Mike Seedon’s open letter on the EA Orange Box PS3 thing
We received an open letter from Mike Seedon today regarding my recent mention of his Orange Box PS3 petition. I thought I’d share it with our readers, because unsurprisingly, he can explain everything much better than I can. Thanks to Mike Seedon for sending this along so I could share it.
Team Fortress 2..my all time favorite online game.
As many, when i saw that big fat VALVE logo on the box, i did not think twice before pulling out those 70 euros. The EA logo is displayed on the box too, but as a PUBLISHER. Well, at least that’s what the back of my artbox states. As an ex-PC gamer +being part of that generation that grew up with HL and all its mods+ and Valve supporter, not only do i know about Gabe’s experience at Microsoft, but i also did hear all Gabe had stated regarding systems he did not feel comfortable working with. And as you know. the PS3 is on that list.
Tags: ea, petition, ports, the orange box, valveI personally believe VALVE always had negative intentions regarding the PS3 port. Their one and only goal through it were to convince PS3 gamers that Sony’s Playstation3 was a failure; in other terms, a system that could not support an engine as old as the SOURCE engine. This of course would lead the PS3 customer to give up on Orange Box after a while, and then purchase it once again for the PC. (Of course, that would be applicable only to those having a pretty recent PC..but what about those who do not, like me? Well, that’s even more money spent by the PS3 customer)
Why doing so? Simply because that’s a double win for VALVE. And well, let’s be reasonable for a second: knowing that Gabe worked 13 years at Microsoft, i certainly don’t see any reason why he would do any effort to satisfy his rival’s consumers. Yes, i believe VALVE -along with EA- orchestrated the entire project. I’d like to add one thing, just to make things clearer to those discussing Orange Box 360: it really isn’t a golden port either. Yes, it is playable, and 360 gamers are receiving updates, but it still needs numerous fixes. As you should probably know, Gabe also hates the 360..Well, i guess Orange box appeared on the it simply due to the similarities between the 360 and the PC.
The Orange box is a handful of great games, but the PS3 customer had to be stuck with such a bad port. It’s not the PS3′s fault, it’s VALVE and EA’s. VALVE worked alongside EA, which happened to be the lowest bidder. Everyone familiar with the videogame market today is fully aware that EA’s role is simple: to make a quick buck. They are greedy, they purposely destroy competition or simply buy it, and they don’t care about who they hurt so long as they can make a profit. If Valve wanted its port to be a golden one, they would have handed the job to Sony’s first-party developers, such as the folks at Naughty Dog. We all know Sony expects the most from its first-party devs, so i’m certain they would never have refused the job. Well, i believe the total opposite actually…..it would have been one hell of a bonus.
Now regarding Valve’s personal interests, (i.e sales) we all know they don’t expect to gain much from the PS3 port. They do not care about the money they’ll make, since they’re more than satisfied with the PC sales. But if there is a gain, even a slight one, why not benefit from it? Indeed, investing in the PS3 costs a lot, but i mean why not spreading your product, in order to let even more people take part of this incredible experience.
Refusing to develop on other systems because they feel they’re a pain in the arse, personally that’s what i call laziness. Investing in the CELL is more than just pain, but when you do dedicate time and get familiar with the system, the final result will only be crystal. Just have a look at Metal Gear Solid 4…and well, let’s be honest here, MGS4 is only scratching the surface of what the PS3 can achieve. VALVE, i am aware you’re spending your time on Left 4 Dead and TF2 unlockables, but i’m certain you’d find plenty if you really wished it. There is always time.
People say we should give up fighting for a fix, and move on with “better” games. Unfortunately, that’s not me. It’ll never be. People say i’m stubborn, well that’s too bad. Whatever obstacle i have faced in my life, there isn’t one i didn’t give it all i could..and that certainly won’t change now. Giving up is the result of failure, which is exactly what VALVE in this case are trying to get the PS3 customer to achieve. My personal experiences in life have thought me that all you really need to keep walking and succeed are dedication, faith and truth.
I’ll end this by talking about the actual number of signatures in the petition. Let’s make this clear once and for all: I do not care about those +2500 signatures. Yes, i appreciate every one of them, however what the heck will a silly ONLINE petition do? What i care about is those +25000 people that visited my website over these past weeks. In other words, all that only matters to me is the number of people aware of the current situation. Through this, i’m certain i’ve changed the mind of many people..many as thousands of people..many as thousands of Orange Box copies not sold.
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I have to agree with you mate petitions do f#@k all, my suggestion is to lock Gabe Newell in a warehouse with those 25000 petitioners and see if he gets out alive that would make a great PSN game.
He is probably the laziest arsehole in the business, if he doesn’t understand something straight away he has to sook about for ever and ever.
All you have to do is look at Insomniac, they are without a doubt the best developers going around at the moment with 3 PS3 exclusives resistance 1 & 2 and Rachet and Clank TOD all done within the PS3 short lifespan and all looking and playing fantastic is feat in itself.
Also just look at E3 best of
Best first person shooter – Resistance 2 PS3 exclusive
Best Graphics – Killzone 2 PS3 exclusive
as for left for dead, it doesn’t look that great and zombie FPS don’t work in my opinion.
For the life of me, I don’t get the Xbox vs PS vs PC vs Wii. (I’m not even tossing in the DS and PSP…) They are all great in their own way–get one of each. When I hear folks insisting one is better than the other all I think–there is someone that should have stayed in school instead of playing games. Maybe then they afford one of all the systems.
PS3 might one day be the best platform, but right now there just aren’t enough good games coming out fast enough. IMHO, Xbox has the best community, unless you are younger. If you are under 21, the PS3 community is probably more to your liking. Wii rocks when you have chicks over and they want to play a game. (But who wants to play games when chicks are over!) PC rocks for shooters and MMOGs. Just like a hammer won’t always get the job done–a true gamer needs to play all the consoles.
Thanks for the petition. It kept me from buying the Orange box for the PS3 and I am grateful. Good work. Thanks for watching out for the rest of us.
Ok, I’m going to resume the letter for you droids :
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
lol please if you want to play a real version of the game that surpases Jesus just play the 360 version and burn that piece of black crap
@ Power of Green
What makes you think the 360 version is the best. The PS3 could of been a great version of the game. I don’t blame the console for its failure, but Gabe Newell. He put no support behind the game. Fanboyism is fine in certain circumstanses, but here, it is totally wrong. This has nothing to do with the strength of a console, but the stubborness of a developer, plain and simple.
Wow 25k.. Thats a whole 1.5 million to cover the huge cost of learning to do it properly and program the game…Your own petition proves it is not worth developers time to even learn the PS3. They are getting great sales on 360,PC and even the Wii attach rate has a 2 game lead on PS3 at this point.. Yeah people buy more Wii games then PS3 games guys.Oh and it isnt over. More exclusives will be lost. FF13 is not the last. More crappy ports will be thrown over to PS3 because the install base just isnt big enough to warrant the extra work. Until they get out of last place.What are you guys going to do next year when dev’s start announcing games were Wii was the lead platform? EA has already started doing just that. Other companies as well. Looks like you might end up doing more petitioning then gaming.
Why not move on? now thats a novel concept. If I have a petition for every crappy game released on the 8Bit by Ocean and US Gold, I’d still be battling on the Commodore 64. So what – the annual halls of video game history is littered with bad conversions and ports. The Orange box on PS3 is decent, but just because it is not the greatest version ever released doesn’t mean it’s crap. Remmeber Halflife 2 on the Xbox?- That had a huge amount of frame drops, but no-one cried fowl.
The fact of the matter is EA is in the business to make profits. It’s not a social welfare for programmers. EA is responsible to it share holders and the sharemarket alike. Like it or not – this is a capitalist system. I just don’t understand why EA gets alot of critizism when they make sound business decisions based on current market conditions. EA is no different from any other listed company – its just that alot of people have emotional attachments to their products and systems EA supports. I know this is generalising the issue, but EA doesn’t make life support systems – not that I am aware of yet…
I’m so amazed, u people give this man a hard time because he cares about his game. If Gears 2 sucked(I know it wont) wouldn’t u want it fixed. Or if MGS4 sucked, wouldn’t u want it fixed. This isn’t about being a fanboy, this is about getting what u deserve as a fan. Without the consumer these companies are nothing. We deserve are monies worth. I love HL, and HL2, but i wont buy the Orange Box, and I have all 4 (PC, 360, Wii, PS3). I wont do it because they don’t care about the consumer. Putting your personal feelings about a system before the consumer is retarded, for lack of a better word.
wow. i don’t own a ps3, probably never will, so don’t take this as fanboy bashing. i do have the orange box for the 360 though – and while that was developed by the same team that made the pc version, i say this for different reasons.
Namely, almost every single point made in that statement was about valve and their intentions was wholly and totally off base.
Valve’s in business. Business exist to make money. If they spent the money on getting another team to port the game to the PS3 and it turned out to be a shabby job, do you think they’re going to just write it off as a loss and walk away? Or keep on flushing away money in the hopes it’s finally done right, even if it’s sales projections indicate that doing so would become unprofitable, and with still no guarantee that the game would turn out right in the end? No, of course not.
Of course valve *wanted* to make money off the PS3 port. And even if they just wanted to break even, Valve can read the writing on the wall. Console sales are increasing year by year, and PC games are become more and more like a niche industry by comparison. At the very least, they would want to build goodwill among PS3 console owners and the as-yet-untapped sector of gamers that represents. To say you think they wanted to ‘convince’ PS3 gamers that their console was inferior says more about you (like that you think the PS3 is inferior to PCs, or perhaps since you seem so emotional about this you have sought out emotional/irrational reasons for this issue). You’re either woefully misinformed about the way that the games industry (indeed, any industry) operates or willfully ignorant of it. You want a petition, fine. But at least be intelligent about your protest, and understand what’s really going on, instead of the completely misguided ideas you’re operating on.
buy a pc- consoles suck
Valve has stated that they don’t want to develop games for PS3, it’s their choice not yours.
Also, EA approached Valve to do the PS3 port and publish it, otherwise there would have not been a PS3 port. If the Orange Box was that important to you and Sony, you should have made a petition to Sony to do the port and publish it.
Its all about STEAM…they want everyone, and I mean everyone on STEAM, so they can control the entirety of the cash flow. They can’t on the consoles, so maybe if they release HORRIBLE BUGGY products to the consoles, they can convince you to come to the PC and spend your money on STEAM!! They have a HUGE vested interest in the PC now with STEAM, don’t forget that. I will NEVER expect a good product from them on the consoles EVER, simply because of STEAM!!
It seems to me that there is more than one guilty party in this mix. Out of Valve, EA, and Sony I can think of actually 3 guilty parties in this nasty incident.
Valve – I’m not sure what EA said to get them to agree to a PS3 version of the game but they ended up agreeing somehow. They also should have done their best to ensure that they had final word over what was allowed to be shipped on the PS3 console.
EA – Well EA is EA. They like to get money from as many sources as possible. I can’t blame them for that but I can blame them for not ensuring that their product is of good quality, which, incidentally EA seems to do all too often.
Sony – Well as much as Sony is capable of making truly awesome hardware, they can’t figure out how to make it programmable without having a team dedicated to figuring out the hardware. One Sony spokesperson admitted that they messed up on the console with a lack of communications between the Hardware Team and the team responsible for writing their development systems.
I think it’s a shame what’s happened and I think all parties responsible should have worked together to get everything working properly. Quality should never be over looked when releasing a product. These software companies need to ensure that when they release a product, it will be something they can be proud of and their customers will enjoy. When they saw that things were not working out they should have contacted Sony.
Which brings me to Sony. Sony should be assembling a crack team of PS3 experts that can be utilized by anyone who wants to write on the PS3 platform. The biggest problem at the moment is not that people don’t want to put games out on the PS3. It’s that they’re punished for trying to.