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Comment by fekberg | Hacker News Reader

How does Source and Steam fit together? Would it make sense to lower a potential fee for Steam exclusive games built on Source? Would it be "risky" trusting the same company with both the game engine and distribution?

It's really great seeing Source 2, Unreal Engine and Unity lowering the bar for game developers to deliver their products.

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In isolation, I agree with you -- this is what a competitive market looks like, Unity has forced the other engine makers to become more competitive. Competition is good.

In the broader picture... I'm not sure. I keep thinking about the video game crash of '83, and how market oversaturation crippled American video game makers for years. I wonder if the constant lowering of barriers to entry isn't hastening something similar. (Probably not nearly as bad, video gaming is a lot more mature as an industry right now, but still.)

Unity deserves a lot of credit, but I do think it was Unreal 4 going to the $19 subscription w/source last year, and their drop to free (w/royalty) this year that has been driving the market.

In 2015 oversaturation simply isn't a problem in any tech market.

Social media and the internet allows you to identify duds a mile away. Those who care will use it. Those who don't won't be causing a crash any time soon.

I don't think Call of Duty is going to get wiped out or anything. Free to play phone games, though, for instance? Not saying I'm certain, but I could see it happening.

Well they are 99.9% garbage anyway.

I call it click-bait gaming.

It's not a problem for consumers, but for indie game developers it may be. It's already hard enough making your money back with a 'good' game, the break even point could rise to 'great', with only 'amazing' games making decent money. Again, definitely not a problem for consumers but personally I don't want the video game industry to share the fate of the music industry.

>video game crash of '83

you need to remember games were blue pixel chasing three red pixels back then, that was the main reason for the crash.

How does Source and Steam fit together?

Source is an engine, Steam is a distribution platform. I think the only truly significant interplay is:

- Source games will probably behave well with the Steam Overlay and probably work in Big Picture Mode with controllers

- Steam recognizes the Source libraries as a distinct element, so you only have to download the Source engine once even if you have many games that use that engine

I could see it being even more integrated: play the game while it downloads (like Guild Wars back in the day)

> Steam recognizes the Source libraries as a distinct element

I don't think that's correct, all Source1 games include their own copy of the engine and aren't automatically updated to newer versions etc. (Valve does update them though). The engine download is only for mods and some 3rd-party games.

What do you call Source1 games? I'm pretty sure I had a common source download for CS:S, DoD:S and HL:DM

The games you mentioned _used_ to run on the same branch of the engine, and when that does happen you only download it once. Most shipping Source games today use distinct branches of Source. There's a Portal 2 branch, a DotA branch, a TF2 branch, a CS:GO branch, etc.

Source (by default) uses the Steam API to handle user identification and authentication, achievements, and server browsing.

With Steam distribution, Valve already has a fat monetization pipe in place. While they don't need game devs to use their engine (Steam can certainlly sell UE and Unity games just as well), they also don't need to directly monetize the engine, thanks to their distribution near-monopoly. If a game using the engine is successful, Valve will get their share, adding a little engine "tax" to the already massive distribution "tax" would not make much of a difference in terms of money, but all the more in terms of user/dev acceptance. They don't need to directly monetize engine licensing and offering developers tools that are much better integrated with Steam than with other distribution options is a very natural business decision.

Also, a strong presence in the dev tools arena will certainly benefit their hardware-related projects, SteamOS/box and that whole Rift coopetition thing.

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