Re: interesting interview with warren spector

"Ross Ridge" <rridge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

"Ross Ridge" <rridge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ironically this suggests that the online download model may not
actually benefit small developers in the long run. If they're forced
to sell their products through big online distributors like Valve in
order to get decent sales things may end up much the same. It may not
become any easier to convince someone to carry your game and online
distributors may demand just as big of a cut of the sales as publishers
and retailers do now.

Andrew wrote:
With Steam, the developer gets 50%. With a traditional publisher they
get something like about 10%.

If Valve and a few other companies like it, come to dominate online
download distribution the same way traditional publishers dominate

Vale do dominate online distribution : the market that there is anyway.

retail sales why wouldn't they demand as big as cut? If you're a small
developer and you have the choice of going alone and taking a large
piece of a very tiny pie or signing up with Steam and taking a small
piece of a huge pie, which would you choose?


All hypothetical since Andrews statistics Valve are not taking huge cuts
compared to traditional distribution methods.

Consider Apple iTunes, it dominates the online download market for
music, and as result Apple is the one calling the shots. The big music
publishers hate iTunes. They want Apple to charge more money for songs
so they can make more money, closer to what they make from retail
sales, but Apple has consistantly refused to do so. All the music

You think that the "per song" pricing is cheap? I dont.

publishers can do is refuse to let Apple sell their songs, but that's a
worse alternative. There's no where else they can sell their songs
that will get them access to anywhere near the same number of customers
that iTunes does.

Its all the great equation of a market model.


Right now Valve doesn't have that big of pie to share with developers,
and so has to offer a relatively big peice of it. But if the online
download market for games really takes off and Steam comes to dominate
the market like iTunes or even only like the big traditional game
publishers, then it may be in postion only offer a small piece of the
pie and have developers eager to take it. The end result may be that
the online download sales model may not actually help small
developers.

In which case they can revert to traditional methods : nothing is for
free.



Ross Ridge



--
Don't jostle the chosen one.
.

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