INTERVIEW: JASON HOLTMAN & DOUG LOMBARDI, VALVE
needed it, and I think it’s still super-valuable. We get calls all the time from journalists and analysts about Steam data. They ask where it is. We say it’s less useful in the digital space, because our partners have way more useful information than they did before.
The idea of a chart is old. It came from people trying to aggregate disaggregated information. A chart in the digital space gives people much more rapid and perfected information.
DL: Retail charts are scorecards. And in the old days it was the only scorecard. These days it’s just a piece of the scorecard. It’s just one of the stats, but not the end-all. It doesn’t tell you everything, and it was the resource which led to misinformation about the PC market dying.
I think the problem is that the retail charts had become part of public conscience. And the public are used to knowing what the number one selling game is. JH: Absolutely, And they can still get that. It’s a really good point, though. With the public, we try to give them as much information as possible. I think if you look back at the way retail charts have been made, though, they have been proven to be telling an inaccurate story. I mean, they apparently showed how the PC format was dying when it wasn’t. You had World of Warcraft out there, you had Nexonout there, you have things like social games. So the one thing we all came to rely on, which was someone scanning a box across a scanner, began to suggest the PC market was dying when it was actually thriving. And now, these days, no one is suggesting that the PC is dying. But two or three years ago, there were analysts saying it was doomed. CEOs were saying this was the death knell.
To clarify, are you holding back digital sales numbers because your partners don’t want them public, or because you don’t want them public? JH:We wouldn’t have many partners if we took their sales data and released it to everyone. Their data is their own and between us. But the point is it’s not super important for a publisher or
20 May 6th 2011
developer to know how well everyone is doing.
What’s important to know is exactly how your game is doing – why it’s climbing and why it’s falling. Your daily sales, your daily swing, your rewards for online campaign number three. That’s what we provide. Steam updates sales info every few hours. And that can be so much more useful than a standard weekly retail chart.
With the weekly charts, or even the monthly charts, everything more or less looks the same. I bet we could predict next week’s chart with great accuracy. With Steam, you’re given new data several times each day. With real-time information, people can see exactly how effective their marketing campaigns are just hours after they hit.
How important is it that the channel maintains the value of games, in regards to flooding the market with too much choice? JH: It’s hugely important to us. We like to have lots of games on Steam but we’re careful about not flooding the market. We’re a software company, and we want to distribute software that has a chance to succeed. If we just try to
The retail success of Portal 2 (above) and Left 4 Dead 2 (inset) are proof that Valve still benefits greatly from boxed sales
“
commoditise, that would become a problem.
Maintaining the value of games
on Steam is one of our most important objectives. We have millions of people logging onto Steam around the clock asking themselves, ‘how do I find stuff now’? We have that Netflixian problem.
Retail charts used to be the only scorecard, but today it’s just one of the stats, not the end-all.
Doug Lombardi, Valve
We have to expose great content and make sure none of it drowns. People need a good browsing experience. We have 1,700 games on the service, but we’re not eager to say next year we’ll have 5,000. If you do that, because you’re looking to flood the market, I think you’re going to lose. Customers don’t care if you have 5,000 games. They want to play good ones.
Finally, Steam on mobiles. Is that a possibility? JH: Mobile is really interesting. If you’re making games, you have to be thinking about having a platform in this space. But it’s too early to say anything definitive.
DL: We do feel we’re late on mobile across many of Valve’s services. It is something we’re starting to look at now. People are starting to ask us for it. The more requests we recieve, the more we feel the need to act on them.
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