other in-house hardware products ever. Even before the COVID-19 fiasco, they still weren't making very many of them.

...I guess "in-house" perhaps, but I know they had a hand in the HTC Vive, the Steam Controller that I'm pretty sure they recently discontinued, there was an AR department they either cut or merged into VR (Including firing the lead there), the Steam link, Steam Machine, it's not hardware, but there was SteamOS. They've done stuff, just none of it was successful except for the Vive so far. The new hardware will probably be successful, but it's still new.

Side note, people have talked about Valve's push to start games on Linux, which considering SteamOS is Linux based, I'm betting that push happened around the same time, to coincide with attempting to sell their hardware and OS. Which again, is fine, but it's not "good guy Valve," it's just business. Their OS they were trying to sell was Linux based, so logically they need games to run on Linux so they can sell their product. But then that didn't take off so they just started making the Steam link and ignored the Steam Machine manufacturers that ended up just installing Windows on them and selling them without SteamOS.

2 hours ago, Dash Lambda said:

They made Alyx because they want to drive the industry towards VR. Every VR game being made now has people complaining that 90% of the audience is locked out, so Valve made Alyx and put Half-Life 3 on the block, the closest thing the gaming industry has to the second coming of Jesus Christ, hoping to make sure that is no longer a conversation for any game. They pulled out all the stops and dove full-force into a big-budget, AAA, single-player-only, story-based, campaign shooter game, with a suite of mod tools coming shortly after launch and not a hint of recurring revenue, because they're excited and want to set the ball rolling.

Which again, they invested heavily in. Hell, maybe even GabeN is just amazed by VR himself so he treats it like a personal hobby, I don't know.

They haven't mentioned Half Life 3. I've heard the ending of Alyx one again leads to a cliffhanger. Personally, I've never played any of the Half Life games because I missed that time period, so even if HL3 was released it wouldn't be the second coming to me.

[Dash Lambda]

2 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Which they invested heavily in, did they not? I'm not saying they shouldn't make money or do business decisions, or whatever, but if they're such a great, wonderful, innovative company, why not make a new IP instead of reviving a dead franchise? It's more than fine that they're making a VR game, but the last time they did anything with a new IP was like 2009.

Because it's not a dead franchise. They use Half-Life when there's some new technology or technique they want to dive into, there just hadn't been anything that interesting between HL2 and VR. This sort of stuff is exactly the purpose of Half-Life, that's why they chose it.

 

Obviously they didn't come out the gate and say that's what Half-Life is since 1999, it was their first game. But over time that's what it's become; that's what they've said in countless interviews, and that's what we're observing right now. They have a tried-and-true IP that they can break out when they want their effort to be on something that isn't building an entirely new franchise.

 

10 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

I play racing and flight sims, and they could've designed the game around solely steering wheels and yoke+pedal setups without paying attention to any other hardware, but they didn't. They went out of their way to make sure that their product would be a good experience on any hardware someone would reasonably expect to play it with, while most of the companies making that gear didn't lift a finger. They deliberately designed input methods for other hardware setups because they did want the largest possible customer base.

There's people that play Dirt Rally with a keyboard, lots of people play it with a controller, and some play it with wheels. There's generic controllers to deal with, and within the wheels there's 3 different major manufacturers with different models available, and hey look, they all work. And then there's bonus addons like clutch pedals and shifters.

Same thing could be applied to War Thunder. You can play with keyboard, mouse, joystick, full cockpit, triple screens, etc.

There are several reasons VR is a different situation right now.

 

The first is that the hardware is actually quite different from each-other. The Knucles have individual finger tracking, pressure sensors, a trackpad, capacitive sensors all over the place to tell what you're touching, a strapped design that eliminates the need to actively hold them, and lighthouse-based room-scale tracking. There are other controllers that have finger tracking, others that have room-scale tracking, others that need line of sight to your headset, and still others that have any mix of those features, none at all, or other completely different things.

 

The second is that the controllers actually have a huge influence on game design. If you design a game with finger-tracking in mind, then everyone without finger-tracking controllers (which are most) are SOL. If you design a game with room-scale tracking in mind, then people with limited space and/or headsets that can only do in-place tracking won't be able to play it. Even just something as simple as reaching behind your back can cause problems. Developers from Valve have talked about a variety of mechanics that they experimented with for Alyx on the Knuckles controllers but abandoned because they wouldn't work on other things -they didn't make it better for their hardware by locking away mechanics, but rather they designed the entire game around not unnecessarily favoring any particular set of hardware.

 

The third reason is that VR is still in its infancy. The hardware is diverse and not well integrated right now; it's getting better, but it's still nothing like the mature and standardized market you have for normal controllers or racing wheels. You have to actively design a game around what you want it to be compatible with if you want to make it a good experience.

 

23 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

But stop acting like it's good guy Valve when it's literally just the same exact thing that's been happening for decades. Designing their game to work with other preexisting hardware is just making their potential audience larger, thus they make more sales, and then hopefully people think "Man, this would be even better on the Valve headset, I should buy that!"

Valve is a company, they are entirely capable of making awesome, consumer-friendly decisions and awful, monopolistic, money-hungry decisions. I'm not saying anything about "good-guy Valve" in general, I'm talking specifically about the decisions they've made in VR and their work on this game.

 

Reaching a larger audience is exactly why they put in that effort, but look at the game objectively. It's a single-player story-based campaign, absolutely no multiplayer, in-game purchases, or continuing engagement component at all. They're actively building and putting out first-party mod tools and giving the community carte blanche to do what they want with it (aside from infringing on their IP without permission, though they also have a history of being extremely friendly to community projects in that respect). Before launch they said that they expect Alyx to sell quite poorly, and that they're more interested in the feedback. And the only reason people will think it would be better on the Index is because the Index is currently the best on the market, which can change very quickly (and probably will).

 

Valve definitely isn't making a whole lot on the game, and as they're not a huge hardware manufacturer they're probably not making that much on the Index either. I just can't rationalize this sort of behavior in the context of maximizing profits. I can, however, rationalize it in the context of enough people at Valve getting excited about a new technology that they're trying to push the market, not worrying about raw revenue in the short term because they get enough from Steam. Some of those people might just love VR, some might love developing for VR, some might see an untapped market, some might want the challenge, some might just be doing what they're told, some might be scared of losing prior investment, and there are probably a dozen other reasons among the people involved.

 

And that is how Valve works. They're famous for their flat hierarchy, people are free to organize teams for projects as they see fit. That's why they're so unpredictable, that's why we have Valve Time, that's why they have so many failed experiments (both due to good ideas with no market prospects and bad ideas that everyone hates), and that's why we occasionally get amazing passion projects like Alyx.

 

47 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

...I guess "in-house" perhaps, but I know they had a hand in the HTC Vive, the Steam Controller that I'm pretty sure they recently discontinued, there was an AR department they either cut or merged into VR (Including firing the lead there), the Steam link, Steam Machine, it's not hardware, but there was SteamOS. They've done stuff, just none of it was successful except for the Vive so far. The new hardware will probably be successful, but it's still new.

They made the Steam Controller, the Steam Link, and now the Index. They had a hand in other things, but Valve was never the manufacturer. The point is they're a relatively small company, they don't have a lot of experience with hardware, and they have even less infrastructure. So their costs for hardware are undoubtedly astronomical compared to Samsung, LG, Microsoft, and the likes.

 

51 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Side note, people have talked about Valve's push to start games on Linux, which considering SteamOS is Linux based, I'm betting that push happened around the same time, to coincide with attempting to sell their hardware and OS. Which again, is fine, but it's not "good guy Valve," it's just business. Their OS they were trying to sell was Linux based, so logically they need games to run on Linux so they can sell their product. But then that didn't take off so they just started making the Steam link and ignored the Steam Machine manufacturers that ended up just installing Windows on them and selling them without SteamOS.

I agree completely. They wanted a part of the console market, and failed miserably in their attempt to cobble something together. Now I think they're continuing to invest in the Linux side because they see enough potential business there to justify it.

 

Side note, aside from the Linux stuff, the one good thing to come from Steam Machines was the Steam Controller. I'm still not over them discontinuing it.

 

55 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Which again, they invested heavily in. Hell, maybe even GabeN is just amazed by VR himself so he treats it like a personal hobby, I don't know.

They haven't mentioned Half Life 3. I've heard the ending of Alyx once again leads to a cliffhanger. Personally, I've never played any of the Half Life games because I missed that time period, so even if HL3 was released it wouldn't be the second coming to me.

From what he's said in recent interviews, I think GabeN's head is kind'a stuck in the clouds. He's going on about brain-computer interfaces and SAO-style full-dive stuff. That's cool, but it's a bit like talking about warp drive while your company is working on RAM-jets. Though he also doesn't seem to have much involvement in what Valve is doing now anyways, the company is structured pretty heavily so that the employees have autonomy. He seems just as surprised that a new Half-Life exists as the rest of us.

 

As for Half-Life 3, spoilered for people who care:

Spoiler

There is a mysterious godlike entity called the GMan who 'hired' Gordon Freeman at the end of HL1. We don't know what his intentions are, but he keeps Gordon in Stasis until HL2 when he drops him back into the world so that he does something. We still don't know what, but we get the impression he's playing interdemensional chess. Later on in HL2, there are characters that start interfering with the GMan to keep him away from Gordon, effectively releasing his control. At the end of Alyx, the GMan takes you to the end of HL2 E2 and forces you to change what happened, then talks about how a previous hire was 'unwilling or unable' to meet expectations, and hires you. So he takes Alyx, and after the credits you're put into Gordon Freeman's body, then Alyx's dad (who is also the leader of the resistance, and his death is what the GMan had you undo) screams a bit, hands you a crowbar, and says "we have work to do."

Valve knew exactly what they were doing. Whether we get Half-Life 3 or not, Valve breaks a decade-long silence with a full-effort Half-Life game (after some people even assumed they were done developing games completely), and they end it like that -there's no other reasonable interpretation. When I said they "put Half-Life 3 on the block," I'm not saying Half-Life 3 is definitely coming, this is Valve after all -I'm saying that, for the first time in over a decade, they decided to put the idea in our heads.

 

And it's fine if it's not the second coming for you. My analogy isn't meant to imply anything personal, and it's certainly not meant to imply anything divine about Valve. It's just a matter of cultural impact. The Half-Life games are ingrained into the gaming industry, and Half-Life 3 has had people arguing nonstop since its inception. If anyone could do anything to make the entire gaming industry just stop for a moment and look, it's Valve making Half-Life 3.

 

...

 

The whole point, though, is that no, Alyx is not a cash grab. It's the opposite of a cash grab. It's a huge investment that they fully expected to sell poorly, didn't build any recurring revenue stream into, and in the short term will only drive sales of a low-volume product that's prohibitively expensive for Valve to make, but they felt they needed to make it in order to keep the hardware from stagnating. No matter their intentions, Valve is playing the long game, trying to jump-start an entire industry, and they're doing it in a way that I respect.

[JZStudios]

Whoo, this is a lot.

36 minutes ago, Dash Lambda said:

Because it's not a dead franchise. They use Half-Life when there's some new technology or technique they want to dive into, there just hadn't been anything that interesting between HL2 and VR. This sort of stuff is exactly the purpose of Half-Life, that's why they chose it.

 

Obviously they didn't come out the gate and say that's what Half-Life is since 1999, it was their first game. But over time that's what it's become; that's what they've said in countless interviews, and that's what we're observing right now. They have a tried-and-true IP that they can break out when they want their effort to be on something that isn't building an entirely new franchise.

It hasn't been touched in 13 years. Any other franchise would be considered dead at that point. Shit, even games that haven't been dead that long have been called reboots like Tomb Raider, Doom, and even GOW. Rockstar could release a new Midnight Club (Or Bully) tomorrow and it would be a revival of a dead franchise.

But I might buy that if Half Life 2 Episode 3 was supposed to be a full independent release and wasn't promised 13 years ago, or if either HL2 episodes did anything new. Instead after 13 years they made a new game that wasn't the one they promised, still with no word on it.

 

I also highly doubt this argument because at least of 2012 the writers were afraid to make a conclusion because fans might not like it. The ending of HL1 apparently was pretty lackluster, and ME3 had come out and the fans hated the ending. Then they go on to say that people have unrealistic expectations or something and won't ever be satisfied with anything they do at this point since it's been so long.

Then again, all of the HL writers have since left Valve, so that might not apply anymore.

45 minutes ago, Dash Lambda said:

There are several reasons VR is a different situation right now.

 

The first is that the hardware is actually quite different from each-other. The Knucles have individual finger tracking, pressure sensors, a trackpad, capacitive sensors all over the place to tell what you're touching, a strapped design that eliminates the need to actively hold them, and lighthouse-based room-scale tracking. There are other controllers that have finger tracking, others that have room-scale tracking, others that need line of sight to your headset, and still others that have any mix of those features, none at all, or other completely different things.

I agree. VR is kind of inherently limiting. You really need to design around the hardware, but people will always have at least the headset, hand controllers, and an amount of headset tracking. You design for the lowest common denominator and then work your way up.

But really, it's still just marketing it to the biggest potential audience as VR is already very limited. Again, I have no issue with the fact that they made a VR title, or are using it as marketing for their new headset, I just don't like that they're using a dead IP and feeding off nostalgia. And going from Critical Nobody's review of HL:A, it's a perfectly fine game, but it doesn't really do anything revolutionary. You can't even hit anything.

53 minutes ago, Dash Lambda said:

They're actively building and putting out first-party mod tools and giving the community carte blanche to do what they want with it (aside from infringing on their IP without permission, though they also have a history of being extremely friendly to community projects in that respect).

Y'know, I was thinking about this, and those games are sold through Steam, meaning Steam is still taking 30% of the profits from it, which to me sounds like a reasonable amount for having someone else make your IP. In terms of modding tools, I'd point to Rockstar. Generally pretty favorable among the modding community, but they have disgusting grinds and microtransactions online. So I'm not giving "modability" a pass.

 

57 minutes ago, Dash Lambda said:

And that is how Valve works. They're famous for their flat hierarchy, people are free to organize teams for projects as they see fit. That's why they're so unpredictable, that's why we have Valve Time, that's why they have so many failed experiments (both due to good ideas with no market prospects and bad ideas that everyone hates), and that's why we occasionally get amazing passion projects like Alyx.

It very well could be that Gabe is just super into VR. But what I've heard about the "flat hierarchy" is that it's more groups of cliques and it really doesn't work well. It's also why so many things are just exceptionally poorly handled. I believe I included links in my first big comment.

 

1 hour ago, Dash Lambda said:

Valve knew exactly what they were doing. Whether we get Half-Life 3 or not, Valve breaks a decade-long silence with a full-effort Half-Life game (after some people even assumed they were done developing games completely), and they end it like that -there's no other reasonable interpretation. When I said they "put Half-Life 3 on the block," I'm not saying Half-Life 3 is definitely coming, this is Valve after all -I'm saying that, for the first time in over a decade, they decided to put the idea in our heads.

I don't know. I can't imagine beating the end of Halo 2 and hearing "Master chief, what are you doing on that ship?" "Sir, finishing this fight" and then Halo 3 literally never happens and after 13 years they just make Reach. And then at the end of Reach have it say "We have work to do."

1 hour ago, Dash Lambda said:

The whole point, though, is that no, Alyx is not a cash grab. It's the opposite of a cash grab. It's a huge investment that they fully expected to sell poorly, didn't build any recurring revenue stream into, and in the short term will only drive sales of a low-volume product that's prohibitively expensive for Valve to make, but they felt they needed to make it in order to keep the hardware from stagnating. No matter their intentions, Valve is playing the long game, trying to jump-start an entire industry, and they're doing it in a way that I respect.

I'm still calling that as an investment. It costs money to make money. It also goes into the sunk cost fallacy a little bit. If they can get VR to take off and be a big proponent of that then they have a lot to gain.