Devs show Steam love as Pitchford defends his criticism
by Ben Gilbert 
{ Oct 20th 2009 at 5:30PM } 
According to Telltale CTO Kevin Bruner, "Steam may be one the greatest things to happen recently ... we put Steam as one of the A-list distribution channels; up there with XBLA and WiiWare." The praise doesn't stop there -- Ars points out that it was unable to find even one developer who would "admit to feeling exploited" by Valve's business practices concerning Steam.
We reached out to Pitchford, who told us, "As a gamer, I love Valve ... as a customer, I love Steam." He clarified, "From an industry perspective, Steam would be even better off if it were a separate company ... trust issues that result from conflict of interest could be mitigated." To Pitchford, it's a question of appearances rather than actual impropriety. "It's just perception within segments of the publishing and development community that, I guess, no one is really talking about."
We've posted Pitchford's entire (and quite lengthy) response after the break. Hopefully we're not alone in hoping everyone will just hug it out.
Randy Pitchford's statement:
"As a gamer, I *love* Valve's games. Hell, I've *made* some of Valve's games!
"As a customer, I love Steam. I like owning a credential that I can use from any terminal and I like the software. There are other things I like, too.
"As a businessman, I appreciate the access to Valve's customers that they are providing with Steam. I think there's value to that access. I'm really happy that the Brothers in Arms games are available on Steam and I think Steam customers are really going to dig Borderlands. I have been and hope to be a partner to Valve for many years.
"From an industry perspective of digital distribution on the PC, I think Steam is doing it the best right now. They're in front and they're really getting value out of their leadership position with digital distribution on the PC.
"From an industry perspective, I believe that Steam would be even better off if it were a separate company. Trust issues that result from conflict of interest could be mitigated if Steam were a separate company. Take that only as analysis. It doesn't matter how much I trust Valve or how trustworthy Valve actually is - it's just perception within segments of the publishing and development community that, I guess, no one is really talking about. I'm on record in this article saying how I personally trust Valve. I was attempting to comment on perception from some angles of the industry.
"I also believe that gamers and customers and anyone making games using 3rd party digital distribution systems would be greatly benefited if Steam had some viable competitors. Competition generally drives higher quality products and services at lower prices. I can't see how anyone could argue against that point. If we love Steam, we should hope that as competition appears that it prompts the Steam folks to go faster and better towards improving the service and the pricing.
"In spite of the implication made in this blurb, I do not want Microsoft to control digital distribution on PC, but believe they (and others) could enter the space if they wanted to and help the competitive landscape and even, perhaps, help to standardize the landscape a bit. I believe that because Valve is a game maker that generally "gets it" I think there's a lot of value to the position they have and I'm really excited about the risk they took and the foresight Valve showed in paving the way there.
"These are not mutually exclusive feelings and they are all honest and forthright."
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Das Boot @ Oct 20th 2009 5:35PM
Hooray for Game Industry Politics!
Johnathan @ Oct 20th 2009 5:38PM
And industry politicians. Pitchford's the kind of guy that could spend 20 years in Congress easy. Yeccch
Das Boot @ Oct 20th 2009 5:47PM
Yeah, Flip-flopping and all.
The Dark Wayne [Planeteer: Power of the Batusi] @ Oct 20th 2009 6:09PM
i find randy even more annoying than Cliffy B
Grey Acumen @ Oct 20th 2009 8:25PM
where are the politics? I remember the original statement, and he never at any point stated that he didn't like anything that Valve was doing.
He simply stated that there is a conflict of interest in Steam being run directly by Valve when it is responsible for distributing the digital software of companies that are in direct or indirect competition with Valve. AND IT IS.
Valve may be handling things appropriately, and there may not even be the slightest intention of Valve ever doing anything inappropriate, but you can't just take that for granted when money and jobs are on the line.
Think about it this way: Look what happened to Disney when Walt Disney died. Same thing can happen when Gabe inevitably dies. (fat jokes aside, he is not at a healthy weight, and that is going to do him in eventually) Hate to break it to people, but 90% of the time, when the primary founder/figurehead of a company dies, the magic goes with it and it's a struggle for that company to even retain any of what made it special to begin with.
crazeman87 @ Oct 21st 2009 12:43AM
@Grey Acumen
I remember reading the article in which he made those comments and thats the same impression that I got when I first read it. I really don't get why people are blowing it up and taking it out of context.
In fact, I thought he brought up a very good point, It never even came to my mind that valve/steam can have a conflict of interest with other games. Good thing FPSes aren't really in full competition against each other like for some other genres/games. If valve made World of Warcraft, or some other MMO, I'm pretty sure you won't see much MMOs available on steam.
Sonic @ Oct 20th 2009 5:37PM
I do believe that eventually Steam should be its own company, but right now there's nothing wrong with it. I'll get worried when they stop doing weekend sales, and 10% off pre-orders for most games.
They have done so much for Indie games, I bought Audiosurf just because I saw it on Steam and thought it would be fun.
Bjork @ Oct 20th 2009 8:12PM
I agree. When I first started using Steam (circa Counter-Strike 1.6), I thought it was weird for all these games to be on Steam, but I liked not having to use All-Seeing Eye to find my friends. Then forward to now, practically ALL of these games are on Steam and it's like Steam has a monopoly. But like Sonic said, it's not so bad with free weekend deals, discount weekends, etc. Plus, there's a little competition with NC Soft's program (with most of its games incorporated into Steam!).
Dorian @ Oct 20th 2009 11:53PM
I never really thought of the idea of value and steam having there own interest till i saw the original quote.
As soon as i heard it, i though how the steam client isn't available on mac, while a number of the games sold on it is avaible for the mac (EA, Activation, 2k Games an Ubisoft all have mac games). I never understood that.
I'm not asking for porting Source. I'm asking for the ablitiies to play games on my mac, see what my friends are doing w/o needing 3rd party software.
But asking value and steam to spilt up, is asking Apple to spit itunes off or better yet, let itunes sync with none i-Devices.
Omega2k3 @ Oct 21st 2009 5:17AM
Remember when everyone hated Steam? Anyone remember why, exactly, they hated it? I've never had any problems with it, and I've been using it since a couple months after it came out...
dextro @ Oct 21st 2009 12:56PM
People hated steam because it made it harder for people to copy a 5 year old game that went for about 20 bucks new at any store. That's why people didn't like steam.
I for one welcomed my digital distribution overlord ever since the beta.
Johnathan @ Oct 20th 2009 5:42PM
All this guy seems to care about is how Valve's relationship to Steam could be perceived, even though it isn't, and how people will react to that, even though they don't. Obviously, it's critical to affect almost mincingly pleasing appearances to some people who don't exist.
Given his attitude, I don't understand why he isn't a government employee like I said above
Shagittarius @ Oct 20th 2009 5:42PM
As a customer I hate all digital distribution of new releases.
Jose [Steam & PSN: Assmar] @ Oct 20th 2009 5:44PM
I hate you as a person.
Bjork @ Oct 20th 2009 8:12PM
Really? You should only hate digital-distribution only games, and even then, you shouldn't really hate it.
kojo87 @ Oct 20th 2009 8:24PM
believe it or not digital distribution and brick and mortar game stores can co-exist. you can buy your box copy of Team Fortress 2 and register it through Steam. all the social benefits of Steam with your beloved DVD
TheBigShide @ Oct 20th 2009 5:44PM
Definitely Hug it out. Steam IMHO is one of the major reasons PC gaming is still alive, and that a lot of the games that would otherwise be made just on consoles are being made multi-platform.
Doug @ Oct 20th 2009 5:52PM
He isn't arguing against Steam existing. Of course Steam is great.
If you ran a 2nd tier gaming company, you might have a different take on a store run by a giant in gaming. The guy is entitled to his opinion.
Or are you guys going to Bobby Kotick every gaming exec who says something that in your paranoid minds you think might possibly be a slight against one of your gods of gaming? (Currently Harmonix, Valve with Infinity Ward on god-like probation for the PC server issue.)
Fakeplasticball @ Oct 20th 2009 5:43PM
I mean look at Nintendo.
Captain Planet [Planeteer | Power of Captain Planet] @ Oct 20th 2009 5:46PM
At the end of the month when Randy sees how many copies of Borderlands sells on Steam, maybe he'll finally shut his big fucking mouth.
Luke @ Oct 20th 2009 11:43PM
Pitchford loves the service and all he is saying is that there is a conflict of interest that has the potential to cause problems. Just because Gearbox can make some money through Steam does not mean he isn't allowed to point this out. Either the argument is sound or it isn't.
Discotheque @ Oct 20th 2009 5:48PM
I don't like digital distribution either.
I tend to always go with boxed copies unless I have no choice, or if it's grossly expensive (in Canada boxed Dragon Age is 70 bucks!! 43 bucks for digital download though...)
Jack.wofford @ Oct 20th 2009 6:00PM
I see no reason for Valve to seperate from it's ownership of Steam at this point. I recognize Randy Pitchford knows a lot more about what is going on right inside the industry than me but referencing "certain segments of the industry" makes me think that people are more jealous of what Valve built than actually angry at them. Until Valve really does exploit other devs using Steam as some sort of leverage to gouge money out of them I don't see why they can't continue to run it.
CH3BURASHKA @ Oct 20th 2009 5:49PM
I think it's rather obvious Gabe Newell ate one of Randy Pitchford's donuts, and he still hasn't forgiven the betrayal.
Das Boot @ Oct 20th 2009 5:53PM
One donut? Hell, probably the whole box.
/low blow
The Dark Wayne [Planeteer: Power of the Batusi] @ Oct 20th 2009 6:08PM
http://www.instantrimshot.com/
Dillon @ Oct 20th 2009 5:52PM
Pitchford made some really great points. Noting that they weren't mutually exclusive was quite accurate.
Heston @ Oct 20th 2009 6:05PM
I prefer buying a physical copy of a game. As silly as it may sound, I still like being able to open up a box and flip through the instruction manual.
However, there's no denying the importance of Steam to the PC gaming community. I can't think of any other program that's been able to connect the PC gaming community like Steam has.
Josh @ Oct 20th 2009 6:10PM
I understand what he's saying, and I do agree with him. Even if Valve is so far handling Steam really well, we'll never be able to completely have 'peace of mind' so to speak about any potential issues popping up as long as the Steam is still Valve's service.
forbizzl3 @ Oct 20th 2009 6:24PM
What conflict of interest? Valve only releases games every 5 years.
Pitchford is a dick, and his company has never done anything of value. They're a glorified mod team.
There is no better company than Valve to hold Steam in trust. They're privately owned and aren't pressured by stockholders to make large margins at all times of the year.
Rabish12 @ Oct 20th 2009 7:52PM
Here's what I don't understand: Pitchford's original statement was that he doesn't trust Valve. Then he went back on that and said that it's not him but the rest of the industry that doesn't trust Valve. So someone asks the rest of the industry, and are told that Valve is great and they love what they're doing and that Steam is the best thing since sliced bread... so now he's saying that there MIGHT be a perception that Valve MIGHT not be trustworthy in certain segments of the games industry? I'm fine with people voicing their opinions and criticizing companies (I'm definitely not a stranger to criticizing both Valve and Steam, since there's a lot involving the two I don't agree with at all), but this man has gone through three completely different claims within the span of a month, with one of the three being untrue by his own words and the others being apparently unfounded going by Ars's research.
Politicians don't flip-flop this much. It's insane.
Grey Acumen @ Oct 20th 2009 8:37PM
There's a difference between trusting Valve personally and trusting Valve from a business standpoint. It's easy to get confused by that concept and even easier to get that concept confused when someone who knows it inherently tries to explain it to someone who doesn't know it at all.
To sum it up simply. you can trust that as long as nothing ever changes about Valve, that you will never have to worry about that business model being abused.
If it was me trusting another individual, that would be perfect. An individual can easily maintain specific things that are integral to their identity, and if anything does change, it will usually be apparent to those that know them well.
That is not true for a corporation. By definition, there will be people who come and go and get promoted or demoted, hired, fired, transferred, etc. A corporation will ALWAYS change, and often not in ways that are immediately obvious. If you have a good strong leader with a clear vision, those changes are often for the better, but no leader is infallible, nor can even the best leader have absolute control over all aspects of a company.
So practically by definition, you CANNOT trust that nothing will EVER change about Valve.
Nick Bell @ Oct 20th 2009 8:20PM
What Pitchford doesn't understand is that the association with Valve is what causes customers to trust Steam. I don't buy games from Direct 2 Drive or the EA store because I don't trust those companies. EA in particular has been hostile toward its customers with DRM. Valve, on the other hand, has worked very hard to do right by its customers, especially on the PC. That trust is extended to Steam and is why it is a success. Pitchford's idea to spinoff Steam as its own company would ruin it.
relaxeder @ Oct 20th 2009 8:58PM
I sort of agree with him, these trust and conflict of interest issues that nobody is talking about are probably one of the reasons why I cannot buy the original FEAR games on Steam -- Being a platform owned and operated solely by Valve, Vivendi Universal probably wants nothing to do with them after the distribution lawsuit fiasco they went through several years back.
Also from the perspective of general maintenance and feature development Steam has been stagnating from a lack of it over the last couple of years; the last big thing they put out was the Community -- which is great -- but there are scores of features and additions that have been requested by the customers for a long time now and Valve seems to be doing nothing about them.
I feel like a key reason for this is because they are probably too busy juggling other things, but they need to either beef up their dedicated staff for Steam platfrm development or consider lifting the burden off their shoulders and doing their customers a favor by branching it off into a different entity that can lend more attention and resources to itself outside of Valve's multiple other ongoing projects.
CaramelZappa @ Oct 21st 2009 1:07AM
The Steam platform itself is run by 13 people. It's a small company, so they can't just pump out features whenever they feel like it. Microsoft is a huge company but we still only get a couple xbox features a year. Same with Sony. The only noteable feature the wii has been given is playing VC games off of SD cards.
The conflict of interest is such a ridiculous non-issue. All of the platform owners are also software developers. Valve is no different from MS, Nintendo, or Sony when it comes to conflict of interest. The only difference is that Valve has to compete with retail and D2D within the PC platform, so they're likely to be more trustworthy than any of the big 3.
Billy G @ Oct 20th 2009 9:10PM
I trust Steam because I trust Valve. They love the gaming community.
[insert dig at Infinity Ward here]
Lastembrace @ Oct 20th 2009 10:53PM
For the record, this is a pretty much word-for-word copy of the comment he posted when Kotaku ran the original story 2 weeks ago. So all of you saying he's flip-flopping are 100% wrong. He always had this mentality.
Here's the comment he posted on Kotaku;
http://kotaku.com/5376708/gearbox-prez-lets-off-some-steam-about-valve#c15872746
Powerlord @ Oct 20th 2009 11:05PM
To have Gearbox software's CEO complain about Steam is ludicrous. It's biting the hand that feeds you.
For those of you who don't know, Gearbox developed both Opposing Force and Half-Life: Blue Shift. These are the only non-Valve games in the Valve Complete pack, Half-Life Complete pack, and Half-Life 1 Anthology pack on Steam... as well as the only official expansions to Half-Life.
Soliduck @ Oct 21st 2009 12:06AM
It's a good thing that hes not actually complaining about Valve and mentions the fact that he has had excellent relationships with them as a customer, developer working alongside them and as a developer releasing his games on their platform.
Powerlord @ Oct 21st 2009 12:07AM
Right, but these are being sold *over Steam* as part of a package deal with the Valve developed games, as if they were a Valve product.
CaramelZappa @ Oct 21st 2009 1:02AM
Hell, I'll say it again. Steam being a developer and a platform holder is no different than Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. They all hold gaming platforms and digital distribution platforms within them, and they all develop first part games for those platforms. Steam is actually less likely to have trust issues because it has to compete with D2D and retail discs on the same platform, where no one can create competition for XBLA titles except for microsoft. Pitchford was just talking out of his ass.
Abi @ Oct 21st 2009 7:36AM
I'm sure we can all agree Pitchford was talking out of his @ss!
Joe @ Oct 21st 2009 12:44PM
Man, if only Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo made games, but also ran a digital distribution store... then he'd have something to complain about.
...wait...
sometaffer @ Oct 21st 2009 1:55PM
It's not a conflict of interest, though. As has been pointed out, for any of the consoles you are competing against Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo who all have their own development studios. They don't sabotage third-party games because that is sabotaging their platform. Every successful game released helps them that much more. For Valve to start dicking over developers only hurts themselves.
Dante @ Oct 25th 2009 3:03PM
You guys are idiots.
Randy Pitchford never said he personally distrusts Steam. Read his interviews, there's been several on the subject.
He's saying that a DEVELOPER having control over DISTRIBUTION of OTHER DEVELOPERS might lead to major problems. Imagine Steam being the only real way to download games(which it currently is not, there are some bad competitors Direct2Drive and such but they do exist) and Valve barring a major competitor who's releasing a game around the same time. What if Half Life 3 and Modern Warfare 3 were released on the same day and Steam blacklisted MW3, leaving people wanting digital distribution of MW3 totally screwed.
Obviously it's NOT an issue TODAY. Randy Pitchford isn't saying that it is a problem today. He's saying maybe down the road it might be a bad idea that a developer has distribution control over other developers. If you can't understand that, you're a moron!
He is absolutely right that it could be terrible if Valve was an untrustworthy company. He's just talking about possibilities, not what is going on.
Valve is a great company and Randy Pitchford realizes it.
You guys need to watch more of his interviews, the guy is incredibly intelligent. He has a great grasp on the industry.