On 06/02/2015 00:07, Gordon Reynolds wrote:
I'd hate to see this thread de-railed from it's original topic of Quickplay
and how it relates to Community Servers. While the change to trading is a
big one, it was more of a change to bring TF2 in line with all other Steam
trading-supported games.
I think they're linked.
Trading, F2P, the introduction of "scratch card" like gambling games and
all these "economy" things
changed TF2 from a team-based, objective based FPS to what it is now.
This has changed the player base too.
Simply put, the people who used to play on your servers are not throwing
money at Valve for a conga taunt or for a key to open a box.
Valve does what their customers will pay for. Their customers for TF2
are the people scamming each other, buying keys and items and so on.
TF2 is probably the greatest game never played. As I said recently,
TF2 is like playing chess against people who stick the pieces in their ears,
strip down to their underpants and run around the room shouting
"GAAAAAAAAAABBBBEEEEEEEEEE"
who would say "It's only a game, I play for fun" if anyone questioned
this behaviour.
If you bought the game in 2007 and have played 7000 hours without spending
another dime Valve aren't that interested in you. Even if you play comp
Walker has said that's boring. Watching 20 people conga that's like
the super bowl or the Tour de France right? Well, it is if you watch the
screen Robin does
that shows the money rolling in. That gets his boss excited and
smiling.
They want people who will buy taunts and dance around the maps - or
buy a gun that tells them what their killstreak is - you did that for free?
Ah, suckers.
You charged for some of these ideas? Well they took your idea and changed
it so instead of you getting the money, they did. See how much better
that is now? No? Let's try it one more time, you have a feature and
people pay you. Now they have the same feature and people pay Valve.
See the improvement yet? Maybe you've gotta be working at Valve. They
saw it straight away when someone put the idea to them.
"So, we'd get the money?...hmm, yeah...let's do that"
They want to introduce young kids to the joys of gambling too.
So thanks for that Valve.
Steam's trading cards and levelling changed Steam from a service that
was a bit flaky
but nevertheless a warm and cuddly idea that sold popular multiplayer
games and
updated them over and over into a service designed to attracts buffoons
who want to
collect badges and increase their level in a web store.
If you're a gamer, valve don't care. There are probably 100 idiots out
there throwing
money at valve for every gamer they have.
The level of programming skill and effort valve need to do to
get at their money is something a bright school kid could manage. Look
at the
features steam has added recently. That music player? The guy that wrote
that
must be a hell of a trombonist. Can you imagine his interview
"I mostly play the trombone"
"Do you think you could write code?"
"Sure...I could add a music player"
"What features would it have?"
"Well, I've used a lot of music players and using my vast knowledge of
existing players I wouldn't have any"
"How long do you think it will take you to create a music player without
any features?"
"About a year. Most of that could be a 'beta' though. In case some of
the features
it doesn't have don't work"
In many cases they can just bundle indie or old publisher titles on
steam, say "75% off"
every so often and watch as thousands of people buy them just to get a
bigger number
of "games owned" or a few trading cards - and when gamers kick up a fuss
they just change the steam interface to make it look like it's
still something to do with buying and playing games.
There are even people who collect and pay hundreds of dollars for
games that were on steam but have been removed and then
if you have enough of these removed games you can join a group.
Can you believe that?
Given these people exist what would you do? Spend millions
on improving mental health care, or change Steam to
accommodate them and free them from the burden of owning money?
For Valve the answer was easy and you can't really blame them for
chasing some easy money.
Compare that with the 9 years TF2 took to create and the amount
of money and talent you'd need to create a game which the guy
who buys it, plays it for five or ten years without giving you another
penny.
Which one are you going to pick?
If you're into playing games then you're going to have a bad time
with Steam.
--
Dan
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