Valve and TPTB control over the video game Industry

reply to post by SaturnFX


I totally agree with your statements. I will address what you said soon though right now I need to go be a dad and work is over.

I.E. MMORPG teaches people to start from lvl 0 to whatever cap is... utilizing fishing, mining, cooking, whatever. Now sooner or later that gamer is gonna want to lvl his fishing skill in real life or not pending the personality type. Though I love gaming. The real life video game is where all the fun happens.

Peace out~

reply to post by sulaw


Aye, I wish I could collect gold in real life as fast as I could in a mmorpg or heck, any other game that features gold. I worry that a lot of kids aren't taking the time to level up in life. As a parent, now I'm thinking that maybe I should like buy items and put labels on them to reward my kids with when they do something good. Oh look kids, pants dropped--they're purple Pantaloons of Powerful Pragmatism!! In that sense, I would say that games are a pretty large distraction as Kang suggests but, honestly, it would depend on how often and long one tunes out overall. Everybody needs to be able to relax and do what they enjoy sometimes. Gaming, to me, is a lot better than drugs, alcohol, television and other types of things to distract one temporarily from reality.

Someone once said, playing games is the same as voluntarily taking a tranquilizer.

They fulfill their purpose whether TPTB infilitrate the companies or not.


Seriously though, accusing Valve of this? EA is the evil company!
Valve seems like the good guys in the industry. Aside from not releasing Episode 3.
Where art thou HL:3?!?

I definitely don't see a conspiracy. No need to be paranoid. It's nothing more than supply and demand. People want these games and the pproducers want to make a game that they think the consumers want. I don't think there's a "mind control" division or office at the entertainment arts studios.

Why are people always looking so hard for conspiracies where there are none?

"Look guys, I noticed [something] in this video/picture. That must mean [insert non sequitur here]."

Watch, I can do it too...

Gabe Newell looks like Peter Griffin. That must mean that both Gabe Newell AND Seth MacFarlane are in cahoots with TPTB!

Hey I agree with you OP... perhaps not that 'TPTB control everything'.... but certainly that video games are used for propaganda.

Battlefield 3 features a war between Russia and USA in Iran. I've been to Iran, and the maps on BF3 are incredibly accurate portrayals of some parts of Iran (Tehran Highway and the train station map among others)...

IMO this game prepares the young men psychologically for war, desensitizes them to what it will be like fighting in Iran....

There is plenty of other games too..... counter strike of course was an anti-terror game... Command and Conquor Generals clearly portrayed a war between US, Islamic Terrorists and China...

Also the game "America's Army" was developed by the US Army specifically for recruitment... this was never hidden.

In Australia, our defence forces use a modified version of Operation flashpoint / Arma / Arma 2 for training..... in fact it would be more correct to say that Flash point / Arma / Arma 2 are modifications of the ADF software rather than the other way round....

IF anything its to promote the new engine they have coming out, and they have had that intro for ages, and its kinda cool how finally the dude is turning around to show his face kinda, it sort of says to me as a gamer "look what is coming next" ..


and if I am not mistaken gabe was the first person to come out as a developer of games and call BS on microsofts windows 8 plat form for the very reason you say in the thread.. They are going to be making "maybe" there own box to sell with linux i think..

If they did.. I would be buying it for sure..

And yes im a valve fanboy

reply to post by Kang69


Ok, looks like I'm playing counter strike today. Thanks for the reminder!

All Valve logo/intros so far.

The first one is the most disturbing lol

Originally posted by SaturnFX

2) About secret messages in games...erm..no. there is nothing subtle or secret..they go through great pains quite often to explain and show in detail all sorts of NWO/Illuminati stuff. Check out the plotline of Assassins Creed with the historical coverups and all sorts. Typically in a game world, if you see a symbol of something cultish...its not hidden on some wall you never look at intentionally...its right there, bright lights shining on it, a big description, possibly part of a quest, etc...subtle? naa...
Game Developers are wonderful, have a wild imagination, and love...love a good conspiracy. Games are a medium to bring their thoughts on it to life...Why would they hide some awesome narratives when the point of gaming is to bring such things into actual interaction and existence..be it alien coverups, secret power sources, globalists run amok, etc.

That remind's me of the mass amount of all seeing eyes that litter the walls and floors of borderlands 2. Also the legendary mechromancer mod has a claptrap on it that looks like he is doing the same pose as baphomet.

reply to post by Lucas73


ha ha, ahhhh, you're right. That one is the most disturbing but now we all know how those ill-placed Valves came to be.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Good post!

Actually most of the story writers seek help from external sources or/and bring in specialists. Most dev houses will have a vast array of story writers, some classified as 'specialists' in various fields, hell some writers I've met actually hold degrees in psychology, music etc which really helps them with their career. (for the record i do 'freelance' work for some of the development houses in various capacities)

Back semi-onto the topic:

Most development houses will make games that sell, at the present the mass amount of players for say the Call of Duty (CoD) franchise is immense, the company who owns the original IP (from memory is Activision), this is part you might not see. Once a game is in 'pre-release' state (this is where digital distribution & retail stores start taking pre-orders) will start the proverbial profit tally, right up until the second week of release.

(This timeline is more based on new IP, established IP will most likely have DLC planned during the dev phase, and that team is spun up after the figures for the pre-orders within the first week at established)

What happens after that is they look at the profitability of said game, if the profitability exceeds the original forecast (also known as the Budget) by a certain percentile they will look at spinning up a DLC team, while the project leader (or Project Manager) starts pitching ideas for a second installment (depending on the IP contract).

In essence everyone knows CoD (Activision), Battlefield (EA) and the war based FPS market sells, and it sells like hotcakes, so everyone is getting in on it to get a slice of that profit pie. It's exactly the same as the MMORPG race that really kicked into high gear with the release of World of Warcraft (note, MMO's have been around since the days of MUDs, but was kicked into a mid gear around the popularity in asia for Ragnarok Online & Ultima Online, and moved into its 'modern era' with platforms like World of Warcraft, which to be honest put MMO's smack bang in the middle face of pretty much everyone, along with the release of Broadband making these things more accessible).

Back to CoD, it is common knowledge in the gaming arena that Activision is planning CoD releases each year to maximize its profit share while this 'boom' is currently running, and it's doing it quite successfully, as is Blizzard with world of warcraft. I wont get to far into the economy of the gaming industry as i think most of you will goto sleep .

Moving onto Valve, first thing you MUST understand, Physical retail stores (EB Games, Gamestop, kmarts, toys'r'us etc) HATE valve and what they are doing. Before digital distribution, the physical stores set the prices, if the publishers disagreed or the distributor disagreed with them, the physical store wouldnt stock their product, thus the dev house, distributors and publishers wouldn't make any money. The advent of digital distribution and cloud services has pretty much have destroyed their previous standing, a lot of the larger distributors have ended supply negotiations simply with "we set the prices, you do not. If you don't like it we'll take our AAA title to Steam, and they will see the profit and you will not.". I'm pretty sure you can imagine execs at these companies having to change their pants after the likes of Blizzard, 2k games, Activision etc threatened to pull their distribution rights to steam.

So if you want to see a conspiracy the only one in the gaming industry is the physical stores price gouging gamers, however their days are numbered.

As for conspiracies in gaming (As in game story lines), have been in existence for years, first one i can recall is Syndicate (1993), branching to a modern day MMO which is quite literally based on every earthly conspiracy theory discussed on these boards (hollow earth, illuminati & templars the cover ups etc and so forth (the game itself is called The Secret World).

Food for thought really, no conspiracy for Valve except to make money, and gaming easier (and it saves space in my little apartment due to the lack of boxes i need to keep hanging around!)

Originally posted by Kang69
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

The new thing about the valve guy is the opening video. I've never seen him turn his head before.

Reminds me of Plato's Cave when one in chains is allowed to turn his head towards the shadows cast on the wall.

Sadly, I still have not finished Portal 2

This is a very interesting thread iv'e looked into this.......
Its seems illuminati signs are common in all media nowadays.

Now if you were to accuse EA or Activision, I might agree with the accusation, but Gabe Newell part of the TPTB? Blasphemy! Blasphemy, I tell you!

Originally posted by SaturnFX
Recently taken over?
No...if your gonna suggest that anyone promoting a single eye is somehow TPTB (whatever that is), then it has always been a part of valve

The fathead guy is the latest thing..before, it was that guy.

As far as the whole tptb took over gaming..well, frankly, if they have..then more power to em..just don't screw up mass effect and I am fine with em.

Yes this has always been part of their image

Originally posted by Syyth007
Now if you were to accuse EA or Activision, I might agree with the accusation, but Gabe Newell part of the TPTB? Blasphemy! Blasphemy, I tell you!

Fanboy!!! Hee hee, jk. I find EA and Activision's choice of subject matter for games is a wee bit more interesting. All one has to do is look at games like The Secret World and the Assassin's Creed series and know that they are deliberately pandering to conspiracy theorist gamers.

Gabe Newell bites his thumb at thee!

Originally posted by Lysergic
Gabe Newell bites his thumb at thee!

Shhhhh!!! God forbid that Gabe Newell should get a taste for flesh!!! Could endanger the good citizens of Bellevue!

I think the recent games like MOH and COD are playing on society's infatuation with warfare and combat. The game companies are in the money making business and kids want shooter games. So..they make them and make the highest quality shooter games their game writers can manage.

Nothing conspiracy based there, IMO.

And where does this "infatuation" come from? Hmmm? Out of thin air?

Could it be that SOMEONE or SOMETHING created it, and fed it to people, until they became ravenous, carnivorous beasts, instead of harmonious human beings with good will towards everyone?

(Granted, people of this planet are like half-animals with lower consciousness and lots of rage, anger and hostility, barbaric nature and selfish greed, but still)

Could it be that someone or something FED this 'infatuation', until it grew to gigantic proportions?

Do you really have a CHOICE in modern games, whether to kill or not?

Do you have a choice between war games, and peace games? Do you have a choice between vampires/zombies/masonic-sybolism-games and something better?

I mean, if you want a 'peace'-game, a constructive game, something that's not DARK, DEPRESSING, GORY, GLOOMY or VAMPIRE/ZOMBIE/WAR/MILITARY/KILLING-oriented, you have a handful of crappy puzzle games, a couple of simulators, a few sports games, and that's pretty much it (unless you dig into the treasures of the OLD games, a lot of which were children of one single man, programming and creating in solitude, instead of huge game corporations with zillions of programming and 'artist' teams).

They are FLOODING the market(s) with the military-oriented killing games, and the innovative and creative games are really hard to find. Games are just as bad as movies, when it comes to political-correctness and all this darkness and murder, if not even worse.

Valve is no better than anyone else. Their logo features a man with a faucet stuck IN HIS EYE (gross AND NWO-symbolism - all-seeing-eye). Their misandristic and PLOT-driven Half-Life 2 game features an annoying hag that you can't shoot or get rid of, that you have to constantly OBEY, that you are supposed to FEEL SYMPATHY FOR, and when she's in trouble, you HAVE TO RESCUE HER.. spouting all kinds of crap to you all the time.

It used to be that a movie is linear, a game is a maze of possibilities.

Nowadays games are just as linear as movies. Go through THIS EXACT ROUTE, to THIS EXACT POINT, do THIS EXACT THING, and then WATCH A BORING VIDEO or GAME-ENGINE-CUTSCENE with limited or no movement, and then PROCEED THROUGH THIS EXACT, LINEAR ROUTE..

Half-Life 2 could just as well be a rail-shooter, it's halfway there (maybe that's what the "half" means - "Half-Rail 2" would be a better name).