Recommendation: If the smaller GoldSrc games are being ported (Ricochet, Deathmatch Classic, TFC) release them free to play

[berd]

Glancing at the more or less vacant server lists of these niche GoldSrc titles, I thought to myself, "Valve might as well release these for free as their communities are practically dead and I can't imagine they're profitable anymore." Then I realized that that wasn't such a bad idea in and of itself. In fact, given the advent of the recent GoldSrc SDL port, it actually sounded kind of cool.

So, how about it? This is of course, assuming that the titles are going to be ported to begin with... or not. Releasing the titles f2p either way would work too. I guess the timing just felt appropriate lol.

[matt]

Why would they release those for free when there is still a buck or two to make out of them? O_o Valve is not charity... I think...

[berd]

If we were talking about basically any other company, I'd agree with you, but Valve seems to have an affinity for things like this. As far as I know it dates back to HL2:DM (Remember when Valve basically gave you the game for simply having a graphics card?) ...in more recent times, its been TF2, Dota 2 (though admittedly these two have microtransactions) Portal, Alien Swarm, and basically all Half Life 2 based mods lol.

[matt]

Half Life 2 mods are not made by Valve, so they don't care if it's free :P
TF2 and Dota 2 are not free games, both have microtransaction like you've mentioned. Alien Swarm and Portal were promo games for Mac release, maybe Apple has paid for that, since there is no sight of that kind of promo here, in Steam for Linux so far, but time will tell. Be patient! :)

[berd]

Well, you see, what I was referring to is that in the past you needed to buy basically any Source engine game before you could play any mods. Valve took that away and basically made any standalone mod therein a free standalone game. That's something they could still make money off of if they wanted to, and at that considerably more money than they're making with these old GoldSrc games that nobody plays. Not only that, but they basically made all of the Source engine tools completely free to use for everything short of commercial development. Also, Alien Swarm was always completely free and there was no promo that went with it. :p Its not even on Mac. I see what you're getting at though.

Here's all I'm saying. Its more or less obvious at this point that Valve is a company that's full of goodwill. Even in Steam Greenlight they allow submitting games that are completely free to play with no strings attached... Valve doesn't directly benefit from this. They want their community to be able to make Steam as enjoyable as possible for themselves... this in turn also returns with business related benefits of respect, trust, and loyallty from the userbase. Valve basically has two choices at the moment: Let these dead games completely dry out or revitalitize them even if only temporarily (Read: Release them for free). The latter tends to have some pretty interesting results... and given the recent porting of GoldSrc games, the timing might make the results even more interesting.

Now this might sound like a weird company to bring up in the face of Valve, but take a look at what EA did with the Command & Conquer series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Red_Alert#Freeware_release
The community's response to this was particularly interesting in that it lead to this http://cncnet.org/ . Right here, we see Red Alert 1, a game over 1.5 decades old having a community that at time of writing has 114 online and in game (or at least in game lobby). What happens to these GoldSrc games may or may not be so dramatic, but the main point I'm trying to make is why not? What down sides are there to doing this? I mean for the porting, there's the effort involved with it, but even if they don't port it, why not just release it for free? Valve have shown in the past that they don't make a big deal out of pocket change (or bandwidth for that matter) and I can't imagine the sales for these games are any more than just that.

[matt]

ultama121 eredeti hozzászólása:

Well, you see, what I was referring to is that in the past you needed to buy basically any Source engine game before you could play any mods. Valve took that away and basically made any standalone mod therein a free standalone game. That's something they could still make money off of if they wanted to, and at that considerably more money than they're making with these old GoldSrc games that nobody plays. Not only that, but they basically made all of the Source engine tools completely free to use for everything short of commercial development. Also, Alien Swarm was always completely free and there was no promo that went with it. :p Its not even on Mac. I see what you're getting at though.

You right about Alien Swarm, seems I got confused. Tho Portal was part of the promo :P
Anyway, You can't play Source Engine mods without one of the Valve games. Tho you can use TF2 SDK and since TF2 is f2p, it would be free game. Everything else you have to pay for (CS:S, HL2 etc).

[johndrinkwater]

There’s a sale on at the moment, why not buy extra HL keys and give them out to others in the Linux community… ;)

[berd]

My robin hood fund is somewhat strained at the moment. :> That being said, I probably shouldn't leave this sale empty handed...

[&t]

This is a very interesting possibility. I could see them doing it similar to the way ID does things: release the source code for the game engine (and let's admit it, goldsrc is just a hacked-up Quake) but keep the art assets. That way they can still make some dosh and they can ALSO give the hackers out there a little love.

[Dusk of Oolacile]

tinkerttoy eredeti hozzászólása:

This is a very interesting possibility. I could see them doing it similar to the way ID does things: release the source code for the game engine (and let's admit it, goldsrc is just a hacked-up Quake) but keep the art assets. That way they can still make some dosh and they can ALSO give the hackers out there a little love.

Id had to rewrite parts of the source code for D3 before releasing it. They probably did it for other games as well. They could, as they had time. They only release 1 game every few years, have no digital distribution system, have no hats etc. Valve has no time to rewrite anything. They don't even have time to make HL2EP2 or HL3. Working on the source of their old games for them is far from being possible.