VALVE CORPORATION: EXPLORATION INTO THE COMPANY - PART 3 - STEAM

[1] STEAM (2003) Steam's logo [Online Image] Available from: http://the-ripple.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Steam-Logo.png [Accessed 26/04/2014]

     Steam is currently the most popular digital distribution site, having over 75 million[2] registered users as of January 2014 with the daily number of users online, fluctuating between 3.5 Million to over 6 Million users[3]. The service is known for a large range of games, it’s mod workshop where the community help to provide mods to improve the game, friend features allowing for easy access into matches, insane sales with amazing offers, early access allowing developer to fund their game while in development and gaming statics allowing us to see what are currently the most popular games and how many people are playing them.

    In 2001, Gabe Newell left the development of Half-Life 2 to work on Steam[4]. It’s theorised that some of services’s initial foundations were built on the concepts originally conceived in the development of Prospero[5]; if you didn't read my first blog into the Exploration of the Valve Corporation where I spoke about this concept, you can find it here, but for this post I’ll be repeating information about it. 

The Two Bots, One Wrench Experiment
[6] VALVE (2008) Two robots from the Two Bots, One wrench experiment [Online Image] http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110522173627/half-life/en/images/e/ed/Two_bots_urine_bottle.jpg [Accessed 26/04/2014]

    The theory that some of Steam’s concept came from the Prospero project, is because Valve is known to reuse concepts from previous works, such as the Two Bots, One Wrench directed design experiment (COINED BY GABE NEWALL)[7]. The results of this experiment was used in Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead. The visual aspects of this excise was implemented into Portal 2, where the A.I. results, ended up being scripted into Left 4 Dead. The goal of the technology demo was to further story telling, by getting the A.I. to react to the player’s actions, unscripted[8][9][10].
    The original concept of Prospero involved having it distributed online. Steam’s main function now was more than likely, an natural evolution of this element. With distribution the main element, a friend list would be the next course of action, and then the ability to get into matches with them. Valve also originally had issues with updating their online games, causing many users to be disconnected for a long periods of time. To get around this, the service would allow games to update automatically and implement a stronger anti-piracy and anti cheat measurement[11]. 

    Steam was announced in March 2002 at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California. It was presented as a distribution network, with the code name being Grid and Gazelle.
    After a successful beta with over 75,000 testers[12], the service was launched to the public on September 12th 2003, getting ready for the release of Half-Life 2. The service before the release of this game, was only really useful for playing mods such as Counter-Strike or Day of Defeat[13]. When Half-Life 2 was released, Steam was mandatory to play the game, acting much like a DRM (Digital rights management) and Anti-Piracy. Though when some players logged on to play the PC version of the game, Steam’s servers crashed unable to cope with the flood of launch day users. This resulted in large delays and meant that some players couldn't even play the game, let alone install the game they’d been waiting five years for. One user even complained of not being able to log into his Steam accounts as it was just too busy[14].

Steam's Front Page in 2007
[15] STEAM (2007) Steam's Front Page in 2007 [Online] Valve. Available from: http://www.steampowered.com/v/static_web.php [Accessed 26/04/14]

    This is a long way from Steam now, being able to cope with millions of players online constantly, delivering updates for games on a daily basis, and being able to keep gamers connected in large multiplayer battles. Games from countless developers and publishers now line Steam’s shelves. Different genres, single or multiplayer, free-to-play or just buying the game itself. Steam will have games for you. But it wasn't like this, it took two years from it’s initial full release for third party games to reach Steam, with the first group of games being from the publisher Strategy First[16].
   
    As the popularity of Steam grew, it brought with it a huge community. We now get to use amazing free mods which are virus free, furthering our gaming experience and having reviews from the community, letting other’s warn us about their bad purchases.
    Tagging was added to Steam on the 12th of February 2014. The idea of tagging came across as Valve felt that the community could curate Steam better than they could. These tags could be used to recommend other games you might liked based on the games you have played recently[17]. The results of leaving people to create tags? Hilarity.

The tags on Final Fantasy VII when the tagging was first implemented.
[18] STEAM (2014) Tagging system before the report system was introduced [Online Image] Available from: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--KPtP912V--/c_fit,fl_progressive,w_636/19fl35j0kkp5hpng.png [Accessed 26/04/2014]

    ‘Nanomachines, son’, ‘Procedural Death Labyrinth’, ‘Git Gud or Die Tryin’’, ‘Walking Simulator’ and ‘Hats’(One of my personal favourites) are a some of my favourite tags which sprung up within hours of this implementation. But some tags, were just outright abusive. ‘Diva Dev’(Relating to the incident involving Phil Fish leaving the Industry) and ‘Not a Game’ (On Dear Esther) were some of the tags that ended up warranting a report system, implemented two days later[19][20]. Most of the abusive and nonsensical tags were removed from Steam, even taking the arguably helpful, ‘Nanomachines, son’ (This meant that the main character was a mixture of a human and a robot) away. But this hasn’t been the only incident that has happened this year.
    There’s currently a debacle occurring with Steam’s front page, where games from years ago are being put as brand new releases. Although these old games are new releases to Steam, there should be an option where you can only see the games that are brand new and haven’t been released in the past. The issue with quality control with the release dates actually go back to as far as 2010 as I've found, where the original Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Sega Mega Drive or Sega Genesis, was released on June 23 1991[21], while Steam says 26 of October 2010 was it’s release date[22].
    But this hasn't been the worse part, recently the quality control of Steam has fallen drastically, with games that could be considered shovel ware showing up on the front page, but some of the worse offenders has been publishers, selling other publishers games via Steam. This is odd, as to get your game on Steam in the past you had to show you we’re highly reputed[23]. This has lead to the Steam community complaining about this issue[24] as well as many known figures on the internet talking about this issue, such as John ‘Totalbiscuit’ Baine and Jim Sterling[25], a writer for Destructoid and the Escapist Magazine. Developers themselves have spoken up about this flooding of Old games onto Steam. Mel Kirk of Zen Studios spoke to Totalbiscuit about these issues, saying:

 “ Your item text ... Being on the front of the new release list or any type of visibility on the store front is extremely valuable, and yes, we always see a lift in sales when we are in this position. There is no doubt you will see better sales when you are in these key positions.”

Steam's Front page on March 19th 2013
[26] STEAM (2013) Steam's front page as of March 19th 2013 [Online Image] Available from: http://web.archive.org/web/20130319072119/http://store.steampowered.com/ [Accessed 26/04/2014]

    Steam is still an obvious role model for Digital Distribution Service. Having a layout which shows us up coming games, games currently being released, their insane sales, featured games, top sellers, games under a certain price and Early Access games, all presented in a orderly fashion. But back when it was difficult to get on Steam was the best time. It showed that quality control was there and that the consumer was protected to a certain point, especially with the review system, the quality assurance was there and as a consumer, I felt protected. Now, I have to go back to doing heavy research on a game, just so I'm not scammed out of money by the publisher and left with a game I can barely play.
    But with this going on, I'm not going to stop using Steam. Steam has so much right, the community loves and respects it, and the reason we complain about this massive flood is because we don’t want our favourite thing to be ruined. Fearing it will turn into a dumping ground of shovel ware, and losing all prestige it had before for games.

Bibliography

[1] - STEAM (2003) Steam's logo [Online Image] Available from: http://the-ripple.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Steam-Logo.png [Accessed 26/04/2014]

[2] - CONDITT. J (2014) Steam has 75 million active accounts [Online] JOUSTIQ. Available from: http://www.joystiq.com/2014/01/15/steam-has-75-million-active-users-valve-announces-at-dev-days/ [Accessed 26/04/2014]
[3] - STEAM (2014) Steam's user stats [Online] VALVE. Available from: http://store.steampowered.com/stats/?snr=1_steam_4__110 [Accessed 26/04/2014]

[4] - ANONYMOUS (2006) Development of Half-life 2 [Online] HALF-LIFE WIKI. Available from: http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Development_of_Half-Life_2 [Accessed 26/04/2014]

[5] - HODGSON, D. (2004) Anomalous Materials. In: HODGSON, D. et al. Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar - A Behind the Scenes Look: Prima's Official Insider's Guide. Roseville: Prima Games. pp. 9 - 11

[6] - VALVE (2008) Two robots from the Two Bots, One wrench experiment [Online Image] http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110522173627/half-life/en/images/e/ed/Two_bots_urine_bottle.jpg [Accessed 26/04/2014]

 [7] - ANONYMOUS (2006) Directed Design Experiments [Online] HALF-LIFE WIKI. Available from: http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Directed_Design_Experiments [Accessed 26/04/2014]

[8] - COMBINE OVERWIKI (2011) Two Bots, One Wrench Video #1: Bathrooms and Urine [Online video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUEVA1BZfuE&hd=1 [Accessed 26/04/2014]

[9] - COMBINE OVERWIKI (2011) Two Bots, One Wrench Video #2: Danger: Crane Over Head, Shabby Crate and Random Items [Online video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD9g8Fu9vt4&hd=1 [Accessed 26/04/2014]

[10] - COMBINE OVERWIKI (2011) Two Bots, One Wrench Video #3: Urine and Leprechaun [Online video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4cs56s0e-Q&hd=1 Accessed 26/04/2014]

[11] - LEE. J (2008) The Last of Independents? [Online] GAMESINDUSTRY. Available from: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/the-last-of-the-independents- [Accessed 26/04/2014]

[12] - WALKER. T (2002) GDC 2002: Valve unveils Steam [Online] GAMESPOT. Available from: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gdc-2002-valve-unveils-steam/1100-2857298/ [Accessed 26/04/2014]

[13] - PLUNKETT. L (2013) Steam is 10 Today. Remember When It Sucked? [Online] KOTAKU. Available from: http://kotaku.com/steam-is-10-today-remember-when-it-sucked-1297594444 [Accessed 26/04/14]

[14] - http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33791921

[15] - STEAM (2007) Steam's Front Page in 2007 [Online] Valve. Available from: http://www.steampowered.com/v/static_web.php [Accessed 26/04/14]

[16] - STRATEGY FIRST (2005) Strategy First to Deliver Multiple Titles On-line via Steam. [Online] Available from: http://www.strategyfirst.com/press/1924-strategy-first-to-deliver-multiple-titles-on-line-via-steam.html [Accessed 26/04/13]

[17] - STEAM (2014) Tagging Overview [Online] Valve. Available from: http://store.steampowered.com/tag [Accessed 26/04/14]

[18] -  STEAM (2014) Tagging system before the report system was introduced [Online Image] Available from: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--KPtP912V--/c_fit,fl_progressive,w_636/19fl35j0kkp5hpng.png [Accessed 26/04/2014]

[19] - HERNANDEZ. P (2014) The First Day of Steam Tags Is Both Funny and Sad. [Online] Kotaku http://kotaku.com/the-first-day-of-steam-tags-will-make-you-laugh-and-cr-1522262945 [Accessed 26/04/14]

[20] - JASKO. J (2014} 10 Steam Tags that Proved This is a Bad Idea. [Online] GAMEZEBO Available from: http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2014/02/13/10-steam-tags-prove-bad-idea [Accessed 26/04/14]

[21] - DOBSON. J (2006) Sonic the Hedgehog Celebrates 15th Anniversary. [Online] GAMASUTRA Available from: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9832 [Accessed 26/04/14]

[22] - http://store.steampowered.com/app/71113/?snr=1_7_7_151_150_1

[23] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLNh5HPbQPo  

[24] - http://steamcommunity.com/app/281260/discussions/0/558750985835487258/?insideModal=1

[25] - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/8753-Steam-Needs-Quality-Control

[26] - STEAM (2013) Steam's front page as of March 19th 2013 [Online Image] Available from: http://web.archive.org/web/20130319072119/http://store.steampowered.com/ [Accessed 26/04/2014]