The Valve Thread

[Illyria]

15 minutes ago, VN1X said:

I actually prefer the new logo. While there's nothing particularly wrong with the one before that I do think it looks too much like they're a motorsport company or whatever. 

 

Actually I was thinking the new logo looks like a logo for a car company 

[mushashi]

When that animated logo came up on their 16-bit home console games, you were usually in for a pretty good time

 

Old school logos used to have a sense of fun about them compared to the fairly bland current serious corporation ones.

 

EA originally had a cool logo (back when they were still more of an artists first collective, than a boring corporation), and Nintendo used to have funny voices saying the company name and the logo was animated in some game intros (not sure if they still do those).

 

 

[iknowgungfu]

On 21/07/2018 at 18:03, mushashi said:

When that animated logo came up on their 16-bit home console games, you were usually in for a pretty good time

 

Old school logos used to have a sense of fun about them compared to the fairly bland current serious corporation ones.

 

EA originally had a cool logo (back when they were still more of an artists first collective, than a boring corporation), and Nintendo used to have funny voices saying the company name and the logo was animated in some game intros (not sure if they still do those).

 

 

This used to have me expecting greatness.......

 

 

[Nick R]

On 21/07/2018 at 16:22, mushashi said:

It was clearly the beginning of the end for Konami as a games company when they got rid of their iconic logo, never really the same company after that shift.

 

 

Never seen their original logo before finding this, it's a bit weird with the way they chose to write the K, but on the upside, it's not as boring as the completely corporate modern one, it does at least have some personality

 

 

You might have already seen it, but Digitiser did a post on this subject recently:

 

https://www.digitiser2000.com/main-page/are-games-company-logos-better-or-worse-than-they-used-to-be

 

What did they do to Team 17? 

 

[Camel]

 that first logo. Used to love those old Konami arcade games. That logo was all over their MSX carts too.

[K]

I seem to recall games mags in the 1980s referring to them as Kjonami on occasion.

[Nespresso]

 

 

$20 btw. 

[Mr. Gerbik]

Boo!

[Gabe]

On 23/07/2018 at 12:58, Camel said:

 that first logo. Used to love those old Konami arcade games. That logo was all over their MSX carts too.

 

Yep, I remember staring at boxes of carts I couldn't afford with that logo on them. Those were the days!

 

I also think the original EA logo was nice, it was very stylish. I also preferred it when they actually went by Electronic Arts, too, but I guess that's never coming back either.

[mushashi]

There is an advert from the very early days of Electronic Arts, which does explain why the company was originally called that. They were originally setup as the gaming equivalent of United Artists, but much as Activision was setup as a reaction to Atari management oppressing their creative workforce and becoming the world's first third-party publisher, you eventually become what you oppose. See Google's former infamous slogan for another high profile example.

[Nespresso]

Mukkers who buy Artifact will be banned from the forum btw. 

[James Lyon]

$20 (what's that these days - £15?) and additional, quite likely essential, blind card pack purchases to boot. I haven't read about any option to earn new cards in the game.

 

Oh, Valve. What have you become?

[Magoo]

2 hours ago, James Lyon said:

$20 (what's that these days - £15?) and additional, quite likely essential, blind card pack purchases to boot. I haven't read about any option to earn new cards in the game.

 

Oh, Valve. What have you become?

 

I'm relying on my shonky memory of a months old video but I think the idea is that you get all the cards included. Certainly they were looking to avoid 'pay to win' advantages. Saying it now that does sound a bit nuts given Valve + Hearthstone would equal megabucks, they'd monetise it in other ways however.

[Zael]

If they did make a game that didn't fleece you on card packs that would be amazing.

[Wroth]

Still won't hold a candle to Gwent, which is both free, and gives you enough in-game currency to buy a free card pack every day, all you have to do is win 3 games (or 6 individual rounds)

[mushashi]

5 hours ago, Magoo said:

Saying it now that does sound a bit nuts given Valve + Hearthstone would equal megabucks, they'd monetise it in other ways however.

 

It has its own planned trading marketplace, so Valve will likely earn big on it longer term as they are also putting it on mobile.

[Tourist]

14 hours ago, Wroth said:

Still won't hold a candle to Gwent, which is both free, and gives you enough in-game currency to buy a free card pack every day, all you have to do is win 3 games (or 6 individual rounds)

 

Or shadowverse!

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowverse/comments/93tt2c/honest_question_is_shadowverse_worth_getting_into/e3fy203/

 

[MK-1601]

On 23/07/2018 at 14:04, K said:

I seem to recall games mags in the 1980s referring to them as Kjonami on occasion.

See also: Akklaim

[Gabe]

On 02/08/2018 at 14:11, mushashi said:

There is an advert from the very early days of Electronic Arts, which does explain why the company was originally called that. They were originally setup as the gaming equivalent of United Artists, but much as Activision was setup as a reaction to Atari management oppressing their creative workforce and becoming the world's first third-party publisher, you eventually become what you oppose. See Google's former infamous slogan for another high profile example.

 

Yeah, I know all about EA's origins and logo - they originally had photos of the development teams on the boxes too, to help reinforce that idea that game makers were artists and should be celebrated in the same way film stars were. I don't think that lasted too long though.

[Wroth]

Firewatch artist Olly Moss has joined Valve. Interestingly, he said he probably won't be touching In The Valley Of The Gods unless they need "all hands on deck" later down the line.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/olly-moss-art-director-firewatch-has-been-hired-by-valve.60322/#post-11180563

[K]

Nice, can't wait to never see what he's working on.

[Mr. Gerbik]

9 minutes ago, K said:

Nice, can't wait to never see what he's working on.

DOTA3

[mushashi]

12 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

DOTA3

 

Artifact cards

[MattyP]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-08-07-fallout-76-wont-be-on-steam-at-launch

 

Looks like Fallout76 isn't coming to steam on launch... I can see why - why should Steam get a 30% cut? Its going to be interesting to see what happens in the PC arena. Quite liked having everything under one eco-system on the PC but its now getting very fragmented.. uPlay, Origiin, Epic and now Bethesda have their own launchers. Would actually be nice if everything went through Windows Store - although I can see the same issue in then MS want a cut. Think PC gaming is going to get messy again. Suppose by its nature it is but I can imagine in years to come it will be a nightmare various companies closing their servers etc - wish they would all club together and have a unified store or something.

[mushashi]

It was inevitable, if you have the clout or magical game which will sell fine without needing somebody else's distribution platform, why not go direct to consumer and avoid the tax?

 

Epic have just announced the Android version of Fortnite is only available directly from them, they don't want to pay Google their cut. They can't do that on hardware platforms where the platform holder has an iron grip on distribution rights.

 

I probably wouldn't bet against Rockstar/Take-Two thinking about doing the same in the future, why pay Valve 30% on several Million units of GTA VI? They have the basics in place to go it alone, much like Bethesda had.

[Don Wiskerando]

Maybe this will be the impetus Valve need to get working on...

 

I can't even write it out

[tronied]

Whilst I agree with their reasoning, I just wish they could do it without making us use yet another game delivery platform. How about just providing a good old fashion single-use game downloader as that always seemed to work? Origin, UPlay, Battle.net, Steam, Bethesda.net etc... It's getting difficult to remember in which platform a game resides.

 

Saying that though, yes... ploughing millions into a game with hundreds of thousands of man hours, only for someone who distributes it to take a massive 30% cut of your hard work must be soul destroying. If you can distribute it yourself and take a bit more profit, they certainly have my support.

[mushashi]

I suppose the reasoning for these portal launchers is that nearly all these massive games that are going it alone are essentially Service games, and if you flog more than one game, as all the examples you mention do, then a generic launcher makes more sense in terms of keeping it updated by your dev support team. It's no different to the dream for Netflix, TV and film is going to fragment similarly.

 

Epic seemed to be saying the service provided by Valve/Google/Apple/Consoles isn't worth a 30% cut:

 

Quote

Q: Is this just a way for Epic to keep the 30 per cent that Google would take if you were on Play?

A: Avoiding the 30 per cent "store tax" is a part of Epic's motivation. It's a high cost in a world where game developers' 70 per cent must cover all the cost of developing, operating, and supporting their games. And it's disproportionate to the cost of the services these stores perform, such as payment processing, download bandwidth, and customer service. We're intimately familiar with these costs from our experience operating Fortnite as a direct-to-customer service on PC and Mac.

 

[MattyP]

19 minutes ago, tronied said:

Saying that though, yes... ploughing millions into a game with hundreds of thousands of man hours, only for someone who distributes it to take a massive 30% cut of your hard work must be soul destroying. If you can distribute it yourself and take a bit more profit, they certainly have my support.

 

Yes I fundementally agree with this completely. Valve are too greedy IMHO 30% is too high. Shame they can't work on a volume pricing model or something and cut it down for big high selling games.

 

I like everything in one place and don't want my PC littered with launchers... However I suppose its similar to installing games of years gone by... except you are just clicking on something else. I expect someone somewhere will work on a project to integrate all the various loaders into one place

 

And well lets face it people who want to play the big games will jump though a few hoops to get to enjoy them.

[mushashi]

21 minutes ago, MattyP said:

I expect someone somewhere will work on a project to integrate all the various loaders into one place

 

They surprisingly already exist, this one was mentioned:

 

https://playnite.link/