Valve: Steam'd Penguins

Posted Jul 18, 2012 10:41 UTC (Wed) by Otus (subscriber, #67685)
In reply to: Valve: Steam'd Penguins by mpr22
Parent article: Valve: Steam’d Penguins

> Achieving the standards classified as "high production values" in respect
> of today's video game market requires an awful lot of specialist labour[.]

Isn't the same true for all software (at least)? There's a lot boring work
in creating a kernel or libc or video player - in addition to the non-boring
parts.

Are you saying those things are just easier to monetize as free software?

Valve: Steam'd Penguins

Posted Jul 18, 2012 12:43 UTC (Wed) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

Yes, because there are coherent model for monetization of those things by intermediaries - the obvious ones being to sell support contracts for the software or manufacture hardware that uses the software. A "high production values" video game comes with a whole bunch of audiovisual material that probably isn't usefully monetizable by intermediaries, but still needed an awful lot of polishing and attention-to-detail to reach the desired standard. (And even if it was monetizable by intermediaries, there's the question of whether the resulting supply of money would allow you to hire a voice actor people have actually heard of.)