Newell talks entertainment as service in DICE keynote, confirms Valve comics
Valve boss Gabe Newell stuck to familiar ground in his DICE keynote last night, saying the best way to reach new customers is through the word of mouth of your existing clients.
“The old way was using intermediaries,” Newell said. “The product would be sold through retailers or other intermediaries.
"You were really focused on spending three years to build value for your customers to get through the friction of the retail experience.”
When you focus on entertainment as a service, on the other hand, “you will use your customer base to reach new customers, and your focus is much more about providing ongoing value to your customers – maybe every three weeks, or even more often than that.”
To illustrate the point, Newell rolled out some frankly disturbing Steam stats.
- 20 million people connected
- All major PC publishers on board
- 350+ of the best PC games
- Worldwide in 21 languages
- 100% Year-over-year growth since 2004
Get a fuller reports on Gamasutra and G4. From the look of it, the only announcement as such was that Valve's making a Team Fortress 2 comic.