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I think Apple should buy Valve. Valve may not be for sale. But Valve's creativity is off the charts- they make great games. Apple, on the other hand, knows h
by nirvana 14y ago
I think Apple should buy Valve. Valve may not be for sale. But Valve's creativity is off the charts- they make great games. Apple, on the other hand, knows how to deliver quality software, something valve has not mastered.
Steam is "great" in the sense that it was the first and its so far the most reasonable game store, but it is terrible in terms of bugs and performance[1]. Valves games are often unstable[2]. Game developers just seem to have a much higher tolerance for bugs (or an environment where the publisher makes them ship and then the teams disband so there's nobody there to fix the bugs.)
At this point, I'd much rather buy a game thru the Mac App Store than thru steam.
I don't think that Valve is for sale, but they'd make a great independant division within Apple.
You want a wearable computer? Well, here's the best hardware company in the world.
[1] Just so people know what I'm talking about. Often when launching Team Fortress Steam will throw up a dialog "Preparing to launch Team Fortress 2", that stays there from 60seconds to 7 minutes. This occurs without regard to the quality of the internet connection (have seen it both on 5megabits with high latency and 40 megabits with low latency) During this period the TF2 executable has not yet been launched, and steam is apparently doing nothing at all. Then of course TF2 takes quiet awhile to get to the point where its ready to play.
[2] Not so much with games like Portal 2 which are done and not constantly revisited, but TF2 crashes regularly, sometimes there are releases that are completely unplayable on macs, and you just have to wait til the next patch. Steam itself crashes, is interminably slow (When really its mostly web pages, couldn't they have at least used webkit?) regularly wedges itself, and can't seem to download and install games to reliably. (usually it works but the rate of failure is way too high.)
- prezjordan 14y agoRegarding points 1 and 2, I find it amazing how prevalent these issues are, yet any gamer will say "doesn't happen to me." I really don't understand how one can blatantly ignore such poor performance.
- andypants 14y agoThat's because these problems are prevalent on macs. Steam running on windows is just fine, which is the majority of steam users. Valve has been developing for windows far longer than for macs, and tf2 is the one of the first mac games that valve has developed.
- prezjordan 14y agoNo I'm specifically talking about Windows. I do not use Steam on my MacBook.
- jiggy2011 14y agoI think Apple buying Valve would make me cry into my beer. Both are great creative companies sure but I think they work best independently. Apple makes hardware/software , Valve makes games. Having HL3 as a Mac Only title and being primarily sold in order to make people buy new Mac hardware? No Thanks. Also Valve have a history of supporting modding etc and providing tools, not so sure if Apple would continue this. Some of the best things about Valve games have been 3rd party mods (think Counterstrike). I do agree however that in many areas the Steam software leaves a lot to be desired.
- Synaesthesia 14y agoI think the odds of it are close to 0, so don't worry.
- talmand 14y agoConsidering the potential value of Valve in the future I couldn't imagine what that price tag would be. If I owned Valve I would tell Apple they didn't have enough money, even with all that cash on hand. Valve almost always makes serious money with their games and Steam is practically software written for printing money. I also think that Apple's culture would clash big time with Valve's culture causing major issues. I think you are wrong about Valve and the quality of their software. You are basing this on one piece of software that is essentially in eternal development (as you point out) and then basing it all on your own personal experience. Even your first example is most likely an issue with TF2 and has nothing to do with Steam. At least you mention that Portal 2 is fine, but you're ignoring every other game Valve has ever made and/or been involved with. If your only problem with Valve's software is TF2 then I would have to say they have an excellent track record. I say Valve has mastered the ability to deliver quality software.