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Speaker 1: Technology with tech Stuff from dot Com. Hey there, and

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Speaker 1: welcome to tex Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, Podcast extraordinaire,

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Speaker 1: even a podcaster. I am glad that you could join

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Speaker 1: me here for the part three of the Valve story. Hey,

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Speaker 1: if you haven't listened to parts one and two, you

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Speaker 1: should probably go do that, because otherwise this episode is

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Speaker 1: not going to make a whole lot of sense. We're

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Speaker 1: looking at the company Valve, the game developer company that

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Speaker 1: was launched by a couple of Microsoft millionaires. And as

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Speaker 1: I mentioned in part two of this series, we were

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Speaker 1: leaving off at two thousand three. That was when Steam launched.

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Speaker 1: That would be Valves online platform. It was much more

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Speaker 1: modest at that time than what it is today. So

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Speaker 1: when Steam launched, it was largely meant to do three things.

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Speaker 1: It was meant to roll out patches for Valve games

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Speaker 1: that already existed, so you could get them up to

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Speaker 1: the latest version and therefore make them compatible with other players.

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Speaker 1: A lot of Valves games are multiplayer games, and you

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Speaker 1: have to have everybody using the same basic game rules

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Speaker 1: in order to be able to play together. That's what

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Speaker 1: Steam was meant to do. For the first part I

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Speaker 1: would let players match up against each other without any conflicts.

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Speaker 1: The second purpose for Steam was to activate some digital

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Speaker 1: rights management strategies by requiring players to essentially check in

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Speaker 1: online when their games were active to verify that they

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Speaker 1: were in fact playing with legitimate copies of that game.

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Speaker 1: And the third purpose was to sell Valve Games as

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Speaker 1: an online store, with Half Life two becoming the title

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Speaker 1: that would lead that charge. This would mark the beginning

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Speaker 1: of a shift toward digital delivery rather than physical media

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Speaker 1: for games, though obviously that did not happen right away.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't an overnight success. For one thing, not everyone

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Speaker 1: had a fast enough Internet connection, so many folks didn't

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Speaker 1: really like the idea of spending a day or longer

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Speaker 1: just to download a single game when you could just

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Speaker 1: drive over to a video game store down the street

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Speaker 1: and pick up a physical copy right there. Valve also

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Speaker 1: moved to acquire another popular Half Life mod in that year.

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Speaker 1: That mod was called Day of Defeat and it featured

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Speaker 1: the Western Front of World War Two as the game setting,

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Speaker 1: So it was taking the basic game engine and graphics

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Speaker 1: of Half Life but modifying it for this World War

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Speaker 1: two setting, and it was a multiplayer only game in

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Speaker 1: which players could choose characters of various classes of various

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Speaker 1: sides of the conflict to complete objectives and compete against

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Speaker 1: each other in team based play. And that leads us

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Speaker 1: up to two thousand four, which was a huge year

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Speaker 1: for Valve. First things first, Early in the year, Valve

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Speaker 1: announced a new game engine. So it had been using

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Speaker 1: one called gold Source g O L D s r C,

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Speaker 1: which was a heavily modified Quake engine. It had been

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Speaker 1: relying upon that since the foundation of Valve. Now it

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Speaker 1: had a new game engine and they called it Source,

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Speaker 1: So so so you r ce. Source wasn't built from scratch exactly.

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Speaker 1: It was more of a fork off of the Quake

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Speaker 1: engine code that was the foundation for gold Source. So

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Speaker 1: on one branch of that fork you would find yourself

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Speaker 1: heading toward gold Source, the engine that powered Half Life

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Speaker 1: and the numerous mods like counter Strike and Day of Defeat.

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Speaker 1: Along the other branch you had Source, the more risky

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Speaker 1: game engine, stuff that needed work so that it could

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Speaker 1: become usable and stable. And with the Steam platform, Valve

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Speaker 1: could roll out updates to the Source gin across its

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Speaker 1: user base on a regular basis. And it also meant

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Speaker 1: the company could avoid backwards compatibility issues. Everyone would always

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Speaker 1: be on the same page as long as they were

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Speaker 1: maintaining their Steam account. The Source engine itself would branch

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Speaker 1: for different games in the future, so the version for

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Speaker 1: Left for Dead is significantly different than the one for

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Speaker 1: Half Life Too. But we'll get into more about those

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Speaker 1: games later on. The Source Engine actually got its debut

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Speaker 1: with the launch of Half Life two. It was the

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Speaker 1: first game to really push the Steam platform, as gamers

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Speaker 1: could buy the game in stores or they could purchase

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Speaker 1: it digitally through Steam. It also would become the second

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Speaker 1: title the company produced for the Xbox platform. The first

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Speaker 1: one was counter Strike, which came out the year before.

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Speaker 1: Both Counterstrike and the original Half Life would get Source

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Speaker 1: re releases in two thousand four. The counter Strike one

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Speaker 1: was called counter Strike Source. It also came out the

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Speaker 1: same year as counter Strike zero, so that's a little confusing,

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Speaker 1: especially since Counterstrike zero was still based off the old

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Speaker 1: Gold Source engine and counter Strike Source was obviously based

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Speaker 1: off the Source game engine and had a lot of

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Speaker 1: visual upgrades compared to the original game. As for Half

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Speaker 1: Life Too, it was eagerly received by the gaming public.

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Speaker 1: The game had taken six years to complete and forty

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Speaker 1: million dollars to develop. In the game, you are once

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Speaker 1: again playing as the character Gordon Freeman, the silent protagonist.

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Speaker 1: You are a physicist who's out of his elements, so

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Speaker 1: to speak, and you're awakened by the government agent the

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Speaker 1: g Man from the end of the first Half Life game. Now,

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Speaker 1: this sequel assumes that at the end of Half Life

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Speaker 1: you accepted the G Man's offer to work for his organization,

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Speaker 1: because obviously if you did not accept that job, you

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Speaker 1: got teleported into an area filled with an endless stream

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Speaker 1: of enemies and you would eventually die. So you start

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Speaker 1: off the game as an lay of the G Man,

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Speaker 1: and you learn that there is an extra dimensional alien

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Speaker 1: called the Combine, and it is pretty much wrecked shop

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Speaker 1: and taken over everything. It's your job to free humanity

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Speaker 1: from the oppressive alien force. And like its predecessor, it

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Speaker 1: received critical and popular acclaim, It pulled in tons of

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Speaker 1: awards in the process and sold millions of copies, and

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Speaker 1: it would set up an expectation among gamers that would

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Speaker 1: plague the company up to and including the present day.

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Speaker 1: I am talking about the expectation for a Half Life three.

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Speaker 1: Spoiler alert that's part of the Valve story that doesn't

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Speaker 1: really have a resolution even as we speak, so don't

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Speaker 1: get your hopes up. I do not have any insider

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Speaker 1: information about a magical release of Half Life three, So

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Speaker 1: if that's what you're listening for, uh, I'm sorry. But

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Speaker 1: in two thousand five, Steam took its first big step

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Speaker 1: into becoming the powerhouse that is today, because that's when

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Speaker 1: Valve began to carry third party games on the Steam platform.

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Speaker 1: So if you've never used Steam or you aren't into

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Speaker 1: games at all, here's kind of how it shakes out.

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Speaker 1: Imagine you have an online store similar to something like Amazon,

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Speaker 1: only in this particular online store you're primarily buying games

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Speaker 1: or expansion packs or downloadable content stuff like that. You're

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Speaker 1: doing it digitally, so once you make the purchase, you

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Speaker 1: can download that data to your computer. Games you've purchased

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Speaker 1: remain attached to your Steam account. Now that means even

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Speaker 1: if you delete the game off of your machine, there's

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Speaker 1: still a record of your purchase and that exists on

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Speaker 1: your Steam account, which means that you can download the

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Speaker 1: game again at some future point if you have the

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Speaker 1: desire to do so. It also means that you can

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Speaker 1: download that same game to different computers using your Steam account.

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Speaker 1: You log into your Steam account and then you can

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Speaker 1: download it to that machine. Typically, there are imitations as

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Speaker 1: to how many instances of the same game can be

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Speaker 1: active at one time. So in other words, you might

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Speaker 1: have the same game on three different computers, but you

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Speaker 1: may only be able to run it on one computer

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Speaker 1: at a time. You can't just download the game endlessly

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Speaker 1: on different machines and therefore distribute one title to say

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Speaker 1: all of your friends. They thought about that ahead of time,

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Speaker 1: so it's convenient for gamers, but it also tries to

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Speaker 1: avoid abuse of the system. And also you need to

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Speaker 1: typically have an Internet connection to play a lot of

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Speaker 1: these games because of that DRM segment. It's checking back

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Speaker 1: in with the home server to make sure that, in fact,

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Speaker 1: you are playing the one and only allowable instance of

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Speaker 1: that game. Now, Valve makes money from these sales of

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Speaker 1: third party games. The company didn't make those games. They're

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Speaker 1: just acting as a store, virtual shelf for those games

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Speaker 1: to exist upon the actual details of how much money

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Speaker 1: Valve makes and whether it's the same across all games

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Speaker 1: studios remains a secret. However, a general rule in the

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Speaker 1: industry is that a platform like Steam takes a thirty

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Speaker 1: percent cut of all sales, with the rest of it

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Speaker 1: going to the game's publisher. So if you spend sixty

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Speaker 1: dollars on a game on Steam, Valve would take an

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Speaker 1: eighteen dollar cut of that. The other forty two dollars

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Speaker 1: would go to the publisher. As Steam has grown to

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Speaker 1: carry games from various publishers, it has earned Valve a

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Speaker 1: truly enormous sum of money every year. And how much

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Speaker 1: are we talking about? Well, and and sixteen Valve took

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Speaker 1: in about three and a half billion dollars from Steam

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Speaker 1: sales alone. Now, games Industry Biz points out that that

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Speaker 1: really means that the growth was flat in Steam sales

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Speaker 1: across the two years. It was three and a half

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Speaker 1: billion and twenty fifteen, three and a half billion and

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Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. But one, that's three and a half billion

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Speaker 1: dollars largely made by selling other people's stuff. That's not

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Speaker 1: bad now for those of you who want to impress

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Speaker 1: or perhaps disturb people with your knowledge of Steam based trivia.

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Speaker 1: The first two non Valve games to hit the virtual

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Speaker 1: market were rag Doll Kung Fu and Darwinia. Rag Doll

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Speaker 1: Kung Fu was the brainchild of Mark Keeley, who at

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Speaker 1: the time was working at Lionhead Studios, and it requires

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Speaker 1: players to control fighters who move kind of like marionettes,

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Speaker 1: like stretchy marionettes. You can grab parts of their body

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Speaker 1: and move them around and then make them engage in

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Speaker 1: fierce kung fu battles. It looks absolutely ridiculous. You can

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Speaker 1: find game footage online. Darwinia, however, was a tactical real

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Speaker 1: time strategy game in which you could would control these

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Speaker 1: artificially intelligent polygonal constructs against a malicious computer virus. So

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Speaker 1: think of like an RTS game, something like war Raft

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Speaker 1: or something along those lines, where you're controlling different units

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Speaker 1: and you're positioning them and making them attack enemies. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of like that, except it was all very tron

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Speaker 1: esque and that you're working with virtual constructs, not representations

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Speaker 1: of units. In two thousand five, Valve also released Half

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Speaker 1: Life two, Lost Coast as a tech demo and the

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Speaker 1: source version of Day of Defeat. The company also decided

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Speaker 1: to hire on six students from Digipin Institute of Technology.

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Speaker 1: The students had created a game called Narbacular Drop. Now.

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Speaker 1: In that game, the player had to navigate puzzles inside

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Speaker 1: of a dungeon using the ability to create magical gateways

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Speaker 1: or portals from one point to another. Placing those portals

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Speaker 1: in particular ways would allow players to cross big gaps

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Speaker 1: or avoid enemies and traps. You would put one in

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Speaker 1: the portal near you the other end of the portals,

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Speaker 1: say on the other side of a big gap. You

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Speaker 1: walk through your side, and you come out the other side.

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Speaker 1: The game impressed Valve so much that the company began

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Speaker 1: development on its own spin, using that same basic gameplay mechanic.

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Speaker 1: Now that game would eventually become portal and would impress

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Speaker 1: gamers when it launched a few years later. But before

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Speaker 1: we get to that, we still have two thousand six

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Speaker 1: to talk about. And that's when Valve released Half Life two,

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Speaker 1: Episode one, and here's where we get into some tricky territory.

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Speaker 1: Valve made the decision to take an episodic approach to

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Speaker 1: releasing a sequel to Half Life Too. Originally, they released

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Speaker 1: the game and called it Half Life to Aftermath. Because

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Speaker 1: Valve had not yet revealed that they were looking at

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Speaker 1: this from an episodic point of view, they wanted to

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Speaker 1: kind of test the waters. It was a success, so

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Speaker 1: they retroactively renamed it Half Life two Episode one, and

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Speaker 1: this was to be the first in a trilogy of

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Speaker 1: episodes that would follow the events that happened in Half

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Speaker 1: Life to The second episode would come out in two

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Speaker 1: thousand seven, and the third episode, well, we're still waiting

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Speaker 1: on Half Life two episode three. Half Life two Episode

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Speaker 1: two came out in two thousand seven, and ten years later,

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Speaker 1: episode three is nowhere to be seen. Back when episodes

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Speaker 1: one and two came out, Valve announced that their intent

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Speaker 1: was to release episodes between six and eight months apart

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Speaker 1: from each other, and in fact, there was even talk

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Speaker 1: of an episode four that would be developed by a

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Speaker 1: different game studio but then published by Valve under the

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Speaker 1: half Life two brand. But the only thing we've seen

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Speaker 1: of episode three over the last decade are some examples

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Speaker 1: of concept art, and there was a synopsis of what

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Speaker 1: the story was supposed to be. Now, within the gaming community,

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Speaker 1: there's been a lot of discussion about this, and discussion

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Speaker 1: is a kind word for what has been going on

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Speaker 1: for the last ten years. Some people think Valve made

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Speaker 1: a decision to drop episode three entirely and instead develop

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Speaker 1: up an all new Half Life three, a fully formed

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Speaker 1: sequel to Half Life two that would take whatever the

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Speaker 1: elements of Episode three and incorporated into a larger game

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Speaker 1: with a new game engine, new graphics, something along those lines.

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Speaker 1: Maybe they said Episode three was just getting too complicated,

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Speaker 1: too big to be an episodic game. It had to

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Speaker 1: be something more than that, or maybe there were other

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Speaker 1: problems during the development process. Valve has been infamously quiet

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Speaker 1: about the whole thing, to the point that employees get

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Speaker 1: visibly irritated when asked about it. There's been no official

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Speaker 1: confirmation from Valve that the series is over, which leaves

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Speaker 1: fans somewhat in the lurch as they wonder if they'll

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Speaker 1: ever see another entry. In fact, Half Like three has

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Speaker 1: now supplanted Duke knewkeambe Forever as the poster child for vaporware,

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Speaker 1: since Duke Nukem Forever finally came out in two thousand

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Speaker 1: eleven after years of being in development. And if you

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Speaker 1: don't know what vapor ware is, vaporware is when a

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Speaker 1: company announces a product and the product never seems to

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Speaker 1: come out. There are tons of different examples, and in fact,

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Speaker 1: if you search through the Tech Stuff archives, you will

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Speaker 1: find that we've done full episodes about the concept of

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Speaker 1: vaporware and given lots of different examples of it throughout

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Speaker 1: the years. Now I'm gonna get back to the timeline

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Speaker 1: for Valve in a second, but figured this is as

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Speaker 1: good a place as any to wrap up the half

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Speaker 1: life part of the history, because there's no resolution to this.

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Speaker 1: It's still ongoing, it's still nebulous, and it's better to

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Speaker 1: go ahead and rip off the band aid here than

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Speaker 1: just prolonged it throughout the rest of the episode. In

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Speaker 1: Mark laid Law, who you'll remember, was an author who

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Speaker 1: joined Valve back in its earliest days and helped define

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Speaker 1: valves approach to gamemaking as being very story centric. He

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Speaker 1: left the company left the company in twenty six. Perhaps

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Speaker 1: at that point he had come to the conclusion that

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Speaker 1: Valve had no more need for storytellers, as maybe there

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Speaker 1: were no plans to develop any games that were revolve

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Speaker 1: around the cohesive story. Well, whatever his reasons were, he left,

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Speaker 1: and he also wrote a piece called Epistle three in

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Speaker 1: the voice of Gordon Freeman himself, which is a bit

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Speaker 1: ironic since Gordon never actually spoke in the games, but

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Speaker 1: it was from his point of view, and in that

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Speaker 1: letter laid Law gave out information about what the plot

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Speaker 1: of Episode three was supposed to be. I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to go into detail about that here because some of

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Speaker 1: you might still want to read it for yourselves, or

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Speaker 1: maybe you're holding out hope that at some point, in

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Speaker 1: some form this game will finally emerge in those story

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Speaker 1: points will be incorporated into it. But it does exist

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Speaker 1: online if you want to find it. It's called Epistle

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Speaker 1: three and it's from Mark laid Law. Now, when we

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Speaker 1: come back, we'll jump in Devolves timeline and talk about

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Speaker 1: some of the other big events that have shaped the

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Speaker 1: company and how it found itself moving away from developing games,

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Speaker 1: or at least appeared to. But first, let's take a

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Speaker 1: quick break and thank our sponsor. Back before I jumped

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Speaker 1: on the Half Life two and three, tangent I was

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Speaker 1: talking about the year two thousand and six. That year,

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Speaker 1: Valve began to add more content to Steam, so not

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Speaker 1: only could you purchase games and use it to get

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Speaker 1: the latest patches for your game library, you could also

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Speaker 1: visit Steam to get HD videos or you could get

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Speaker 1: demos of upcoming games. By the end of the year,

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Speaker 1: Steam carried about one games, and it wasn't enough to

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Speaker 1: make Brick and mortar stores nervous, but it was starting

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Speaker 1: to build some serious momentum. In two thousand seven, Valve

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Speaker 1: released a collection of games under the title The Orange Box.

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Speaker 1: The collection included Half Life two and Half Life two

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Speaker 1: Episode one, both of which had already been published, but

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Speaker 1: it also included Half Life two Episode two, Portal, and

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Speaker 1: the game Gabe Newell had announced after the first Half

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Speaker 1: Life went gold so many years before Team Fortress Too.

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Speaker 1: We've already talked about Half Life two, so let's talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about these other games. Portal, as I

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Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, was created by the team that built the

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Speaker 1: similar dungeon puzzle game called an Arbocular Drop, and as

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Speaker 1: I mentioned, in that game, you could create gateways that

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Speaker 1: linked to different points in space. Together, passed through one gateway,

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Speaker 1: you emerge out of the other. The same game mechanic

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Speaker 1: exists in Portal. One interesting aspect of this gameplay mechanic

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Speaker 1: is that the laws of motion remain in effect with

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Speaker 1: the portals. So if you were to open up one

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Speaker 1: portal on the ceiling and a second on the floor

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Speaker 1: directly underneath the first portal, dropping something into the floor

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Speaker 1: portal will cause it to fall through the top. One

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Speaker 1: all the way down into the bottom one, again through

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Speaker 1: the top one, and it will continue this until it

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Speaker 1: reaches terminal velocity, until it falls as fast as it

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Speaker 1: can possibly go. Then you can open up a portal

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Speaker 1: on a wall, closing the one that's on the ceiling,

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Speaker 1: and the falling object will shoot out of that at

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Speaker 1: the same velocity it was falling earlier, except now it's

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Speaker 1: going to go in a different direction. So if you

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Speaker 1: switch it to go from a vertical alignment to horizontal,

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Speaker 1: it will suddenly shoot out across the game area. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: this object might end up being the player character herself,

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Speaker 1: so you could use it to get across particularly tricky

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Speaker 1: areas of the game. In the game Portal, you're playing

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Speaker 1: as a test subject, a woman attempting to escape from

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Speaker 1: Aperture Science Labs. Now that's an organization that exists in

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Speaker 1: the same universe as Black Mesub, the fictional research facility

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Speaker 1: in the Half Life franchise, there's an artificially intelligent construct

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Speaker 1: called Gladows, and GLaDOS claims to be testing your ability

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Speaker 1: to navigate puzzles, but simultaneously is hurling lots of passive

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Speaker 1: aggressive insults your way. She's a jerk. The game received

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Speaker 1: critical acclaim for its novel approach to problem solving and

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Speaker 1: the versatility of the portal gimmick. The game also featured

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Speaker 1: one of the greatest songs in video game history, in

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Speaker 1: my opinion, it's a sa called Still Alive, and in

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Speaker 1: the game it's sung by Gladows. It was a song

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Speaker 1: that was written by Jonathan Colton, who made a name

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Speaker 1: for himself by releasing his music online independently and writing

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Speaker 1: lots of geeky, nerdy songs. So if you're not familiar

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Speaker 1: with him, go check him out. Jonathan Colton. He's really great.

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Speaker 1: His earlier stuff tends to be a little bit more nerdy,

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Speaker 1: and his later stuff a little bit more melancholic kind

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Speaker 1: of uh, exploring the existential crises of the average person

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Speaker 1: in there the middle of their lives, that sort of stuff.

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Speaker 1: But all of it's great now. The other game I

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Speaker 1: mentioned Team Fortress too. That one had been announced way

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Speaker 1: back in n game. Newell said that was the next

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Speaker 1: game they were gonna work on after Half Life went Gold,

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Speaker 1: but then it seemed to kind of disappear into vapor.

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Speaker 1: Around two thousand was the last time the company had

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Speaker 1: ever publicly acknowledged the fact that Team Fortress Too was

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Speaker 1: in development, they just stopped talking about it after two thousand.

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Speaker 1: At that time, the word was developers were working to

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Speaker 1: adapt it to the new Source engine and that that

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Speaker 1: was slowing things down. The game that came out was

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Speaker 1: dramatically different from the original Team Fortress, which in itself

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Speaker 1: was a mod of the game Quake. The original Team

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Speaker 1: Fortress was a serious team based, competitive multiplayer game that

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Speaker 1: had vehicles in it. It had realistic violence, and strategic

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Speaker 1: elements like air drops were part of the game. That

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Speaker 1: all changed with Team Fortress Too. Valves said that while

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Speaker 1: it was working on Team Fortress, who had actually developed

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Speaker 1: three or four different style games almost to completion, and

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Speaker 1: there was a chance that any one of them could

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Speaker 1: have become the actual Team Fortress Too. But eventually Valve

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Speaker 1: decided that, for some reason or another, each of those

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Speaker 1: didn't work, and the one that did come out was

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Speaker 1: again very different from its predecessor. So some of the

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Speaker 1: ideas that didn't make it into Team Fortress Too included

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Speaker 1: setting it in the same universe as Half Life, something

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Speaker 1: that val has done a lot of, or allowing for

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Speaker 1: non player characters to appear in multiplayer matches. However, the

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Speaker 1: Team Fortress two game that did come out would just

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Speaker 1: feature a lot more not just that's unfair, but it

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Speaker 1: would feature more cartoonish and comedic characters and art styles,

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Speaker 1: with players selecting from ultimately nine character classes to play

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Speaker 1: on a team, and they would play against other teams.

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Speaker 1: So you and your team made up of various players

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Speaker 1: playing different classes of characters, would be competing against a

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Speaker 1: similar team operated by different people, and game modes would

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Speaker 1: include stuff like a King of the Hill style control

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Speaker 1: point mode. There was Captured the Flag games, a very

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Speaker 1: classic kind of online game attack defend modes in which

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Speaker 1: one team would have to defend a position and the

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Speaker 1: other one has to try and take that position away.

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Speaker 1: The game became enormously popular and developed a peculiar reputation

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Speaker 1: involving hats. So the hats thing would come a little

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Speaker 1: bit later, but let's go ahead and cover it now

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Speaker 1: because I think it's an interesting part of what makes

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Speaker 1: Team Fortress Too special. It also is another example of

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Speaker 1: how Valve did something that today has become a widespread

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Speaker 1: tactic in games across multiple genres. So within Team Fortress

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Speaker 1: to players can customize the look of their characters to

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Speaker 1: some extent with various accessories such as hats. Now, some

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Speaker 1: of those accessories are just included in the basic form

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Speaker 1: of the game, but others are called unusuals, and you

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Speaker 1: have to actually get earned those those types of of accessories,

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Speaker 1: and they can even have visual effects associated with them,

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Speaker 1: like particle effects, and it kind of gives you a

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Speaker 1: special kind of flare. Now, those effects don't give you

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Speaker 1: any special bonuses or advantages, but they are seen as

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Speaker 1: something of a status symbol. So within the game world,

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Speaker 1: if you have one of those cool hats, people will

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Speaker 1: take notice of it. It's not necessarily going to give

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Speaker 1: you a real advantage, but people might say, wow, it's

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Speaker 1: really cool. I want that. Within some groups, people who

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Speaker 1: play together regularly with a group of people, they may

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Speaker 1: all wear similar hats, so that would require each member

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Speaker 1: to get one of those hats for him or herself.

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Speaker 1: Special hats, those unusuals I was talking about, they can

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Speaker 1: only be found in crates, which you can purchase with

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Speaker 1: real money if you want to, or you can trade

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Speaker 1: with other players and get hats that way. This created

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Speaker 1: an ongoing economy and Team Fortress too, and opened up

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Speaker 1: a revenue stream for Valve. These days, it's not unusual

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Speaker 1: for a game to include some sort of paid content

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Speaker 1: element like this. The ones that tend to use it

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Speaker 1: as a way of setting apart your character cosmetically, those

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Speaker 1: seem to get a better reaction from the gaming community

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Speaker 1: than say, a game that offers up items and skills

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Speaker 1: that give you an advantage over other players. That strategy

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Speaker 1: a lot of people derisively referred to as pay to win.

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Speaker 1: You pay the money, you get the various weapons or

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Speaker 1: other items that give you an advantage, and then you

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00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 1: are making up for a lack of skill with the

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Speaker 1: willingness to pay money to get artificially better at a game.

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Speaker 1: That's the pay to win approach, whereas this was more

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Speaker 1: of a cosmetic thing. A lot of players I know

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Speaker 1: don't have a problem with this. Some of them don't

434
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:25,560
Speaker 1: care for it, they don't purchase into it, but at

435
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: the same time, it ultimately makes no effect on the

436
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:33,159
Speaker 1: gameplay itself, and so therefore it is more easily accepted

437
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 1: in some circles of the gaming community. Now you can

438
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:41,480
Speaker 1: find this in lots of other games, like Overwatch. Overwatch

439
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 1: has a similar crates system, and you can earn crates

440
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 1: through gameplay at a certain speed, or you can spend

441
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 1: real money to buy several crates at a time and

442
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 1: try your luck opening one crate after the next to

443
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: try and get that one special item you're looking for.

444
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,920
Speaker 1: And typically there's no guarantee that whatever it is you

445
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 1: want is going to be an any given crate, so

446
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 1: you could open it up and find a whole bunch

447
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 1: of neat stuff, but none of the things that you

448
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 1: specifically wanted, and you might end up finding out that

449
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:10,399
Speaker 1: you're dropping as much cash as you spend on the game,

450
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 1: or more in some cases, just trying to chase that

451
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:17,200
Speaker 1: one accessory. It's certainly true now that Team Fortress Too

452
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:19,239
Speaker 1: Is is a free to play game, but at the

453
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 1: time you would actually purchase it. Not everyone is lured

454
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:24,400
Speaker 1: by this promise, but enough people are to make it

455
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: very profitable. Meanwhile, Valve also upgraded Steam and added the

456
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 1: Steam Community, which was a suite of social networking features

457
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:36,360
Speaker 1: on the online platform. This let people use Steam as

458
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:39,400
Speaker 1: a virtual gathering place they could share information, they could

459
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 1: try and find groups with other like minded gamers to

460
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 1: play certain games, and according to Valve, around that time,

461
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:50,360
Speaker 1: there were about fifteen million people using Steam regularly playing

462
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 1: around two hundred games. The new version of Steam also

463
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 1: incorporated Metacritic ratings for games, which gave players a chance

464
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 1: to see what other critics have thought about different game

465
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: titles before they made the commitment to purchase that game

466
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:09,119
Speaker 1: for themselves. In two thousand and eight, Valve acquired a

467
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 1: game developer called Turtle Rock. That company had been hard

468
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:15,199
Speaker 1: at work on a cooperative multiplayer game set in a

469
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 1: zombie apocalypse. The game was Left for Dead, with four

470
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:23,919
Speaker 1: being the numeral for Turtle Rock had been developing the

471
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 1: game before Valve acquired the company, but the developers had

472
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 1: been receiving some funding from Valve toward the late stages

473
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 1: of game development. Valve would end up being the publisher

474
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 1: for Left for Dead, and this became another big hit.

475
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:41,240
Speaker 1: Turtle Rock, however, would not remain part of Valve for

476
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 1: very long. It was a fairly curious turn of events.

477
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 1: Valve Is located out of Washington State, but Turtle Rocks

478
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:52,920
Speaker 1: headquarters were in California, and at first Turtle Rock would

479
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 1: operate as an offshoot of Valve called Valve South. It

480
00:27:57,040 --> 00:27:59,640
Speaker 1: was a satellite office for Valve is the first time

481
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:01,239
Speaker 1: the company he had really been trying to do that

482
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 1: but things didn't work out very well. The folks a

483
00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 1: Valve South in general felt like they were largely forgotten

484
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 1: about and we're out of the loop. They had infrequent

485
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: communication with Valve HQ up in Washington. The developers at

486
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 1: the former Turtle Rock Studios also got frustrated with Valve time.

487
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: That's that lag time between when a company has said,

488
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: or when specifically when Valvis said it's going to develop

489
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 1: something and when it finally, if ever comes out. It's

490
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: that nebulous, indefinable amount of time, and the folks over

491
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 1: Turtle Rock didn't much care for that kind of uncertainty.

492
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 1: So after only a year or so of working with Valve,

493
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 1: Gabe Newell agreed with the folks over at Valve South

494
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 1: that it just wasn't a great arrangement and the group

495
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 1: split off again from Valve. It would re establish itself

496
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: once again as Turtle Rock Studios. Turtle Rock would continue

497
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: to collaborate with Valve, but it would operate as its

498
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: own independent entity from that moment forward. Valve in return,

499
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 1: received ownership of the left for dead intellectual property and

500
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: they got to work on the sequel. Steam also evolved

501
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: some more, allowing players to create cloud based saves so

502
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: that they could continue playing certain games across different devices

503
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: and pick up where they had left off. It also

504
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: meant that if you create a specific control scheme for

505
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: a game where you bind keys to specific in game actions,

506
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:27,360
Speaker 1: you could save that configuration on Steam and have access

507
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:30,920
Speaker 1: to it on a different machine under your account. Valve

508
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: also released a software suite called steam Works to third

509
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:36,640
Speaker 1: party developers, which gave them the ability to use the

510
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: tools Valve had created over the years while they were

511
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 1: developing Steam itself. Team Fortress Too would also get a

512
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 1: few new classes in two thousand and eight which would

513
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: help refresh the game and players eyes. And the following year,

514
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: which was two thousand nine for those of you keeping score,

515
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: we would see the release of Left for Dead Too,

516
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 1: which is still one of my favorite games. It broke

517
00:29:56,640 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 1: all of valves records for pre sale figures, meaning more

518
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: people pay for the game before it was even available

519
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: than any other Valve game up to that point. That's

520
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: despite the fact that there was a growing movement online

521
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: to boycott the game. So what was that all about? Well,

522
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: the crux of the matter was in downloadable content or

523
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 1: DLC for the original Left for Dead game. Some players

524
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 1: who were fans of Left for Dead got very upset

525
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 1: when Valve announced that there was going to be a

526
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 1: sequel coming out just one year after Left for Dead

527
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: itself had come out. They said, that's too soon. That

528
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 1: means you're abandoning this other game. And you said you

529
00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 1: were going to develop downloadable content. How dare you go

530
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: back on your promise? Valve, I shake my fist at

531
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: you and anger and say ger. So they felt like

532
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 1: they were never going to get the d L see

533
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:47,719
Speaker 1: that they felt they had been promised, and as a result,

534
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:51,239
Speaker 1: about forty thousand people banded together and said they were

535
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: going to boycott Left for Dead too. That turned out

536
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 1: to not matter so much. A lot of them ended

537
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 1: up buying the game on pre sales anyway, even though

538
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: they were saying they were going to boycott it, because

539
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 1: they really wanted to play the game. And further down

540
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 1: the line, Valve would release DLC both for the first

541
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,720
Speaker 1: game and for Left for Dead too, including DLC that

542
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 1: would link the two games together because if you aren't familiar,

543
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: both games feature four sets of playable characters, but it's

544
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:27,000
Speaker 1: two different sets of four, so you've got four characters

545
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: in Left for Dead one and four different characters, and

546
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: Left for Dead too. They released some DLC that had

547
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: a bridging character that would go between the two and

548
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: link them together. Otherwise they were independent titles within the

549
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: same universe. In two thousand ten, Steam users were treated

550
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: to a redesign that made the service much easier to

551
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 1: navigate and more attractive to boot. It also added in

552
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: more content, including stuff that wasn't related to gaming, so

553
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 1: you could get non gaming apps through Steam. At that point,

554
00:31:57,360 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: players could also get a look at games in development

555
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 1: through Steam green Light, which is a service that would

556
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 1: let potential game developers essentially audition their ideas an attempt

557
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: to get some funding to complete a full game. Valve

558
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: also learned the power of the Steam Sale. Those are

559
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 1: always big events on the Steam platform. Several times a year.

560
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 1: Valve will offer titles at severely discounted prices, and I

561
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 1: am definitely one of those people who have been known

562
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: to pick up a title or two, even titles that

563
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: I previously had not had much interest in because their

564
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: price so low that I feel like an idiot if

565
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 1: I don't buy them. And yes, there are games in

566
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 1: my Steam library that I have yet to even open,

567
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: so I am part of the problem. Oh. In was

568
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 1: also when Mac users would finally get support for Steam

569
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 1: and there was much rejoicing. Y I got a lot

570
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 1: more to say, but before I jump into the last

571
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: section of the last episode of the story of Valve,

572
00:32:55,640 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. A

573
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:07,239
Speaker 1: couple of other things happened in that I had not

574
00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: yet mentioned. One of those was that Valve moved to

575
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:13,960
Speaker 1: a larger office space in Bellevue, Washington. It would stay

576
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 1: there until when it would move again. Valve also announced

577
00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 1: it was working on Portal two and that the game

578
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 1: would release in twleven, and the company began development on

579
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 1: a little project called Doda Too. So what the heck

580
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 1: is Dota Too, And for that matter, what the heck

581
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 1: was Dota one and what happened to it? Well, let's

582
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 1: start at the beginning. DODA is an acronym d O

583
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,560
Speaker 1: t A. It stands for Defense of the Ancients. At

584
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 1: least the original DODA did. This was a multiplayer online

585
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 1: battle arena game or mobile game. So if you've ever

586
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 1: heard the term mobile, it stands for multiplayer online battle arena.

587
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 1: This particular one was based of Blizzards title Warcraft three

588
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: Reign of Chaos, as well as an expansion for that

589
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 1: game called The Frozen Throne. Now, the way a mobile

590
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: game typically works because you have two teams that are

591
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 1: fighting against each other and the goal is to destroy

592
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 1: the opposite team's structure. It might be a base or

593
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 1: some other representation of that team. So you are to

594
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:25,760
Speaker 1: try and take your character from your end of the map,

595
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 1: go across the map to the enemy side of the

596
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 1: map and destroy their structure while they're trying to do

597
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:35,840
Speaker 1: the same thing to you. So you control a unit.

598
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 1: In DODA, they are called heroes. These are characters that

599
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:44,160
Speaker 1: have particular powerful abilities, sometimes their time based, so you

600
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:46,240
Speaker 1: can use an ability and then it's on a cool

601
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: down period until you can use it again. Some other

602
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: games might use something similar, like a Manna meter where

603
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:53,480
Speaker 1: you have to fill up the meter in order to

604
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:56,799
Speaker 1: use special abilities, but the basic idea is the same.

605
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 1: You're not just allowed to spam the enemy to team

606
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:02,400
Speaker 1: with an ability over and over again. There's a cool

607
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 1: down period built in one way or another, so you

608
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: have to preserve your side while destroying their side, and

609
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 1: they're typically different pathways to get from your end of

610
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: the map to the other end of the map. That's

611
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:19,719
Speaker 1: your basic MOBI and Doda was a great example of that. Well,

612
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 1: Valves saw the value in that style of game. They

613
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:27,279
Speaker 1: didn't have one of those themselves, and they decided to

614
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 1: hire abdul Ismail, better known as ice Frog, who was

615
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:34,840
Speaker 1: one of the developers for that Doda mod back in

616
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:37,840
Speaker 1: the day, so they brought him on board to develop

617
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 1: the sequel. Now, this relied upon valves source engine instead

618
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:45,239
Speaker 1: of on the Blizzard game and Valve launched the game

619
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:49,400
Speaker 1: at the game's con conference in Germany, Inn and that

620
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 1: became the first Dota to Championship tournament. It remains an

621
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 1: insanely popular mobile and is frequently featured in various pro

622
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 1: gaming tournaments. For a very long time, it was consistently

623
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: the most played game by concurrent players on Steam. Recently,

624
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 1: it has been replaced by a little game called Player

625
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:15,880
Speaker 1: Unknowns Battlegrounds, a game I am so bad at that

626
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 1: you're gonna want me to be in the game if

627
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:21,520
Speaker 1: you ever play, because I'm guaranteed to soak up those

628
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: bullets for you. Well, Valves Dota to tiptoed around the

629
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: fact that it was a sequel to a mod to

630
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 1: a game that Valve you know, didn't actually make. Blizzard

631
00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:35,799
Speaker 1: wasn't quite ready to concede and ended up filing a

632
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:40,440
Speaker 1: lawsuit against Valve. That lawsuit would stretch into twelve but

633
00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:44,800
Speaker 1: it was eventually settled out of court. Back in Valve

634
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 1: made the decision to switch Team Fortress to two free

635
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 1: to play mode at that point, and that means you

636
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:53,320
Speaker 1: can download and play Team Fortress too absolutely free. Players

637
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 1: can still pay to get access to crates in an

638
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 1: effort to find unusuals, and lots of people still do that,

639
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 1: which means Team Interest Too is profitable even though the

640
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 1: company gives away the basic game for free. Gabe Newell

641
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:13,200
Speaker 1: had some pretty hefty criticisms for his former employer, that

642
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 1: being Microsoft in the year that was when Microsoft launched

643
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: Windows eight, and Gabe Newell called it quote a catastrophe

644
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:26,439
Speaker 1: for everyone in the PC space end quote. He went

645
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:29,879
Speaker 1: on to say, and I quote, I think we'll lose

646
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 1: some of the top tier PC O E M s

647
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,360
Speaker 1: who will exit the market. I think margins will be

648
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 1: destroyed for a bunch of people. End quote. He was saying,

649
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: essentially that the platform wasn't as open as it should

650
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 1: be and that Microsoft was taking too much of a

651
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,479
Speaker 1: micromanagement approach as to what could and could not run

652
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:53,160
Speaker 1: on their platform, and this was a hint that Valve

653
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 1: was starting to look around at other options, including developing

654
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:59,760
Speaker 1: something that could run on a Lenox based machine, Lenox

655
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,920
Speaker 1: being totally different operating system, and it stirred rumors that

656
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 1: the company might be looking into creating a console like

657
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 1: device of its own. This would become the foundation for

658
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 1: the stories about the fabled Steam machine. At the end

659
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: of twenty twelve of the company announced that it in

660
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:17,360
Speaker 1: fact was working on a set top box dubbed the

661
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:21,800
Speaker 1: steam Box. Valve planned on creating a piece of hardware

662
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 1: in house that they called Bigfoot. This was the internal

663
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 1: name for the device, and that the purpose of this

664
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 1: was to be a model upon which other manufacturers could

665
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:36,000
Speaker 1: base their designs. So, in other words, Valve wanted to

666
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 1: make steam boxes a new type of hardware, not just

667
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 1: a single product. It's not like the Microsoft Xbox. It's

668
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 1: more like an offshoot of the PC itself. So they

669
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 1: would open this up so other manufacturers could make their

670
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:54,720
Speaker 1: own version of the steambox using the Steam operating system

671
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,400
Speaker 1: and some other basic parameters. That meant that you could purchase,

672
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 1: presumably a steambox from any number of different providers, each

673
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:05,319
Speaker 1: of whom would determine the design and components of the

674
00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 1: box pursuant to the various parameters that Valve had set up.

675
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:16,240
Speaker 1: Val revealed some of the Steam OS devices in along

676
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: with a special controller that resembled the game pads found

677
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:21,920
Speaker 1: with consoles like the Xbox, although it had a lot

678
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: of touchpad type stuff with it. I never got a

679
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: chance to actually play with one of those myself, but

680
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 1: I heard a lot of my friends criticize it for

681
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 1: the way they performed, and also the Steam controller was

682
00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:38,360
Speaker 1: one of those devices that underwent numerous changes throughout its development,

683
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: to the point where gamers were starting to get a

684
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: little frustrated with that story as well. Steam devices went

685
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 1: into beta testing in ten with the goal of releasing

686
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:51,040
Speaker 1: them as commercial hardware, and eventually Valve would push that

687
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 1: date back to November two thousand fifteen, and today you

688
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:58,839
Speaker 1: can go out and buy a Steam OS box from

689
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:01,240
Speaker 1: the few places that will have them. They just haven't

690
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:04,839
Speaker 1: sold very well, so a lot of manufacturers discontinued their

691
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:07,560
Speaker 1: Steam product lines as a result, and it might mean

692
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:10,719
Speaker 1: that you can't find one anywhere, So why didn't they

693
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:14,240
Speaker 1: take off? Well, they're probably a lot of different answers

694
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 1: to that question, but one of them maybe that gamers

695
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 1: tend to be drawn either to the consoles or to

696
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:24,359
Speaker 1: the PCs. In the extreme, they might own both, but

697
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: there don't appear to be very many who care for

698
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:31,360
Speaker 1: something that seems to straddle between the two different extremes.

699
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 1: In Valve launched a Steam app for smartphones, which gave

700
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 1: users the chance to interact on online forums or peruse

701
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:41,680
Speaker 1: the Steam Shop even when they were on the go,

702
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,359
Speaker 1: which meant, never again, what a player need to worry

703
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 1: about missing out on one of those Steam sales just

704
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 1: because they weren't away or they weren't near, Rather their

705
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:54,439
Speaker 1: gaming rig at home. Valve released a successor to their

706
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 1: Source game engine, called fittingly enough, Source two in two

707
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:01,440
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, and the first game to get the Source

708
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 1: to treatment was Dota Too. They updated Dota two to

709
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 1: the Source to engine. Steam has continued to evolve over

710
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 1: time and is now one of the primary stores for

711
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: PC games, including virtual reality games. It has also become

712
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: the tool of players when they want to send a

713
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 1: message to the video game industry. If a developer does

714
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:25,839
Speaker 1: something that displeases gamers. Sometimes they will organize and they

715
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 1: will head over to Steam and they will leave reactionary reviews,

716
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: negative ones. Typically for that developers games. This is called

717
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:37,720
Speaker 1: review bombing. It does not necessarily reflect how people feel

718
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:41,360
Speaker 1: about the specific game they're reviewing. That's kind of messed

719
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 1: up when you think about it. So here's an example.

720
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:48,400
Speaker 1: Some players felt that Valve abandoned development of Dota two.

721
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 1: And these are hardcore Dota two players that want more content,

722
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:56,320
Speaker 1: They want more development on that game, and they continue

723
00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:59,239
Speaker 1: to play Dota two, but they will go and leave

724
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:02,560
Speaker 1: negative reviews on Steam about Dota two to voice their

725
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 1: disappointment to Valve that the company is no longer actively

726
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:10,240
Speaker 1: seeming to support them. Now, those negative reviews don't indicate

727
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:12,800
Speaker 1: that the game itself is bad. In fact, the players

728
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 1: still love the game. The negative reviews are there because

729
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: they love the game so much they want more of

730
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 1: it and they're not getting it. But let's say you're

731
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 1: a new player. You're someone who's just now coming to

732
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 1: look at Dota two, and then you see all these

733
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:29,759
Speaker 1: negative reviews are there. You might be disinclined to get

734
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 1: it for yourself because you think oh, this must be

735
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: a bad game. Look at all the negative reviews. It

736
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:37,560
Speaker 1: becomes sort of a self defeating strategy for gamers, really,

737
00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:41,080
Speaker 1: because lower adoption rates of a game are not the

738
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:43,759
Speaker 1: best motivator for a company to go and throw some

739
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:47,880
Speaker 1: support behind that product. There's even more extreme examples than that.

740
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 1: In fact, here's a recent one, a story that continues

741
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: to unfold as I record this episode. The YouTube personality

742
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:59,240
Speaker 1: Beauty Pie, who has the largest following on YouTube, found

743
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 1: himself the tar to get of game developer Campo Santo's

744
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:06,759
Speaker 1: ire after the streamer had used a racial slur in

745
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 1: a live streamed gaming session. So Campo Santo's response was

746
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 1: to issue a Digital Millennium Copyright Act or d m

747
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:19,440
Speaker 1: C a takedown request of all of put Pies gameplay

748
00:43:19,560 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 1: videos that featured him playing one of their games, and

749
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:28,440
Speaker 1: YouTube complied. And that's a sizeable portion of Pauti Pies videos,

750
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 1: not all of them, obviously, he's done hundreds of videos,

751
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 1: but he was making money off of those videos and

752
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 1: now they're gone. A sizeable group of his audience responded

753
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 1: by flocking to Steam to give Compo Santo's title fire

754
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:50,319
Speaker 1: Watch a negative review. They skewed the score dramatically, so

755
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 1: they weren't actually feeling like Firewatch was a bad game.

756
00:43:55,000 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 1: They were expressing their disdain for the game developer or

757
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: issuing the d m C a takedown notice in response

758
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,319
Speaker 1: to this racial slur. It's all pretty ugly when you

759
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 1: get down to it. Valve has attempted to address this

760
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:12,279
Speaker 1: in a couple of ways, the most recent of which

761
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:15,879
Speaker 1: is to create a means of visualizing when a game

762
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 1: gets a dramatic number of extreme reviews. So this idea

763
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: being that you can see a visualization of here's the

764
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:25,400
Speaker 1: date where all these negative reviews piled in, and you

765
00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 1: can see that it is correlated with this other development

766
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 1: that happened and therefore may not have any connection to

767
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: the quality of the game itself. So presumably this will

768
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:40,719
Speaker 1: give gamers more information so that they can make a

769
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:43,799
Speaker 1: decision about buying a game and not feel like that

770
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:48,800
Speaker 1: decision was influenced by unfair reviews that don't actually reflect

771
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:51,680
Speaker 1: the quality of that game. However, there's some critics who

772
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 1: say this strategy really just prolongs and possibly enhances the

773
00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 1: effects of those negative reviews, and that it may do

774
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 1: more harm than good. But Valve may always go back

775
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:05,839
Speaker 1: and change this up again, tweak it again. In fact,

776
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:11,160
Speaker 1: they're constantly tweaking Steam to make it more effective, usable,

777
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:14,719
Speaker 1: and to have more features. Valve continues to have an

778
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 1: enormous impact on the PC games industry. Will we see

779
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: any more transformative titles emerged from the company, actual titles

780
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 1: developed by Valve and not just published or or sold

781
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: by Valve. Well that's hard to say, because everyone at Valve,

782
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: all thirty five of them or so, or pretty quiet

783
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,040
Speaker 1: about what they're working on. But there's no doubt the

784
00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 1: company will continue to be a major mover and shaker

785
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: in the PC gaming world moving forward. Well that's all

786
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:46,319
Speaker 1: I've got to say about the story of Valve in

787
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:49,440
Speaker 1: these three episodes. And again, the reason I decided to

788
00:45:49,440 --> 00:45:52,560
Speaker 1: break it out into that many is because so many

789
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:58,719
Speaker 1: of those elements spill out beyond Valve to affect the

790
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 1: gaming industry and general also just the general PC industry

791
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 1: in ways that are felt today well beyond video games.

792
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 1: So things like having the online store platform, the online forums,

793
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:18,160
Speaker 1: the community, having this issue of a community acting as

794
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:23,799
Speaker 1: a block vote against stuff because they feel that that

795
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 1: is their way to voice displeasure or their opinions. There

796
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:30,320
Speaker 1: are a lot of these issues that are plaguing various

797
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:33,399
Speaker 1: companies or or challenged to various companies that have nothing

798
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:35,319
Speaker 1: to do with video games. But Valve is a great

799
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:39,319
Speaker 1: example of how those play out. And it's just a

800
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:42,799
Speaker 1: fascinating story all on its own right. And I know

801
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:46,279
Speaker 1: there are plenty of people out there eagerly hoping that

802
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 1: someday they'll hear something about another Half Life game. Keep

803
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 1: holding out, hope, just don't hold your breath. If you

804
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 1: guys have any suggestions for future topics for tech Stuff,

805
00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:03,799
Speaker 1: whether it's a person or a company specific technology, let

806
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:06,520
Speaker 1: me know. Send me an email the addresses tech Stuff

807
00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, or you can drop

808
00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 1: me a line on any social media platform you like,

809
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:14,880
Speaker 1: as long as it's Twitter or Facebook. The handle of

810
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:18,840
Speaker 1: both of those is tech Stuff hs W. Remember I

811
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:23,360
Speaker 1: often will stream this show live on twitch dot tv

812
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:27,359
Speaker 1: slash tech Stuff. I record on Wednesdays and Fridays, so

813
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 1: just head over to twitch dot tv slash tech Stuff.

814
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 1: You'll see the recording schedule there. You can join me

815
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 1: for a live recording. I often will chat with the

816
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:38,799
Speaker 1: chat room answer questions. You get to see me mess up.

817
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:41,480
Speaker 1: It's a good old time for everybody, and now I'll

818
00:47:41,480 --> 00:47:49,759
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon for more on this

819
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Because it stop works dot

820
00:47:52,640 --> 00:48:00,360
Speaker 1: com eight