How Steam is about to change its role

[MaydaX]

Main thing I like about this is

 

Unapproved updates

 

While Valve have always encouraged developers to update their games frequently, those updates would previously need to be approved before they went live. They’re now changing to a new system, where developers can make updates live themselves, with no oversight from Valve.

 

What if your update breaks the game? Customers will tell you, and if you don’t hear them, Valve will tell you what customers are telling them. But ultimately, it’s the developer’s responsibility to check this stuff, release good updates, and fix anything that breaks.

 

Anna says the most effective marketing tool Steam gives developers is the pop-up message that tells you when a friend plays a game. A game that releases regular updates brings its existing players back, and each time they play, everyone they know on Steam gets more and more curious about this game their friend seems to like so much.

 

In the sales graph of a regularly updated game, its launch is just one of many equally massive spikes.

 

Rest is at

 

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/07/12/how-steam-is-about-to-change-its-role/

[Crotan]

me thinks they are trying to get EA games back, the reason EA dropped out of steam, is that they wanted to push updates independent of valve.

 

Of course, their current system isn't fool proof either, there was a borked Metro 2033 update pushed through steam that broke the game, literally couldn't start it.

 

So how much oversight does valve really do? and what's really changing here?

[BOTA:X]

me thinks they are trying to get EA games back, the reason EA dropped out of steam, is that they wanted to push updates independent of valve.

 

I'm sure EA wants everything on Origin. This will be better for the Indie developers.

[Crotan]

I'm sure EA wants everything on Origin. This will be better for the Indie developers.

 

I'm wearing my tinfoil hat on this one. Don't usually take the spoon fed reasons for why a company does something and look for why they might do something and how it benefits them most. I don't think Valve makes much from indie games, and while this may help indie developers, I have to stop and think back to all that grief when Crysis 2 got removed from Steam.

 

But yes I'd agree with you that EA would want everything on Origin, just like Valve would want everything on Steam.

[fozzer]

The only reason any company makes a change in their standard business practice, is to try and grab the lions share of the market thus maximizing profit margins.

All the better if this can be achieved with little or no effort from the company itself.