Tripwire: Steam Does Not Exploit Developers
John Gibson argues against Gearbox's Valve comments.
Oh, it is on. Following Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford's comments that Valve's Steam service is a "money grab" and a conflict of interest, John Gibson of Tripwire Interactive has written a piece on Gamasutra that wholly disagrees.
"As a small independent developer that has released multiple games on Steam, we are exactly the type of studio that Randy believes is being exploited by Valve," writes Gibson. He notes that he's been personally involved in all business deals with Valve and states that any claim of exploitation is false.
Referencing an experience with traditional publishers, the Tripwire developer says that without Steam, his company would not exist today. Gibson's offers from "brick-and-mortar" publishers were as bad as a 15 per cent royalty rate, a handover of IP rights and a $1.5 million admin fee.
However; "When we got the contract from Valve, we were amazed at how much better the deal was from what we were getting from the standard publishers. Even our lawyer was surprised at how straightforward the contract was."
Referring to Pitchford's 'conflict of interest' jab, Gibson agrees that there could be a potential threat, but "the reality of dealing with Valve just doesn't bear it out to be a problem". He continues with the point that the Left 4 Dead studio doesn't downplay any of Tripwire's competing offerings and have in fact heavily promoted games like Killing Floor.
Talk about a polite beatdown. The discussion continues online as to which solution provides the best, most conscious service for PC owners, but Gibson is willing to support the indie revolution that Valve has created with Steam.
"The key point here is this: every publisher has a conflict of interest in publishing third-party games. What really matters is how they have handled this conflict of interest. In our experience Valve has handled it very well; other companies, not so well."
"As a small independent developer that has released multiple games on Steam, we are exactly the type of studio that Randy believes is being exploited by Valve," writes Gibson. He notes that he's been personally involved in all business deals with Valve and states that any claim of exploitation is false.
Referencing an experience with traditional publishers, the Tripwire developer says that without Steam, his company would not exist today. Gibson's offers from "brick-and-mortar" publishers were as bad as a 15 per cent royalty rate, a handover of IP rights and a $1.5 million admin fee.
However; "When we got the contract from Valve, we were amazed at how much better the deal was from what we were getting from the standard publishers. Even our lawyer was surprised at how straightforward the contract was."
Referring to Pitchford's 'conflict of interest' jab, Gibson agrees that there could be a potential threat, but "the reality of dealing with Valve just doesn't bear it out to be a problem". He continues with the point that the Left 4 Dead studio doesn't downplay any of Tripwire's competing offerings and have in fact heavily promoted games like Killing Floor.
Talk about a polite beatdown. The discussion continues online as to which solution provides the best, most conscious service for PC owners, but Gibson is willing to support the indie revolution that Valve has created with Steam.
"The key point here is this: every publisher has a conflict of interest in publishing third-party games. What really matters is how they have handled this conflict of interest. In our experience Valve has handled it very well; other companies, not so well."
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