Valve only takes 10 or so percent of the profits, whilst bigger "physical" publishers take around 50%
No they dont, Valve take around 50% of the profits and traditional publishers take 80% or more!
I'm not saying Valve arent helping small developers get off the ground, as a publisher they take a quite 'ethical' stance compared to the huge monolithic corporations like EA, Ubisoft, etc. I'll just never agree with distribution platforms as the way forward, give me my game box with spinky DVD in it you barstaarddsss.
I was thinking about how this new episodic content will actually delay the development of future games, its been a worry on the Oblivion forums with the shite Bethesda are pushing as mods at the moment. I don't know how the development cycle works at Valve, but if they concentrate on pushing out more and more of the same content just to futher Halflife 2's story a bit, it will surely delay development of a proper sequel with an updated engine by a long shot.
Anyway, to me I find a good analogy the difference between a British programme of 6 episodes and an American one of 23 or more. I get much less 'content', less of a programme I love, but you get a cohesive and consistent series with little scope for poor episodes where the series itself and small writing staff are of a high quality. I'd much rather have 10 hours of gameplay every 2 years than a bucketload of 'cheap' gameplay just to get more out of a game.
