4 ms·

Valve also has shipped exactly one first-party game since Dota 2 in 2013, outside of VR stuff, and it's a card game. I don't think they're tops on the list of s

by cwyers 6y ago

Valve also has shipped exactly one first-party game since Dota 2 in 2013, outside of VR stuff, and it's a card game. I don't think they're tops on the list of studios that could give Google a big hit game to put on their new cloud console.

fuzxi 6y ago
Didn't they make that DOTA autochess game as well?
- cwyers 6y ago
  Huh, so they did. I don't think that materially changes my point, but, yes.
icelancer 6y ago
>> and it's a card game And a massive failure at that.
015a 6y ago
No, the point I and I think the OP are making is not Valve as a developer, its Steam as the storefront. Steam has tremendous power in moving developers toward, say, the cloud; if Valve just made it a checkbox on the publisher's page (or something to that effect), any cloud streaming service that integrated with Steam would be tier 1 overnight. But I'm also happy they haven't. These cloud streaming ecosystems are the apex of locked down closed systems. Valve is built on a culture of modding, revving games to make new ones, and being fair to users in a way that doesn't compromise being fair to developers. Cloud streaming systems, by and large, are not. They're built by big-tech megacorps that are looking to buy-in then cash-out on an industry they know nothing about (except Nvidia; if there were one cloud streaming service I'd support, its theirs. Nvidia isn't perfect, but its definitely within their wheelhouse, not a cash grab). Beyond that, you're marginalizing Valve's dominance in the gaming industry. Of the top ten games by players on Steam right now, again, the most popular western gaming platform ever made, three are made by Valve (CS:GO #1, Dota2 #2, TF2 #4, and #3 is Rust, the monthly TwitchFad). Overall, the only non-Steam western PC games which compete with their numbers are Call of Duty, League of Legends, Valorant, Fornite, Minecraft. The one theme with most of these games is that they're pretty old. People love games they know; when the developer sticks around, builds out a fair monetization scheme, and iterates on the gameplay, the games become unbeatable pillars on whatever service they're distributed on (the few that aren't old: Fortnite/Valorant will get there, and CoD has this in a way, but is definitely the most different every year). Valve is a rock-solid game developer; the fact that they don't release new games every year just speaks to their commitment to their existing communities. And, they also made Half Life Alyx last year. Its legitimately the most groundbreaking game to be released in the past decade, that unfortunately so few people are able to play. You physically cannot play that game and not have a shit-eating grin on your face the whole time. It is the only game I've ever played in VR (on Valve Index) that made me think "if this game were in both non-VR and VR, I would choose to play it in VR".
- cwyers 6y ago
  The value prop for Stadia is console-class gaming without hardware. Most devices where Stadia is able to run could run a port of a decade-old PC game. Similarly, most Steam games that could run unmodified on Stadia's custom server hardware (running Linux, not Windows) would be games that don't tax the hardware. Maybe that's a better service than what Google rolled out? (GeForce Now seems to be doing better than Stadia, anecdotally.) But it's not what Stadia is, and if they wanted some more recent console-class games, Valve as either a storefront or a game developer was not going to help them much. They would still have to deal with getting Ubisoft/EA/Activision/whoever to do the ports.
- throwaways885 6y ago
  Steam does natively integrate with cloud gaming, they just don't want to run a service: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/cloudgaming https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/cloudgaming
stryan 6y ago
Since 2013 they're released three first party games: DOTA Underlords Artifact Half-Life:Alyx The first was well received but died off the rest of auto-battlers, the second was terrible but is being reworked, and the third was critically acclaimed and the probably the most important VR game released besides BeatSaber. I know you said not counting VR but I feel like skipping Half-Life:Alyx, a game in a well beloved franchise that was very highly rated, is a little disingenuous Besides that they've also: Trialed Linux-based Steam Machines Greatly contributed to Linux gaming through Proton Tested out two unique hardware systems (Steam controllers and Steam link) Outside of them being essentially the biggest and most important game distribution service, as well as helping devs with any distrbution, multiplayer, DLC, etc services that they need. So I'd say it's a toss-up between whether that would benefit Google or not.
- cwyers 6y ago
  > I know you said not counting VR but I feel like skipping Half-Life:Alyx, a game in a well beloved franchise that was very highly rated, is a little disingenuous How? Stadia doesn't support VR.

by cwyers 6y ago

fuzxi 6y ago

Didn't they make that DOTA autochess game as well?

cwyers 6y ago
Huh, so they did. I don't think that materially changes my point, but, yes.

icelancer 6y ago

>> and it's a card game And a massive failure at that.

015a 6y ago

No, the point I and I think the OP are making is not Valve as a developer, its Steam as the storefront. Steam has tremendous power in moving developers toward, say, the cloud; if Valve just made it a checkbox on the publisher's page (or something to that effect), any cloud streaming service that integrated with Steam would be tier 1 overnight. But I'm also happy they haven't. These cloud streaming ecosystems are the apex of locked down closed systems. Valve is built on a culture of modding, revving games to make new ones, and being fair to users in a way that doesn't compromise being fair to developers. Cloud streaming systems, by and large, are not. They're built by big-tech megacorps that are looking to buy-in then cash-out on an industry they know nothing about (except Nvidia; if there were one cloud streaming service I'd support, its theirs. Nvidia isn't perfect, but its definitely within their wheelhouse, not a cash grab). Beyond that, you're marginalizing Valve's dominance in the gaming industry. Of the top ten games by players on Steam right now, again, the most popular western gaming platform ever made, three are made by Valve (CS:GO #1, Dota2 #2, TF2 #4, and #3 is Rust, the monthly TwitchFad). Overall, the only non-Steam western PC games which compete with their numbers are Call of Duty, League of Legends, Valorant, Fornite, Minecraft. The one theme with most of these games is that they're pretty old. People love games they know; when the developer sticks around, builds out a fair monetization scheme, and iterates on the gameplay, the games become unbeatable pillars on whatever service they're distributed on (the few that aren't old: Fortnite/Valorant will get there, and CoD has this in a way, but is definitely the most different every year). Valve is a rock-solid game developer; the fact that they don't release new games every year just speaks to their commitment to their existing communities. And, they also made Half Life Alyx last year. Its legitimately the most groundbreaking game to be released in the past decade, that unfortunately so few people are able to play. You physically cannot play that game and not have a shit-eating grin on your face the whole time. It is the only game I've ever played in VR (on Valve Index) that made me think "if this game were in both non-VR and VR, I would choose to play it in VR".

cwyers 6y ago
The value prop for Stadia is console-class gaming without hardware. Most devices where Stadia is able to run could run a port of a decade-old PC game. Similarly, most Steam games that could run unmodified on Stadia's custom server hardware (running Linux, not Windows) would be games that don't tax the hardware. Maybe that's a better service than what Google rolled out? (GeForce Now seems to be doing better than Stadia, anecdotally.) But it's not what Stadia is, and if they wanted some more recent console-class games, Valve as either a storefront or a game developer was not going to help them much. They would still have to deal with getting Ubisoft/EA/Activision/whoever to do the ports.
throwaways885 6y ago
Steam does natively integrate with cloud gaming, they just don't want to run a service: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/cloudgaming https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/cloudgaming

stryan 6y ago

Since 2013 they're released three first party games: DOTA Underlords Artifact Half-Life:Alyx The first was well received but died off the rest of auto-battlers, the second was terrible but is being reworked, and the third was critically acclaimed and the probably the most important VR game released besides BeatSaber. I know you said not counting VR but I feel like skipping Half-Life:Alyx, a game in a well beloved franchise that was very highly rated, is a little disingenuous Besides that they've also: Trialed Linux-based Steam Machines Greatly contributed to Linux gaming through Proton Tested out two unique hardware systems (Steam controllers and Steam link) Outside of them being essentially the biggest and most important game distribution service, as well as helping devs with any distrbution, multiplayer, DLC, etc services that they need. So I'd say it's a toss-up between whether that would benefit Google or not.

cwyers 6y ago
> I know you said not counting VR but I feel like skipping Half-Life:Alyx, a game in a well beloved franchise that was very highly rated, is a little disingenuous How? Stadia doesn't support VR.