Valve & EA Hook Up
"EA is the worldwide leader in bringing best of breed games, for all platforms, to market," said Gabe Newell, Valve's founder and president. "Valve games have sold over 18 million units at retail since Half-Life shipped in November 1998. By combining EA's unparalleled operation structure and distribution channel with Valve's award-winning development teams and games community, we've established an awesome combination for delivering great products to console and PC gamers around the world."Half-Life 2 GOTY edition will include the original game, Half-Life: Source, Half-Life 2 Deathmatch and Counter-Strike: Source (no Aftermath expansion?). The retail edition of Counter-Strike: Source will include that game as well as Half-Life 2: Deathmatch and Day of Defeat: Source. Both products, as well as Half-Life 2 Xbox, will be in stores this fall.
Note: Guys this doesn't mean EA now owns the Half-Life franchise or anything. EA is just distributing the games to stores.
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MrLobo
replyWTF.
Looks like Steam didn't generate enough revenues for Valve.-
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Steam was great if you absolutely needed to have the game before anyone else (before it arrived on store shelves).
But contrary to what we were expecting, buying HL2 on Steam wasn't that much cheaper than buying it retail.
And maybe in this materialistic world paying a few extra dollars for game + box + CD > digital download (make your own CD) for a few bucks less.
The 'Bronze' i.e. cheap ass version on Steam still sells for more than you can buy the 'Collectors' i.e. best version at a store.
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Yeah you are right, that is a big kink in the pipes.
The expectation was that because I was buying the game (on Steam) and not getting a manual or CD or box, that I wasn't paying for those 'extras', and cutting out the middle man, and so I would get the game cheaper.
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Yeah but two things
1) Valve might believe this, cut you a discount on HL2 on Steam, and Retailers would pull HL2 from shelves. And so Valve either has to renig on their price or tough it out in the courts to get the game back on shelves or something. In the meantime they're screwed, retail sales-wise.
2) The disc, manual, box, etc. don't amount to much. Think like $5 of the price or something. I mean, the DVD collector's edition (which I bought) didn't even have a DVD case - it had a jewel case, a dinky shirt, and a little book. The T-Shirt is the only thing that filled that box.
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Why? They've got to have some form of retail distribution. It's not a reflection on steam at all.
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As I understand it Steam sales were better than they expected. I don't view this as a failure of Steam just the realization that you will lose alot of customers if you don't put a product out in normal stores. Plus I don't think Steam will really work with the Xbox edition of Half-Life 2.
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The thing is - Joe Public has certian things they percieve and if you fail those they think you're a failure.
"Half-Life 2 isn't even on shelves anymore - it must really have sucked!" - hardly. They just don't have a deal with Vivendi anymore. But since people will equate not being on shelves with not being in print with not being good enough to stay in print. And Joe Public will also not be keen enough to go to a website and download a client to download the game (especially if they have narrowband).
Plus Steam is not only a distribution platform but a method of making sure everyone's up to date, banning thieves, etc.
Steam's still a little rough but hardly a failure.
Still, I'd rather they hooked up with Activision or some crap, not EA. Oh well, not like VU was a little saint or something. Maybe we can blame Steam issues on EA now as many Shackers like to do! -
You'd have to be totally nuts to think you can transition to 100% online sales with only one product. 404 failure (partial or not) not found. :S
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How is this a sign that Steam sales didn't do so well? A game sold via Steam doesn't have to sell half as well as retail since the profits per Steam purchase are much higher.
This is just a way for Valve to make sure that the game is available to people via retail channel. It'd be stupid of them to discontinue retail. -
I dont think Valve has revealed how many utnits they sell over Steam.
