
History Of Valve (Part 1) - fiaz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gxFaGKHbEY
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atambo
Part 1: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gxFaGKHbEY>

Part 2: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JXDELFoSLU>

Part 3: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgBkIg9gKYY>

Part 4: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mZ9lKptKb0>

Part 5: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6aA2svGfvc>

Part 6: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uhpj5XQEOA>

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ErrantX
I've always admired Valve redefining the entire concept of space-time with
Valve Time :) (oh, and for the other stuff too).

(As an aside: I love the narrators pronunciation of "id software" - is that
common in the states? [we would pronounce it very differently here and I didnt
expect it!])

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elblanco
I don't know, how do you pronounce it?

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ErrantX
As in: "here is my id"

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pclark
thanks for posting. Valve is a company I admire a ton. Steam has changed how I
buy and discover video games.

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elblanco
The recent holiday sales most likely drove phenomenal sales. More importantly
is that for the developers of the games, they get very hard statistics on game
sales, price points and platform.

Steam is one of the few DRM based systems that actually provides value for
consumers rather than restricting.

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jeff18
I don't think the data to developers is very useful. I mean let's say you are
selling 30 copies per day at $20. Steam sells it for $2.50 during the holiday
sale and you sell 3,000 copies that day. What useful data could you get other
than "holy crap, Steam promotions get a ton of sales"?

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elblanco
I think that _that_ is the relevant data. It helps game makers understand what
the best price points are for their product and how changing that price point
over time can reinvigorate sales.

I personally think that the game industry's pricing is out of whack with the
rest of consumer entertainment. A cd costs between $10-16 (on iTunes the
pricing difference is similar for tracks), movies cost $9-13, a hardbound book
sells for $12-20 and a new game can cost $50-60. The usual justification is
that AAA games cost a lot of money to make. But AAA movies cost far more and
AAA pop music and promotion also costs similarly large numbers. Yet I pay 4-6
times that price for a game, even if the production cost is a fraction of the
other mediums..

Steam does a few things that are interesting IMHO:

1) It makes it clear to game authors that $50-60 is not a good price point
anymore, volume increases significantly at the lower price point, so much so
that total revenue (and profit) also increase.

2) Digital distribution of games is popular and works really really well.

3) Those two effects combines can grow the consumer base for these products.
People that didn't get into gaming before because it simply cost too much, can
get into it now if a well known, well reviewed game costs $5 and the Steam
platform is free.

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jeff18
I disagree.

I think you're right that digital distribution is the future, games are
expensive, Steam's DRM is sort of acceptable, Valve is a cool company, etc.
I'm totally with you on all of that.

However, this data is not useful.

All this objectively tells us is that Steam has 20 million users and can drive
a ridiculous number of sales for a deeply discounted product on an extremely
well publicized holiday sale.

Anything else is conjecture.

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alanthonyc
Interesting to watch that (specifically the release date delays) while knowing
how Duke Nukem turned out.

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tfh
This reminds me of Steve Jobs quote : "Real artists ship"..

