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Since Valve announced Steamworks,people have been wondering what the strategy is here. After all, it isa set of rather handy development tools that Valve is giving out toother developers free of charge. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Valve's marketing director Doug Lombardi revealed the somewhat simple and obvious reason: to get more people using Steam.
"What's in it for us? That's the big question that everybody's asking,it seems awfully altruistic... but there is no secret plan," Lombardiexplains. "If you're using Steamworks only in your retail product andyou don't even distribute on Steam, people want to use thecopy-protection stuff, the customer needs to sign up with Steam tounlock it."
Well, it's not a secret plan, but it is a plan.If the developer uses copy protection—and that will most likely beeveryone who uses Steamworks—players will have to make a Steam account."And then once they're in the game you can take over and all theskinning of the server browser and all that can be specific to yourgame, but that customer has made a Steam account—so somewhere down theline we can sell them the id Super Pack, or Portal 5, or whatever it is that comes down the line."
There is no such thing as a free lunch in this world; if you want touse all the feature of Steamworks, your customers will need to be onSteam... where Valve can then try to sell them other games via ads andspecial promotions. Not a bad deal for both parties, but Valve isn'tbeing as selfless as it at first seemed with this free pack ofmiddleware.
GamesIndustry.biz wrote:
Following the release of Steamworks recently, Valve's marketing director Doug Lombardi, speaking to GamesIndustry.biz,has explained the reasoning behind offering the tools to developers forfree - and that's in order to drive more users to the Steam platform.
"What's in it for us?" he said. "That's the big question thateverybody's asking, it seems awfully altruistic…but there is no secretplan.
"If you're using Steamworks only in your retail product and youdon't even distribute on Steam - people want to use the copy-protectionstuff - the customer needs to sign up with Steam to unlock it.
"And then once they're in the game you can take over and all theskinning of the server browser and all that can be specific to yourgame, but that customer has made a Steam account - so somewhere downthe line we can sell them the id Super Pack, or Portal 5, or whateverit is that comes down the line.
"That's what's in it for us - getting more people on Steam who can check it out, and broadening that group of players."
Lombardi also revealed that being able to support independentdevelopers via the Steam platform was one of his personal pleasures -Introversion's Darwinia was one title that benefited from such exposure.
"Don't get me wrong - I love the sales that we got off Call of Duty,but there's nothing altruistic about it - it's pure business, baby, andGod bless the guys from Infinity Ward, they made a fantastic game," hesaid.
"But being able to help those guys from the UK bust out on to aworldwide stage, win all these awards - from a personal sense that'smuch more rewarding."
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