This week’s release of Alien Swarm showcases Valve’s dedication to PC gaming culture, but will this kind of free content become fossilized after more content providers enter the market?
Alien Swarm began as a four-player co-op Unreal Tournament 2004 mod. The group that created the mod announced a Source-based sequel, Alien Swarm: Infested, but it got delayed when they were hired by Valve and promptly put to work. Now that most of their work is done on Left 4 Dead 2 and Portal 2, the group returned to their pet project and released the new Alien Swarm for consumption. The top-down, Diablo-esque shooter has no pay component, and even features an SDK that allows development without the purchase of any other Valve elements. By all appearances, there are no plans to charge for anything associated with this product. So the first question many might ask is, “Why did Valve opt to just give this away?”
The fact that Valve has chosen not to monetize this release may signify either a sincere desire to feed the gamer soul or a strategic ploy to further solidify Steam as the premium content delivery system. If it’s the former, then all the Valve fanboys are justified in their praises of our PC gaming overlords. Their efforts to improve the Team Fortress 2 experience through class updates were an ongoing opus to their benevolence. But unlike Alien Swarm, it was still padding their pocketbooks via new TF2 sales.
On the other hand, we might be seeing a really clever and diabolical plot to promote Steam as a content source. As “Free Game!” gets tweeted around the interwebs, we might see a noticeable increase in active Steam accounts. Those unversed in the joys of social PC gaming might find a co-op experience the ideal way to be indoctrinated into the Valve cult. And we all know that the best first hits are free.
But with the advent of Battle.net functionality, increased Impulse interest, and really good Direct2Drive sales, we may eventually find Valve cutting their margins in order to compete in an expanded market. Should this happen, the financial benefits of free games will diminish. Releases like Alien Swarm may face extinction in a highly competitive market. Do you think Valve will be able to offer totally non-monetized products in that kind of world? I can surely hope so… because my jaded business sense has a really hard time imagining that this whole production is offered solely to nourish my soul.
Wes Wilson
NOTE: NoG will be discussing the Engie update and Alien Swarm in this week's episode. Be sure to get in some game time this week so you can add to the discussion!
I'm thinking that they are either going to charge for DLC for Alien Swarm (which I can't see Valve doing) or they are simply giving back to their loyal fans. Alien Swarm's source engine may also be a testbed for future games (HL:E3 and Portal 2) and there were hints in the game files supporting that.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1372402
This thread was stickied by an Alien Swarm dev in the Steam forums. It was created by a random poster, but they seem to think it's indicative of their reasons enough to have it be the reasons.
Those being -
The Game isn't a Full Game - Too little content to put a price tag on it
It builds Brand Loyalty - It gets people to love Valve.
It Encourages Modding - With the tilegen and SDK, it's definitely a modder's paradise.
It Showcases Steam to New Users - The biggest thing. A free, professional game that anyone can try out with friends.
These were all gone over some way in the blog, and the sticky shows that's what the devs believe.
Of course, it could also be to stem people on the forums saying "WHY IS ET FREE VAELV", since those places are a little chaotic.
With this game specifically, I don't expect updates that are made by Valve like they do with L4D2 and TF2, but they'll occasionally grab the best from the community and make it official to all, like they do with TF2. And if not, Valve will just let the community run with this game. 3rd party sites will show off maps, campaigns and mods. And Valve will just do a bug fix once in a while.
I truly believe this game is meant for the community. Any new content will come from the community, the community will advertise the game, and with the help of their community, Valve will get new users, players, modders who will later mod other Source games.
It's all just to show off Steam.
You make some good points Wes. I do hope that for whatever reason these little pieces of free fun come to us, that we'll keep getting them as the market inevitably becomes more competitive. It's one of the few currently remaining things that makes PC gaming better than Console gaming IMO.
Will increased competition really drive out the little bits of free? More choice is usually better for consumers - at least, for consumers who are savvy enough to shop around in the digital marketplace, as I imagine most NoG members are. Freebies will always get more traffic through a site and increase sales revenue.
Valve titles are hugely anticipated and I don't doubt that Steam will soon be the only place to get them - I don't expect Half Life 3 will ship boxed - and one could argue that this sort of monopoly might mean they don't need to lure customers in with freebies. However, that would involve a huge philosophical shift from a company whose reputation has been built on giving to its community, and I don't think Valve want to lose their image as perhaps the most "indie" of the big commercial developers just yet.
No idea really. Personally i like to think its the former, TF2 at one point was 2.50, then there the free weekends, and the free updates. Valve seems to be more about supporting your product than just making lots of the same game.
Maybe that how they make money though. Support your consumer after they get there product and there more likely to buy your other product. Here is a for instance, if portal was its own game originally would it have been as successful? I don't think so. Since it wasn't how many are now going to buy Portal 2? thousands, pretty much anyone who played and enjoyed the first one, and that how they make there money.
Portal was free for a while so anyone who hadn't played it got it for free. They played, if they liked it they got psyched for Portal 2 and will now buy it. If they didn't then they weren't going to buy Portal 2 and Valve didn't lose any money.
Alien Swarm could just be like a gift to the people of the Steam community as like a thank you for your support and to promote Steam just a bit.
I think Valve is being veeeeeery smart right now. The summer is a -really- hard time period for the gaming community as a whole.
1) Kids are on summer vacation, so they're more likely to play games.
2) Kids are on summer vacation, so online games get flooded with annoying kids. =( Adults with money avoid online games somewhat.
3) There aren't many "big budget" releases during the summer, likely due to the fact that they won't sell well because people are taking vacations and whatnot, but also because people are less likely to just gush cash during the summer.
What does Valve do? They do a huge freaking sale! On a holiday weekend, no less. People have time -and- are willing to blow money on those! (See: Fireworks) But wait, it's been almost a month, and yes some people joined STEAM just for the sale, but what if they've burned through their game and are ready to do something else instead of logging on to STEAM all the time?
"Free game? Sweet! I should check STEAM for these things more often!" And then they keep on it/spending money due to things like midweek madness and weekend sales.
Yeah, they're pushing sales hard, but let's be real. In a time period with heavy piracy, especially in PC games, sales are a really reasonable way to boost numbers and to get people to buy stuff instead of pirate it.
This is a really good way to manage the summer, when normally game companies are bleeding cash during this season.