Games

Sharing videos, whether it be a Let’s Play, easter egg or highlights reel, is fast becoming the most valuable source of acquiring users within the gaming industry.

The sheer amount of games I have purchased entirely based on YouTube videos is astounding. Just glancing through my Steam collection, I’d confidently estimate at least 75% of my games have been bought immediately after watching a few YouTube videos.

Subreddits possess a similar power over me. If a game has an active and ultimately nice, welcoming subreddit, that can influence me too. I’m currently subscribed to 8 video game subreddits for games I don’t even own because of how fun they are. I’ll more than likely end up buying a few of them, namely 7 Days to Die.

Minecraft is a fantastic example of how the community can sky-rocket games. Don’t get me wrong, Minecraft itself is creative, innovative and totally deserving of it’s status, but it could never have reached the success it has without the backing and support from it’s userbase. I’d go as far as saying, Minecraft wouldn’t have even been heard of should the YouTube community not have existed.

Notch, creator of Minecraft, is well aware of how influential the YouTube community has been.

World of Warcraft, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Dark Souls and more recently, Kerbal Space Program, are other notable games with budding communities. Not only are they discussing every aspect of the game, but creating mass amounts of top quality content for others, usually for free.

On the flip side, there are numerous games — and even entire genres — that I avoid like the plague due to hostile populaces.

Call of Duty. Once known for it’s innovation within the multiplayer FPS scene, is now notorious for being played almost exclusively by whiny, little, pre-pubescent brats. Call of Duty is a fading star. Unashamedly releasing nigh on identical games every single year is the main reason Call of Duty will fall from grace, but the 10 year olds sure haven’t helped.

CoD4: Modern Warfare and Team Fortress 2 were released within a month of each other late 2007. I suppose it’s all down to how one defines success, but I feel Team Fortress 2 — and ultimately Valve — have won the fight. Sure the CoD series has made more money, as they proceeded to churn out 6 more games. Meanwhile, Valve nurtured their egg, encouraging it along the way. Valve just aren’t as greedy as Activision, pure and simple. And the fans love them for it, repaying them by buying as many hats as humanly possible.

For the majority of it’s life, Team Fortress 2 has been pretty cheap. It was — along with The Orange Box — consistently on sale for as low as $3-4/£2-3. They created new content in the form of maps, weapons and game modes to keep the community growing, and most importantly playing. All said content is free. June 2011, Valve announced TF2 would become free to play entirely.

As above, Activision released a total of 7 CoD games including Modern Warfare from 2007, pricing them at $60/£40. They also pumped out around 3 sets of new maps each year charging an extra $16/£10 for each set. Corporate decisions like this jaded the community and has slowly turned many gamers against Activision entirely.

Despite not knowing the sales figures from Valve regarding TF2's store purchases, it’s safe for one to assume that Activision has — at the moment — made considerably more money from the CoD series.

Making money is not the be-all-end-all of success, and it’s not like Valve haven’t made a bucket load of money. Team Fortress 2 is a more successful game than Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, or any other CoD game. Why? Because people still love, cherish, design things for and play TF2 to this day. I’d argue that TF2 is one of, if not the, most successful games of all time.

Which one — Activision or Valve — will be fondly remembered as one of greatest video game companies of it’s era?

Valve.