Gabe Newell: Valve Trusts Microsoft, 10-Year Call Of Duty Offer 'Wasn't Necessary'

Personally, it makes no difference to me ATM. I left the CoD fanboi ranks years' ago, and I have no interest in WoW, and aside from the soon to be released Diablo game, and the StarCraft franchise, there seems little interest in developing their other franchises at the moment. If this procurement does go through though, I sincerely hope MS looks long and hard at bringing their other franchises back into the light. Not all of us want another CoD game or WoW expansion from Activision Blizzard!

I mean they weren't going to make it exclusive to the Microsoft store because they know steam is better & they'd get backlash for it lol

Steam loves xbox. They have enjoyed exclusivity for microsoft games on the pc side. No one uses Microsoft store and Xbox ignores epic game store and GOG. Not sure why xbox has avoided those other platforms but they have, not even minecraft.

Even Sony puts their games on both steam and Epic.

@Would_you_kindly Valve and Windows have always been closely associated, so there's never been any reason for bad blood among Valve and Microsoft. Sure Valve has their own things going on these days but they aren't really competing with anything Microsoft is doing. The vast majority of their users are still on Microsoft Windows, so that's probably all that Microsoft cares about.

This all said Valve is easily the biggest name in PC gaming, which is a sizable chunk of the gaming industry. Having Gabe chime in and support what Microsoft is doing says a lot about how pretty much no major players in the industry object to this deal besides Sony. It's pretty hard to say this is a bad move for the industry at this point when you have companies like Nintendo standing to benefit from it. Heck you can just tell from Valve's response that they never even thought this could be something to be concerned about.

Not the most flattering pic of Gabe you could have chosen 🤣

Guess they wont sell as many copies on Steam when its free on gamepass though Respect to Gabe though

I'm obviously very tired of this topic as most people are but I must say the Valve and Nintendo deals are quite an intelligent play from Microsoft to push it back to regulators and Sony. Don't see how regulators can now bring up the anti-competitive argument with these deals.

Microsoft did some clever moves the last few days. Now Sony look like the awkward ones.

They are trying too hard for this. That's why it's too hard to be trusted.

I followed through once, but that is entirely unrelated to this article...

This whole Call of Duty on Nintendo destroyed Sony argument with regulators. They're saying Nintendo is not a direct competitor with more mature games, saying they didn't have COD, and this Microsoft move just destroyed it.

It also destroyed the foreclose narrative of the regulators and have put Sony in an awkward position, because they said they 'couldn't survive without COD', Microsoft offered 10 years to Sony, they refuse, but Nintendo accepted, so now the only way they lose COD is by their own decision to not accept the deal.

Sony arguments are done.

@Fiendish-Beaver ew mate 😂

@dimi that's true didn't think about that

@Fiendish-Beaver Username checks out lol ☠️☠️

@Fiendish-Beaver we all have to go through that some day

@dimi there are far more steam players than pc gamepass users. It’s not like users will magically use gamepass now when they are so attached to the steam ecosystem.

@Somebody Epic has an ownership stake from Sony, so it would make sense they put their games on EGS. Epic also has a larger ownership stake from Tencent, a company MS would see as a much more serious rival than they would Sony since it competes in their core software markets, so it's understandable they'd rather not do business with them. Also, MS is a GSA government/security contractor and doing business with a Chinese company directly (as opposed to retailing games produced by Chinese mfrs) could be dicey.

GOG though, MS has a good relationship with CDPR, but I'm sure they're note into the DRM-free thing.

Will they be doing deals with apple to say they'll be playable on macOS , or google & ChromeOS

@NEStalgia doesn't really fit their play anywhere messaging if they ignore open platforms. Plus it looks funny to be arguing that they are the little guy and little guys deserve the right to compete but then only support the dominant platform on PC.

@dimi XGS games still top the charts every time they hit Steam even if people could play then “free” on game pass. AB games will continue to sell a lot on PC even if they were on GP.

It is interesting to read this, some might not remember, but Gabe working for MS does not mean he always been trusting of the company. Back during the early days of Windows 8, when MS was experimenting with iOS style RT tablets and introduced the Windows App Store, Gabe was extremely distrusting, and claiming MS was aiming to destroy everything and lock down the world the way Apple had done.

The creation of Steam OS and the Steam Boxes (that never took off) were a direct response to that distrust. Mind you, that was also Ballmer’s time. It seems Gabe now has full trust on the current Microsoft and Xbox management.

@NEStalgia I honestly think the main reason MS has opted to sell games via Steam is karma points. They know the hardcore PC gamers use Steam, so they have opted to just play nice with Steam and it’s users. Epic is in the entire oposite spectrum, with gamers actively hating it.

It's clear that Sony were the ONLY ones to object. Go back to when those leaked documents came out months ago (I think it was around Brazil's look at the deal before passing it), the ONLY objectors then were Sony - other competitors to MS had NO objections at all and didn't 'feel' threatened by this.

Sony are NOT the only other Games provider. Yes they may also provide a Platform, but they are not the ONLY other group of Studio's making games, not the only Publisher of games - whether their own or 3rd Party. At the 'moment' CoD is 'only' available on PC/Xbox/PS hardware and ONLY PS offering the 'full' package as they pat to keep content off the other platforms. As soon as this deal goes through (and MS have honoured existing deals), CoD will be available on MANY more platforms, all with the SAME content giving gamers MUCH more choice and freedom to CHOOSE which Platform they 'prefer' to play on and EVERYONE can access the game, not just the gamers with the 'right' hardware.

In the future CoD will be available on whatever device you want to play on - just like Minecraft is today...

I actually think Phil is a pretty trustworthy dude, overall. He definitely does corpo speak, sometimes, and his job is obviously to Xbox first, but I’d trust him if he gave me his word. The stuff people usually call him out for lying is typically vague, ambiguous statements he makes in interviews when people put him on the spot. People act like he’s a malicious liar.

@Somebody "Play anywhere" means every platform, not necessarily every retailer. PC is the platform. Windows Store, Steam, EGS, GOG, Origin etc are retailers (and DRM systems (or not in the case of GOG)) not platforms. PC players can play, from two different retailers. Not being on EGS doesn't wall off customers on the platform. And a Tencent/Sony owned Epic isn't really a "little guy." Both are more dominant than MS currently in gaming. It's more like selling physical games in GameStop and Best Buy but not Amazon because they're a cloud competitor.

I get your point to a degree, but I also think it's peripheral to anything else. What I'd love to see is multiple storefronts on console. I know that rumor floats now and again. That would be a much bigger game changer than adding a third PC retailer.

@Tharsman RE Gabe and MS, I remember when the Source Engine source code leaked and was riddled with anti-MS comments. The former-MS Valve guys were not always on good terms with MS for sure.

@NEStalgia GOG refers to itself as a digital distribution platform, steam calls itself the ultimate online platform. I dont really see how steam can be called anything but a platform since they even sell hardware and have their own operating system.

Epic is actually very similar to xbox as the little guy in the game launcher space (even if they have financial security in other areas)

My point being that of course steam will gladly come to bat for xbox because xbox helps them. They are getting their own little exclusivity from this friendship they seem to have.

This probably shouldn't be framed as proof that the deal is good for the industry when Gabe has his own interests in mind with these comments.

@NEStalgia there were honestly plenty of reasons to dislike Microsoft’s back in the day. But times change and so do corporations. MS is definitively not the entity it used to be.

@Tharsman The main two reasons were Gates and Balmer.

@Somebody And GOG/CDPR called CP2077 "ready"...names are a fickle thing. Seriously though, "digital distribution platform" is a silly empty name, and twice as silly for GOG where the whole claim to fame is DRM-free. It's a video game retailer without the physical disc, in the most literal sense.

Fair point on Steam with hardware and an OS, that one is safely a platform, though since MS does sell on there, they're still on that platform.

I don't see how Epic can be called the "little guy" in the gaming industry. MS is "little" in gaming but big in other industries. Epic maybe "little" specifically in game retailing/launchers, but in the games industry overall they and Unity make up the major licensed engines, and their ownership is both Tencent (the biggest there is) and Sony (console market leader and PSN operator.)

TBH, with Valve as the leader, EGS as Tencent/Sony/Epic ownership, and GOG as a....very specific, unusual product without the DRM big publishers mostly will expect, that really leaves EA's Origin as the primary "little guy" in the launcher space. Big as EA is, they're a smaller outfit than Tencent/Sony/Epic.

Ultimately I don't think any PC gamers are fussed about nuances in "we're on every platform" meaning "we sell thorough every single PC digital retailer/launcher. But yes, I do agree with your point that Valve benefits heavily from the current arrangement and Gabe's words are self-serving and meaningless. But OTOH, it doesn't necessarily change that it puts Sony in a hole. If the complaint veers into how the PC market is affected, Valve is the dominant player, and they're on board, and independent ABK's games already were not on EA Origin (their direct competitor's store), or EGS, and their most recent game on GOG is from the mid-90's and has a DOS bootstrapper, so consolidating into MS doesn't actually change their current independent market presence there, in fact opens up more possibilities as Origin would no longer be an impossible thing. The only one that would be currently possible (but not an existing retailer of independent Activision titles) would be EGS.....which is partly owned by Sony itself, which goes back to their whole argument being about not wanting competition.

Hollow or not, Gabe's statement still kills the PC market concerns succinctly.

@Tharsman funny thing is that what Microsoft is doing now with Xbox store and gamepass ultimate is a much bigger threat to Steam than failed Windows Store

@dimi how so?

A lot of people love claiming that the Netflix model killed x or y, but truth is: digital and theater ticket sales are still healthy markets.

Phil himself has stated he does not expect the Game Pass model will ever kill the digital ownership model. It will simply skim a layer of the top that was back in the day occupied by physical rentals. In fact, as the Game Pass model and digital expand, Game Pass is likely to simply replace the physical pre-owned segment.

I really dont think Steam is under threat.

@Tharsman Theater sales is a different beast. It survived television, VHS, DVD and 2 years of lockdown. It will survive Netflix. itunes is near dead though.