The Top 10 Game Industry Disasters of 2013
08. Taking the Piss on Gamers: Valve OS
If you are new to the games scene you might be shocked to learn that Valve is actually a game publisher! Seriously!
Well, they were -- now they are officially a video game development and digital distribution company -- so still a game company but one that also has its own digital distribution system. Cool that.
So we won't hold it against you if you know, you were thinking that 2013 might be the year that Valve made a big announcement -- like a new Half Life title, or God help us a new Counterstrike? Reinstating The Crossing even if Arkane would not be doing it?
Instead they announced a new OS. You read that correctly -- Valve announced that it was launching Steam OS, which is now the backbone of the newest gaming platform out there -- the Steambox.Now don't take this wrong -- we like the idea of a Steambox. After all what it is, in a nutshell, is a PC that hooks to your TV and that allows you to play your catalog of games from Valve's Steam Service, and what could possibly be wrong with that?
Well, when you make noise that you are going to make an important announcement -- and you are a game developer -- and you keep dropping hints of an important announcement -- and the gamer community that is your fan base manages to convince itself that the important announcement will be oh, we don't know, Half Life 3 -- and then you announce you are launching a new OS?
Can you say buzzkill?
DRM should be a crime. Publishers need to realize that ownership is what capitalism is all about. People move, have friends, share with their friends, and PC's and consoles die. Hard drives crash. No one should be punished for having to deal with an already horrible situation, ie: catastrophic HD failure.
DRM also creates more piracy that it stops.
I personally was sad to hear about the loss of THQ.
But thankful that the Warhammer franchise was bought over. For all of their terrible games, their Dawn of War and Space Marine IPs were solid, fantastic games!
Will Sims freeplay be a contender for 2014 given the uproar of their new update? Should be its been bsit and switch. A real time game where sims live 42 days! Disgraceful.
"The fact that the vast majority of the content that was being targeted legally qualifies as fair use under the current interpretation of the law considered"
That's where a lot of people have a misunderstanding about Fair Use. Their vids might be seen as Fair Use but ONLY a court of law can make that decision no one else can. Also Youtube isn't at fault here, they are doing only what the law says. If someone files a copyright claim against a vid Youtube has to take it down or they may face legal action from the content owner.
Youtube has been sued multiple times by companies and other people over copyright infringement. Youtube was actually going to shut down do to all the legal troubles until Google bought them.
I took a gamecube to Iraq as well. Eternal Darkness was the kind of thing that made war seem not so bad.
Considering the Steam OS, I personally think that was a very big announcement from Valve and as you can see, lots of game developers thought the same.
Linux is going to be the future, like it or not.
Great list. On a positive note for us non multiplayers The Last of Us single handedly saved the single player game 2013.
Who cares about THQ. In the long run something else will fill the void. And the Xbox one is hardly a failure as they are still selling strong and making microsoft money. They told us before that it will be a gaming system AND a multimedia system. People just need to understand that.