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>Valve basically own a significant fraction of its success to community: CS (based on modder produce) Dota2 (bought from a modder); these 2 are their big revenu

>Valve basically own a significant fraction of its success to community: CS (based on modder produce) Dota2 (bought from a modder); these 2 are their big revenue sources. I simply do not understand this. Moders created an entirely new genre and basically brought Competitive Gaming to the masses, yet Blz won't allow modding on Overwatch. I've had discussions with people who support this and their rationale basically boils down to (1) they don't want to fracture the userbase and (2) they love the design and don't want to upset it. Both are ill founded. The userbase is in the millions and mods would get ppl like me to play again. Also, any graphical mods can simply run on my local machine, exactly like DotA2. The game engine itself is superb and possibly hanfles/plays better than any other FPS with maybe Destiny being the only competition. There is no doubt modders would create a superior gaming experience. Learn from Bethesda

taurath 9y ago
I'm not so sure. Skin sales are the entire business model of Dota2 and LoL - the difference is who develops the skins. Valve has shown they rarely want to be involved in dlc and skin creation, they've always been community first in that sense. An RTS or an RPG lends itself to modding tools better than an FPS in general.
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  > An RTS or an RPG lends itself to modding tools better than an FPS in general. We got some awesome FPS mods in the past though. Team Fortress and Counter Strike stick out as the most prominent examples.
  - croon 9y ago
    Left 4 Dead too. I see a pattern. But other stuff like modes in games: Capture the flag, Gun Game, etc would probably not be a thing without mods for Quake and original Counter-Strike.
    - ajmurmann 9y ago
      Sorry, I'm a little confused by your response. Are you saying L4D started out as a mod as well and using the "but" in an unusual way or are you unaware that both CS and TF were originally Quake and HL mods?
      - croon 9y ago
        Sorry, I realize the phrasing was bad. "But" should've probably been an "Also". I was only trying to point at the difference between TF, CS and L4D starting as mods and ending up as full games and CTF and Gun Games starting out as mods (even though the CTF concet has existed outside of games long before) and ending up as only game modes in other full games. I'm not a native :)
chickenfries 9y ago
See, I think there's a huge difference between Activision Blizzard games and either Valve or Bethesda games. Sure, Valve and Bethesda have probably contributed more gaming experiences to the world across their many games and their liberal policy towards modding. There are only a few Blizzard games, but they're better and they make much more money. It's a tightly controlled experience, but the quality control means Blizzard fans will at least try almost every Blizzard game at some point. Can't say the same for Bethesda. Valve has fewer games, but the experiences are not as different as say, Hearthstone and Overwatch.
- BigJono 9y ago
  >but they're better Citation needed. I've played a ton of AAA multiplayer games over the years. Hearthstone is hands down the worst one that I've given a fair chance to (>20-30 hours of playtime). To say that it's better than Counter-Strike (which many regard as the epitome of competetive FPS gaming and has stood the test of time in that role for almost as long as Starcraft has done the same for RTS) is an absolute joke.
  - scrollaway 9y ago
    To compare a turn based CCG to a competitive FPS is an absolute joke. To generalize your dislike of a CCG, one of Blizzard's multiple games, into an argument against GP is a joke. Whether modders would make as positive an impact in HS as they did in Valve games is very unclear, and I say that as the author of a Hearthstone simulator and founder of a community and company heavily involved in Hearthstone modding, reverse engineering and third party tooling.
    - BigJono 9y ago
      GP outright stated that Blizzard's games are better than Valve's and Bethesda's because of their strict control over quality/lack of community content. My point is that Hearthstone is an objectively worse game than Counter-Strike is, in the same way tic-tac-toe is inferior to Chess in almost all respects. I'm not denying Hearthstone is fun, and makes a metric ton of money. I play it a reasonable amount and have spent money on it. But it's not a good game. I don't see how providing a direct counter-example to an argument is 'generalising', but whatever.

taurath 9y ago

I'm not so sure. Skin sales are the entire business model of Dota2 and LoL - the difference is who develops the skins. Valve has shown they rarely want to be involved in dlc and skin creation, they've always been community first in that sense. An RTS or an RPG lends itself to modding tools better than an FPS in general.

ajmurmann 9y ago
> An RTS or an RPG lends itself to modding tools better than an FPS in general. We got some awesome FPS mods in the past though. Team Fortress and Counter Strike stick out as the most prominent examples.
- croon 9y ago
  Left 4 Dead too. I see a pattern. But other stuff like modes in games: Capture the flag, Gun Game, etc would probably not be a thing without mods for Quake and original Counter-Strike.
  - ajmurmann 9y ago
    Sorry, I'm a little confused by your response. Are you saying L4D started out as a mod as well and using the "but" in an unusual way or are you unaware that both CS and TF were originally Quake and HL mods?
    - croon 9y ago
      Sorry, I realize the phrasing was bad. "But" should've probably been an "Also". I was only trying to point at the difference between TF, CS and L4D starting as mods and ending up as full games and CTF and Gun Games starting out as mods (even though the CTF concet has existed outside of games long before) and ending up as only game modes in other full games. I'm not a native :)

chickenfries 9y ago

See, I think there's a huge difference between Activision Blizzard games and either Valve or Bethesda games. Sure, Valve and Bethesda have probably contributed more gaming experiences to the world across their many games and their liberal policy towards modding. There are only a few Blizzard games, but they're better and they make much more money. It's a tightly controlled experience, but the quality control means Blizzard fans will at least try almost every Blizzard game at some point. Can't say the same for Bethesda. Valve has fewer games, but the experiences are not as different as say, Hearthstone and Overwatch.

BigJono 9y ago
>but they're better Citation needed. I've played a ton of AAA multiplayer games over the years. Hearthstone is hands down the worst one that I've given a fair chance to (>20-30 hours of playtime). To say that it's better than Counter-Strike (which many regard as the epitome of competetive FPS gaming and has stood the test of time in that role for almost as long as Starcraft has done the same for RTS) is an absolute joke.
- scrollaway 9y ago
  To compare a turn based CCG to a competitive FPS is an absolute joke. To generalize your dislike of a CCG, one of Blizzard's multiple games, into an argument against GP is a joke. Whether modders would make as positive an impact in HS as they did in Valve games is very unclear, and I say that as the author of a Hearthstone simulator and founder of a community and company heavily involved in Hearthstone modding, reverse engineering and third party tooling.
  - BigJono 9y ago
    GP outright stated that Blizzard's games are better than Valve's and Bethesda's because of their strict control over quality/lack of community content. My point is that Hearthstone is an objectively worse game than Counter-Strike is, in the same way tic-tac-toe is inferior to Chess in almost all respects. I'm not denying Hearthstone is fun, and makes a metric ton of money. I play it a reasonable amount and have spent money on it. But it's not a good game. I don't see how providing a direct counter-example to an argument is 'generalising', but whatever.