Steam is a huge success, and it's arguably the leading digital distribution platform for gamers on the PC. But has the growth of Steam's business led to a slowdown in Valve's own games development? Is the so-called "Valve Time" actually a symptom of Steam's hogging Valve's resources? That's the argument that Stardock's Brad Wardell made to IndustryGamers this week.
Stardock just sold off its Steam competitor Impulse to retailer GameStop, and Wardell said the decision was really quite simple. While Impulse was a huge revenue driver for the company as a whole, it required many of Stardock's top people to work on constant improvements, thereby preventing more progress on actual games development.
"Yeah, we could have become a retailer and tried to compete in that space long-term, but there were two possibilities. One is that we'd lose out and become a permanent minor player – Impulse relative to Steam today I would argue is a minor player. Or two, we'd be successful and we're basically just a 600-person retail digital distribution company where three-quarters of the staff are sales people and account managers. And when the winning scenario is not what your objective in life is, then it's time to re-evaluate what you want to do," he explained.
Wardell proceeded to make direct comparisons to Valve and Steam, noting that Stardock is actually pretty similar.
"Even though Valve is in Seattle, where you can get developers everywhere, [Steam's] had an effect on their own development schedule. There's not been a new Half-Life in a long time; a lot of people have complained about that. They've had their own challenges getting new titles out the door, and a big part of that I'm sure is the same problems we've had. When one of your groups is so ridiculously profitable, every business instinct you have is to throw all your best people at it, because that's what's making the money. That's just sound business. At the end of the day, again you have decide if that's what you want to do.
"Steam and Valve, internally speaking, of the companies out there I would say we're the most similar. Obviously they're bigger and far more successful than our games unit is, but culturally they're pretty similar. If you were to look at a timeline of games developed in-house by Valve – not developed externally and then acquired – and you look at before Steam and after Steam, it's definitely had an effect. I don't argue that that's a good thing or bad thing, but I do know the effect that's had on us, where I've had to put some of my top developers over the years onto Impulse to make sure it was getting better and better."
It's an interesting dilemma for a developer to be in. Most game developers don't look to get into this industry with the idea of running a retail portal for digital distribution.
Wardell also responded to harsh criticism of Impulse by GamersGate. Read that story here.
8 Comments
April 13, 2011
You mean like the Amazing game Elemental? BAHAHAHA, Please Brad. Go sleep on your pile of money that you got from selling that peice of shit Impulse. You have no clue what you're talking about.
April 13, 2011
pretty great! except for how it is a load of utter crap, completely refuted by the fact that portal 2 is about to drop off the end of the belt in a few days. the hubris of brad wardell trying to portray impulse and stardock as equal to steam and valve is the funniest part of this article.
April 13, 2011
"And when the winning scenario is not what your objective in life is, then it's time to re-evaluate what you want to do"
That, or it's time to spin off the business into a separate unit run by people you poached form Steam, while maintaining your [majority] ownership. At least that's what I would have done!
"It required many of Stardock's top people to work on constant improvements" ... in the few years of using Impulse, I can't really say I've seen any noticeable improvements. At least nothing compared to Steam's improvements.
April 13, 2011
Valve is a real game company. Steam is a real digital distribution service.
Stardock is basically *the* reason for software like the decrapifier. Their products are horrible. Impulse sucks just like everything else they make.
LOL
April 13, 2011
Stardock is probably not doing well financially. Why else would they just sell of their "most profitable" product. They've had multiple poor releases and their other horrible software can't be doing well either.
April 13, 2011
There are lots of people who work at Valve who do more than tech stuff. If Steam held up a new Half Life game, it's because the revenue from Steam mean that Valve never had to worry about rushing to the next game in their biggest franchise, letting them concentrate on whatever they wanted. Besides, it was several years between the first two Half-life games and there was no Steam during that time.
April 13, 2011
I played a game of basketball once, if you guys ever need someone's opinion on how to improve the Lakers give me a call.
In all seriousness, the best move Brad ever made was constantly talk to the press and compare himself to Steam becuase it seemed to give people the impression they are somehow in the same league.
April 14, 2011
Or you know, here's a crazy thought, you hire people who are dedicated to working on the distribution client and people who are dedicated to working on games and two don't steal organic resources from one another. Because, you know, there are companies out there that somehow manage to work on multiple different products at the same time.
I guess that was too crazy of an idea for Brad to handle though and there was simply NO alternative other than to sell of Impulse, which I'm sure conveniently netted him a nice bundle o' money.
Dude needs to stop assuming that the way he ran his business is the way everyone else does...