Valve is Searching for Change in the Sofa
The Managing Director of Valve, Gabe Newell, was recently interviewed and shared his vision of the future of gaming and development. Hopefully it doesn’t spark any interest from other game developers, as it paints a ridiculous vision of the future of game development.
Here’s what he had to say:
“One of the areas that I am super interested in right now is how we can do financing from the community. So right now, what typically happens is you have this budget – it needs to be huge, it has to be $10m – $30m, and it has to be all available at the beginning of the project. There’s a huge amount of risk associated with those dollars and decisions have to be incredibly conservative.
What I think would be much better would be if the community could finance the games. In other words, ‘Hey, I really like this idea you have. I’ll be an early investor in that and, as a result, at a later point I may make a return on that product, but I’ll also get a copy of that game.’
So move financing from something that occurs between a publisher and a developer… Instead have it be something where funding is coming out of community for games and game concepts they really like.”
In essence, Gabe Newell believes that if gamers really desire a certain concept for a game, they should be able to fund the development for the game. Realistically though, Valve is a multi-million dollar corporation with a lot of success in the gaming industry, and for them to ask gamers to pay for development costs seems unreasonable.
If a concept really sounds fun and potentially successful, that should be enough motivation for a company to begin the process of putting the game in development. Let’s just hope that gamers aren’t forced to pay for the fees of future titles before they technically exist.
[Source]
10 Responses to “Valve is Searching for Change in the Sofa”
I’ll fund $5 to any game developer for a copy of their game. Seriously, how much are they talking and what’s the risk involved? I would guess with a big developer their failure ratio is pretty low. Of course if it ain’t their money they could spit out any old crap and not worry about the losses. Oh yeah, and I’d want my name in the credits somewhere.
Weird, I thought buying a game at retail was my way of telling publishers what I like AND my way of helping finance what I like. Now I have to invest in JRPGs on top of everything else too? Do I get invited to investor meetings also? The Valve Christmas party? A ‘golden parachute’ when my game tanks at market?
I’m thinking Mr. Newell might want to go back to business school.
I’ll buy another Orange Box (the PC version this time because the PS3 version of TF2 is… well, you know…) if Valve’s gonna make Half-Life 2: Episode 3.
Does Gabe Newell ever have anything to say worthwhile?
EVER?
So he wants us to pay for the development of a game, and then pay to buy the game. Hmm…. I don’t even know where to start.
Another doughnut Gabe?
We call it the “Stock Market” Gabe – look into it.
gabe has fu money, so his thoughts don’t count anymore.
make room for hungry/talented people, next.
@ KwietStorm
i know.. how many people will buy into this?
@shadowjin and KwietStorm
Read the quote carefully, if you invested in a game before it was started, you would possibly get money back if the game was a major success, likely related to how much you invested, and you recieve a copy of the game when it’s finished. I don’t see why everyone is shutting this down when it opens the opportunity for anyone with money to be part of a game. For example, different athletes could pitch 10k each to the next basketball,hockey, whatever game, and that added to the original budget could improve a game drastically, and if the company used mostly invested money they would still have their money for other ip’s etc. If this were to be implemented properly and people with money were interested it could bring some high quality games, with more of what the public wants.