OnLive/Steam Founders Slam Each Other
Gabe Newell and Steve Perlman talk smack in a recent Forbes article.
Forbes recently published an article highlighting Valve co-founder Gabe Newell and the overall success of Steam. The three-page story covered all the aspects, from the launch of Half-Life and Valve Software to Newell's double cornea transplants to Steam's current worth as an online digital distribution platform.
However the article also incorporated a few jabs from rivals like OnLive and Gaikai. David Perry, chief executive of the latter company, called Steam the "iTunes of the game industry." Perry warned that the service could easily follow Apple's footsteps and become a monopoly in the digital gaming sector.
This isn't the first time "monopoly" has been used to describe Valve's Steam platform. November 2010 brought reports that major retailers were threatening to ban Steam-integrated games from their shelves due to fears that Steam has a monopoly on the download market.
The fear is certainly understandable: a customer installs the game, installs Steam, and discovers other great digital titles that can be purchased, downloaded, and stored in the cloud without having to leave the house. This also keeps potential customers from purchasing the same digital games from distribution platforms offered by the major retailers.
"If we have a digital service, then I don't want to start selling a rival in-store," said one retailer executive.
Forbes even reports that Steam controls 50 to 70-percent of the $4 billion market for digital PC games. But one rival plans to take a chunk of that digital pie by reaching into 10 million homes by the end of the year and offering cloud-based gaming. To use the OnLive service, PC gamers won't need to buy expensive rigs or shell out $400 for one specific graphics card to play the latest titles. They can even purchase a $99 standalone OnLive "console" and hook it up straight to the TV, bypassing the PC altogether.
Gabe Newell seemingly recognized OnLive's achievements since its launch in July 2010, but said the distribution method is inefficient and expensive. OnLive Chief Executive Steve Perlman disagreed, indicating that the cost of streaming a game to customers averaged about 3 cents per gigabyte, similar to what Netflix shells out for streaming movies and TV content. He then said Valve's Steam was "limited to people who have a high-performance computer."
For some titles, that may be true. Magicka is a good example: while the game doesn't exactly require high-end PC's to run at a decent framerate, it's currently only compatible with Nvidia and AMD GPUs, leaving out gamers using Intel's integrated graphics. If the game ever lands on the OnLive service, hardware limitations would be eliminated. The big problem OnLive currently faces is its lack of content, offering around 40 titles including Unreal Tournament 3, Borderlands, and Metro 2033.
Currently Steam has around 30 million customers. The number of OnLive customers is unknown, but the service will be heading to tablets, smartphones and Internet-capable TVs soon.
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valve is a monopoly...but as long as the pricing isn't higher than retail and the service is good. who cares?
You know what, good for Steam to catering to the PC gaming market. I'm sorry if we all don't want to play Sims3 or WOW. There are more games out there, and just cause you're suckin' hind tit doesn't justify bitching since you're weaker than your adversary. If you're using integrated graphics.. I don't think you're worrying too much about where to get the latest and greatest games.
ill stay with my steam account. they are just saying that because someine is better than the are and have an specific target. onlive is not for hardcore gamers.
Steam is a great service, and On-Live won't be stealing any of there profits. I like what On-Live is doing but, theres a yes and a BIG fat No in my head. Give or take depends on the type of gamer. A poor gamer might take On-Live but a real gamer might not. Also what if ur friend is on Xbox does ur game on On-live connect with some of them, or PS3.. PC? I doubt it! So big No on On-live for me unless all my friends jump on as well, but i doubt they will.. The controller is a joke.
So if Steam is a monopoly that's bad but if OnLive or Gaikai (neither of whom can offer the resolution and response time of a local PC) become as big as Steam or bigger that's good? I love it when CEO's scream about monopoly and fairness when they are trying to become the very thing they are trying to destroy.
i would not use OnLive as my main gaming device because the clarity is not good enough, you can't compare a compressed video stream with a normal pc game, which, even at the same resolution looks 10 times better.
Funny thing is, Steam can't be a monopoly, because there's Games for Windows and the same dumb people making those statements are also digital games distribution services. So it's a blind shot at some lawyer buffet who can milk money out of Steam and make them less profitable so THEY get more people. Cheap tactics are cheap alright.
Besides, like stated above, we can't actually tell if it is a monopoly, cause it doesn't look like one at first hand: lot's of offers, cheap/store priced games and friggin' sweet deals every F'ing week. If that's a monopoly, then they aren't so bad when in the right hands. Just like Monarchies and Dictatorships; sometimes, with the right people, they're actually good.
Funny to say the least, really.
Cheers!
i've been using steam since first release of Half-life 2
keep the deal liek that coming and i'll be thier customer for life 
been loving it ever since, some of their steam sale weekends and thier bundles make for some good cheap gaming on titles i wasn't willing to pay full price for... take bioskock.. seemed cool, borrowed it from a friend who bought it for xbox 360... when it went on steam sale for 15 bucks one day though i was like hey good game for 15 bucks i'll take it
Nothing like "friendly" competition!
onlive ... cloud ... NO THANKS!
I'll stick with my Steam account
meanwhile, I had beans, so time to make a gas cloud.
The only thing missing at Steam is selling my games to other people :-) Otherwise, great service and prices so far.
People are ignorant. Nobody even knows the true definition of monopoly now. Unless steam is attempting to buy out all the game developers that use it or is attempting to buy out all the other services such as On-Live, GFWL, direct2drive, etc. Then it cannot be a monoply.
So if Steam is a monopoly that's bad but if OnLive or Gaikai (neither of whom can offer the resolution and response time of a local PC) become as big as Steam or bigger that's good? I love it when CEO's scream about monopoly and fairness when they are trying to become the very thing they are trying to destroy.
It's only a monopoly if it's the other company doing it
Other online game download services like Impluse (needed for Stardock products) sells many of the games that Steam does excpet for the Valve games. I use Steam all the time for the most part like it. I'm not happy having to always needing to be able to contact the Steam content servers to be able to play some games. Server availablity has been an issue from time to time.
Point being there are other companies doing this, but is is a requirement for Valve games.
awwww On-live wants the piece of that pie. He is just talking smack to try to convince users to switch to a streaming method. Secondly You can't compare games with netflix or streamed tv shows or movies service. Playing a game and watching is two different things.
Secondly You need to BE CONNECTED AT ALL TIMES. smartphones haha get real when the carrier's network sucks. And if you lucky might be able to have good signal strength for just a minute and its all crappy all over again.
The only thing onlive will become is another option NOT A REPLACEMENT. He also forgot to mentioned about console gaming. You won't see metal gear or Killzone series on onlive ever!.
Only thing I enjoyed from this article is the smack talking.
"gamers using Intel's integrated graphics"
Oxymoron much?
Seriously, if someone wants to play PC games, $600 will get them a perfectly good rig to play everything out there. If they think they are "gamers" and they buy something with integrated video, they don't deserve the savings of Steam! Long live Steam!!!!!
"Gabe Newell seemingly recognized OnLive's achievements since its launch in July 2010, but said the distribution method is inefficient and expensive."
So is this article an OnLive advertisement? I have no problem with Steam either. I actually rather have a CD/DVD all together, go ahead, call me old fashioned but hey, to each their own.
"Gabe Newell seemingly recognized OnLive's achievements since its launch in July 2010, but said the distribution method is inefficient and expensive."So is this article an OnLive advertisement? I have no problem with Steam either. I actually rather have a CD/DVD all together, go ahead, call me old fashioned but hey, to each their own.
I agree, I built a budget rig for about $700. I think Steam is great adn nothing like iTunes.
Steam is not a monopoly, Impulse by Stardock exists
You don't need High-end Hardware to get decent framerates in new titles, since the game devs wan't their titles playable on Consoles.
valve is a monopoly...but as long as the pricing isn't higher than retail and the service is good. who cares?
We need standards and as long as those making them are elitists im all for it. Exactly like Microsoft Windows. I want MS to keep 80%+ of the market.
Long live Steam, death to anything that will screw the discreet GPU market!
They are not gamers.
Onlive has some extreme disadvantages distance from the hosted servers greatly impact the latency at which the games are played on the remote pc, to the point it can be impossible I take this from experience. The service is lock at 720p running on dual core systems with nvidia 9800 graphic cards, in beta you could see and change the graphic settings of the system most games are locked to middle settings. The two services cater to different people but one has limits due to the provider one is limited by you.
I would assume Steam would have the lions share since Valve was the first to go mainstream with PC gaming DL service! Good for Valve for being innovators and now have to fend off would be competition.
Though competition typically favors the consumer...see how it goes!
on another some what related topic I would find it interesting to see how ISPs will respond to On-Live's streaming game service since they are already QQ'ing about Netflix taking up tons of bandwidth?!?
As long as steam gives me good offers on games, I don't care if it is a monopoly. Although, it does seem that steam is to digital PC games what Walmart is to retail, at least in terms of size.
They are not gamers.
Agreed. Lower your settings, buy a console, or stop playing games altogether.
Intel "graphics" are simply not.
Mid Week Madness, Weekend Deals, Summer and Christmas Specials ,GTA4 and Just Cause 2 for $5 each....., STEAM FTW
It'd really be nice if CEOs dropped the schoolyard attitude and got back to actually trying to run their companies.
Steam and OnLive really aren't even directly competing. They're in the same industry but offer two different products for two different kinds of people. Steam customers are not OnLive customers due to lag/graphics and OnLive customers won't be Steam customers due to hardware restrictions.
OnLive is just as much a "monopoly" as Steam is, because they both offer a type of product that no one else is offering with their success rate. Neither really have that firm a stranglehold on those industries. The cloud gaming arena is still wide open, OnLive just put their foot in first. A competitor with better capabilities could easily overtake their sales. Steam's real advantage is that they have plenty of high profile devs supporting them. Steam's sale prices are great, but can you say the same for the "normal" prices? When I buy a game from Gamestop, I'm also paying for the disc, packaging, manual, employees and business expenses. Steam has business expenses of their own, but should a digital-only copy from them cost the same as a packaged retail copy? I think if another business could get PC devs behind them like they back Steam, they could offer cheaper base prices and give Steam some competition.
The real monopoly here is the business model that both services compete against, brick and mortar stores. Buying all the competition out and using their names as puppets, then fixing all your prices to lower the buyback rates of used products, that's a real monopoly. Gamestop will not be missed.
onlive's new concept isn't competing with valve... pc gamers want a pc to game on, not a $100 box that streams games... onlive will bring pc gaming to the masses ie XBLIVE and PSN, pc gaming is done on a pc not a streaming box.
I'm building my new gaming rig 10 years later. 1st build was amd socket A with a thoroughbred core and a geforce ti4200, AMD sucks now, so i bought a i72600k and a gtx460. Intel FTW.
You know what, good for Steam to catering to the PC gaming market. I'm sorry if we all don't want to play Sims3 or WOW.
They also have the Sims 3 on Steam now. Plus, my brother can play L4D2 on his Macbook Pro and we all know that that's not exaclty a high-end machine.