- This topic has 16 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 3 months ago by
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http://www.mcvuk.com/news/31794/Google-to-buy-Valve-says-report
You might need some pinches of salt…
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God I hope not. The end has come if ture, I fucking hate google.
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Interesting times… definitely not something to discount out of hand. Can’t imagine they’d want the games though, wonder what they’d do with them…
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Given that they already bought Adscape, (and not ignoring Google Lively) this wouldn’t be very suprising.
Peronally, I’l like to see another publisher with enough behind them to take on EA / Activision-Blizzard-Vivendi, not because there’s necessarily anything wrong with either of those, but because more competition between publishers is better for developers.
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Being very speculative here, but on their current trajectory, I’m not sure I’d consider them shaping up to be a video game publisher in the traditional sense of the term – distributor might be nearer the mark, perhaps providing developers and publishers with a way of getting ad supported games to the consumer.
For instance, I’d be surprised if google was planning to undertake video game marketing, and provide direction to game projects, like someone like EA would; rather I’d speculate that this is a move to ensure they don’t get left out of the interactive ad supported digital content space.
Only guessing wildly though :) -
Its a good buy for google for a few reasons.
1: It gets them a service with a huge user base which is continously growing.
2: It gets them a foot into the games industry with a slant on a business they understand (users and internet services). Instead of buying into a vanilla game studio who work in an industry they have no track record in. Reduce their entry risk.
3: They start their foot in the games industry with a very powerful developer and middleware provider. Licensee money and good technology. A more importantly good engineers!After all google is all about the brains! (similar to zombies i guess) :)
As regards Google publishing? I doubt they would be interested in this area initially. To take on EA or Acti-blizz you need alot of cash (alot of developers under your wing making good games). Now I know Google have the dosh to go about acquiring developers and IP but I would say its extremely high risk for them to buy such a huge share of an industry they have no track record in. Perhaps in the long term, 5-8 years they might be willing to play with these guys.
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2: It gets them a foot into the games industry with a slant on a business they understand (users and internet services). Instead of buying into a vanilla game studio who work in an industry they have no track record in. Reduce their entry risk.
3: They start their foot in the games industry with a very powerful developer and middleware provider. Licensee money and good technology. A more importantly good engineers! [/quote:7e1c90d1fe]Do you not reckon that it’s got more to do with the games industry transitioning to an ad supported medium? Like, I wouldn’t say they are particularly interested in getting into the games industry, making middleware, engines, etc per se; ads are their core business, and I’d guess their more interested in video games as a vehicle for advertising, rather than trying to become a games developer.
Perhaps this potential move has to do with the distribution and uptake of casual games in the broader demographic (peggle, steam casual games), and the gradual trend towards ad supported revenue models in the video games industry (quake live, ads in counterstrike).
Maybe google see another emerging mass medium for delivering ad supported digital content and that’s what they’re after, rather than becoming a games publisher/developer in the traditional sense…If a deal like this did go through, I wouldn’t be completely shocked to see them parcel off the games dev side of valve, or repurpose them to create online digital worlds; hard to see how that could work from a business point of view… wonder if valve would let them just buy steam?
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Valve just killed it
http://kotaku.com/5051164/valve-kills-google-buy+out-rumor
Thank goodness.[/quote:cb057f71ad]
What’s your beef with Google?I think it would be a bad move for Google. At least at the moment with the industry in such a shaky position and Google trying to consolidate their position as the number one software company. Though as Peter_B said, it wouldn’t be without its advantages. If they did Valve, I’d imagine they’d stay strictly to software and wouldn’t even consider publishing.
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Ran across this somewhat related article today about Google Lively and X-Ray Kid – http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/getting-lively
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http://www.google.com/ads/games/index.html#
http://www.kimpallister.com/2007/07/casual-connect-day-2-google-adsense-for.html
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/10/get-in-game-with-adsense-for-games.htmlAdsense for games – that’s more like it…
This could have a huge effect on the online casual market.
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