He goes on in the article by acknowledging the benefits of Steam. The main one being that it offers exposure for indie developers. But Randy feels that, while it still offers the exposure, it also exploits the makers of the game as well, "Valve is exploiting people in a way that's not totally fair. [It's] taking a larger share that it should be for the service it's providing. It's exploiting a lot of small guys." At the same time as this is stated, indie game makers that have dealt with steam have come to its defence stating, "Is Valve exploiting independent developers? In short: absolutely not. Without pulling any punches I can say with certainly that if it weren't for Steam there would be no Tripwire Interactive right now," says John Gibson, Tripwire Interactive co-founder and President.

The main fear in this situation is, if Valve is a 3rd party developer then you grant the risk of them purposefully affecting a game's performance in sales because it's in direct competition with their game. Which is understandable, the main problem we've been seeing so far with DLC is it's easy to exploit people. Look at Namco and their mischievous use of “Unlock keys” to sell people content that's already on the disc. Even Microsoft ends up taking a big chunk of the profits from the sales of XBLA games from the game's creators.

But really, has that actually happened with Valve? After the 5 or 6 years that Steam has been around, have we ever heard any public outcry, from developer or consumer, that Valve was ripping anyone off? I've actually seen many positive things come out of it, unknown devs have gotten the chance to make some money and spread the word of their game ,and young amateur modders have been able to make money from a source mod they have made. Sure, Valve makes money off of this too, but the way they conduct themselves is respectable. I'd rather have Valve running this than Activision.

  Seriously, it's Activision or Valve, make your choice

The final thing I want to comment on is his second last quote in the article, "The best example is that I can go to this place using Vista to buy software from Microsoft. But I can also fire up my browser, whether it's Internet Explorer or Mozilla, and I can go to any retailer in the world and purchase something.” Here he is describing his ideal future where he has the choice of many different retailers whom he can buy from online. Finishing off by saying that if we continue to “let Valve win” we will see less variety in places where we can get games digitally.

I know where he is coming from here. If we grow too dependent upon one service alone we will start to see our choices disappear. But think of it this way, through competition and the need to reach a new market, a handful of different companies will begin throwing their hats into the ring to go up against Steam. To me, Steam is laying down the groundwork here, they're trying to be an example of what we should expect in the future. When things lift off, and down loadable content becomes the big thing, people will want their piece of the pie. I doubt that everyone in the game industry would let Valve just stomp around taking in all the revenue for themselves. In this case, a company's need to make money will end up benefiting the consumer, in the end we will end up with different outlets offering the same services as Steam, maybe even better. Hell, we're already seeing stuff like that now; Good old Games, developers even offer to sell their games digitally straight from their websites.

In short, no if we let Valve “win” it wont be that dangerous. Frankly, Steam is beneficial for our industry. The people at Valve are helping develop and pass on techniques/strategies of online retail for others to learn and improve on. I'd rather have someone doing this than no one. The one thing Randy doesn't realize is that new people will come into the market when it begins to mature, everything is still in the growing state. Give it time.

 

Shadow Complex has been talked about ad nauseam, all week it's been nothing but Shadow Complex wherever I look. I've ignored it for the most part since I have little interest in the game but a forum topic I found on Giantbomb.com linking to a Gamasutra Article by Christian Nutt had gotten a hold of my attention.

The article was about the controversy around the game that started with a simple NeoGaf post. Apparently a user raised the question about the game which I quote, "Should we boycott Shadow Complex?". To give some background information (Although I wont go too deep into it, if you want more information I highly recommend reading Christian Nutt's Article on the subject), this user suggested this because it's been highly known that the author of the book "Empire", which Shadow Complex is based off of, Orson Scott Card is an anti-advocate of gay marriage. He has gone on record suggesting that gay marriage is wrong and that marriage is meant to be between a man and a women.

Now, the reasoning behind the boycott is that Orson must be getting some kind of payment from the sales of Shadow Complex. For people who are in favor of gay marriage, buying this game may seem like its in some way funding his agenda.

I've thought about this for a while, it's a tricky subject. I'm in the middle when it comes to this, I'm not very interested in the game. However as I see it Shadow Complex is its own property, pretty much a stand alone. Sure, it's based in the world of Orson's book but from what I hear the story is hardly explored in the game. The game it self stand on its own, Shadow Complex doesn't even look like it explores any themes regarding homosexuality.

What I'm trying to say is, Orson doesn't really have that big of a hand in the game and from what I've read in Christian Nutt's article the producers of the game haven't shown to share the same opinions as Orson. These people just made a fun side scrolling action game, that's it. I see no reason to completely boycott Shadow Complex. If the content is not offensive then so what?

If Orsons affiliation with Shadow Complex is the problem then there are solutions. I really don't think the people at Chair should pay for that. The content seems non offensive and the developers don't really have any hostility to the homosexual community. But, if Orson being apart of the project bothers people that much, then yeah, I guess boycott it if you so choose. If you like the game but are in favor of gay marriage, take the Gaygamer.net approach to things. The guys there brought up the idea that, if you like the game buy it and then donate money to a Pro-Gay charity. I think it's a fine solution.

It all depends on how much your bothered by the game being based in the world of "Empire". From what I've heard, Orson has little to no control over anything that happens with Shadow Complex, I see it as no reason for a boycott. But like I said before, it's all up to how much it bothers the individual I suppose. For me, it seems like a tiny thing to be bothered about, this game feels a lot less impactful to Orson than, I don't know, actually buying his book.

What have I been playing?