Valve is still frustrated with console game development
But many of the Steam maker's console complaints seem outdated.
In the last console generation, Valve expanded on its PC focus with Xbox 360 and PS3 ports of hit games like The Orange Box, Portal 2, and the Left 4 Dead series. In a wide-ranging media roundtable this week, however, Valve's Gabe Newell said the consoles' "walled garden" isn't a place he's eager to revisit. Some of his complaints, though, seem a little outdated now that we're well into a new console generation.
Newell suggested that people he's worked with on the console side seemed a bit retrograde in their thinking on business models. "We get really frustrated working in walled gardens," he said, as reported by Eurogamer. "So you try to talk to someone who's doing product planning on a console about free-to-play games and they say, 'Oh, we're not sure free-to-play is a good idea' and you're like, 'The ship has left.'"
That console free-to-play resistance may have been truer in 2012, when Valve last ported a game to home consoles (Counter-Strike: GO). In the years since, though, both Sony and Microsoft seem much more willing to embrace full games that can be played without paying a cent. Popular free-to-play PC titles like World of Tanks, Hawken, and Smite are all doing well on both the PS4 and Xbox One. Both console makers have also invested in a few free-to-play exclusives in recent years: Gigantic and Happy Wars on the Xbox One and Planetside 2 and Let It Die on the PS4, to name some examples.
Newell said he also bristles at the red tape that gets in the way of releasing quick updates on consoles, as well as mobile platforms like iOS. "There have been cases where we've updated products five to six times in a day [on Steam]," he told Eurogamer. "When we did the original iOS of Steam App, right, we shipped it, we got a whole bunch of feedback and like the next day we're ready to do an update. We weren't able to get that update out for six months!
"I'm sure that other people are wildly successful in those environments, but sort of our DNA tend to not work well when someone is trying to insert a lot of process between us and our customers," he continued.
These kinds of complaints were very common all around console development in 2012. Back then, Fez developer Phil Fish voiced complaints about the high fees and long wait times for "recertification" of simple patches for console releases, especially on the Xbox 360. Those complaints were echoed by many other independent developers, some of whom described the console update process as "excruciating."
In the years since, though, there are signs Microsoft has taken steps to streamline the Xbox publishing process. Since 2013, the company has let developers self-publish on the console (rather than forcing them to use Microsoft as a middleman). Microsoft has also removed certification and title update fees, and the ID@Xbox program that replaced Xbox Live Arcade has taken steps to streamline that "excruciating" certification process.
Whatever the changes in the console environment in recent years, Newell's previous experience with non-PC platforms has obviously left a bad and lasting taste in his mouth. Then again, if we had direct access to tens of millions of potential customers through our own PC platform, we probably would be leery of the hassles associated with other platforms, too.
