jason-holtman
Latest
Oculus picks up Jason Holtman, a 'driving force' behind Steam
The Valve employees go marching one-by-one, hurrah, hurrah. Oculus has tapped another ex-Valve employee to help develop their virtual reality technology; this time, it's Jason Holtman, who previously served as Valve's chief of business development. Oculus credits Holtman as a "driving force" behind the creation of Steam. "Jason will be spearheading the business development and partnership side of the Oculus platform working closely with Marshall, head of platform engineering, and David, head of worldwide publishing, with a focus on building the world's best developer and player VR ecosystem," Oculus said. "We're thrilled to welcome him to the team." Oculus isn't done yet, though. The company is still hiring, with more than a dozen open positions. Think you're qualified? Who knows, the next name we write about could be yours. [Image: Oculus]
Former Steam boss quietly exits Microsoft after six months [Update: Microsoft responds]
Jason Holtman has seemingly left Microsoft less than six months after he was hired to head up the company's renewed PC gaming initiative. According to his LinkedIn page (via Neowin), Holtman left his position at Microsoft in January. Neither Microsoft nor Holtman himself have confirmed the departure. Holtman previously served as the Director of Business Development at Steam platform developer Valve, leaving his position during a round of layoffs last year. We've contacted Microsoft for confirmation of Holtman's departure, and await a response. [Update: A Microsoft spokesperson responded to our request for comment, stating the following: "We can confirm that Jason has left Microsoft and we're grateful for his time at the company. We wish him the best in his future endeavors."] [Image: Microsoft]
Former Steam boss Jason Holtman now at Microsoft
Former Valve Director of Business Development Jason Holtman has joined Microsoft, and will focus on the company's PC gaming efforts. "Yes, I have joined Microsoft where I will be focusing on making Windows a great platform for gaming and interactive entertainment," Holtman confirmed to Games Industry International. "I think there is a lot of opportunity for Microsoft to deliver the games and entertainment customers want and to work with developers to make that happen, so I'm excited to be here." Holtman left Valve in February during a round of layoffs at the company. He managed Valve's Steam platform, working with the company for eight years.
Valve keeping Steam sales data private, out of aggregated charts
Valve is deeply skeptical of any proposed "scorecard" attempting to depict digital game sales, according to biz dev director Jason Holtman, who manages Steam, the company's lucrative online distribution platform for PC and Mac. "If you look back at the way retail charts have been made, they have been proven to be telling an inaccurate story," Holtman told MCV. "They apparently had shown how the PC format was dying when it was actually thriving." Market research firms in the business of tallying such consumer-spending, like NPD and Chart-Track, have begun to acknowledge the gross inadequacy of analyzing physical media sales alone, especially on the PC platform. Last summer, NPD raised a bright red flag when it reported on 2009 findings that physical and digital PC game-related sales were reaching parity. A few months later, the firm announced it was close to refining its reports to include digital sales. Easier said than done. Some estimates suggest that more than half of all PC digital game sales are made through Steam, so clearly any outfit hoping to even begin to chart such data needs Valve on board. Seemingly shunning those requests, and those from publishers and developers, Holtman said that charting game sales is "less useful in the digital space." "The idea of a chart is old," he added. "It came from people trying to aggregate disaggregated information." In the digital space, especially, sales are spread across a vast number of disassociated retailers. Perhaps then, Valve's skepticism stems from the seeming impossibility of compiling an accurate, total figure -- or maybe, as Holtman implied, Valve just sees such a figure as an antiquated measuring stick. And really, who's business is it to know how many copies of a game have been sold? Holtman insisted that Steam's "rapid and perfected information" about sales is only relevant to its partners on a per-game basis. "The point is, it's not super important for a publisher or developer to know how well everyone is doing. What's important to know is exactly how your game is doing -- why it's climbing and why it's falling; your daily sales; your daily swing; your rewards for online campaign number three. That's what we provide."
Google offers up Liquid Galaxy blueprint, make a panoramic Google Earth of your own
Not everyone has the wherewithal to purchase eight 55-inch HDTVs and a dedicated Linux server for each, but if we just described your corporate budget, Google's got everything else you need. The company just open-sourced the code, scripts and even the physical blueprint for its massive Liquid Galaxy rig late last week, letting folks buzz Google Earth natively across loads of screens. If you're ready to build your own, you'll find all that good stuff at our source link; if you first need a refresher course on why it's worth the dough, there's a lovely video after the break.
Valve talks gaming on the Mac, says best is yet to come
Valve's Jason Holtman and Doug Lombardi recently sat down with GamesIndustry.biz to discuss their big release of Steam on the Mac, and not only do they reiterate that great stat that games released on the Mac see a nice bump in sales, but they say that the best days of Mac gaming are yet to come. They can't share numbers yet on just how many Mac vs. PC players there are (though they say the response has been great, and you can see Mac players in games often), but Holtman and Lombardi both say that from small game developers to big game publishers, Steam on Mac has helped everyone see just how active and important the Mac gaming scene is. There are international users on Macs, and the amount of player interest in games for the platform has made developers rethink their old plans of releasing a Mac port when they get to it rather than day and date with the PC title. That is, in a word, awesome. And Lombardi says now that publishers are interested in the platform as whole, we'll see some "different types of experiment on pricing and promotion and all that stuff on Mac titles," as companies try to figure out how to make the most of this market they've been neglecting for so long. Valve has already said that bringing Steam to the Mac was the most significant decision they've made with the service, but I'd argue that even this early in the process (even Valve admits that it doesn't have a lot of data yet on how people use the two platforms), it was a seismic event for Mac gaming as well.
Valve offering parts of its Mac graphics code to Steamworks devs
Valve has singlehandedly reinvigorated the Mac gaming world by making its Steam content delivery service compatible with the Mac. It has been steadily populating the service with Mac-friendly versions of its mega-popular games; however, apparently that isn't enough. Now Valve is going to help other developers make Mac games, by releasing elements of its graphics code. Business development director Jason Holtman told GamesIndustry.biz that Valve will release some code to developers signed on with the company's Steamworks infrastructure, in order to expedite the development of Mac games (and thus speed up the population of Steam). "So our Steamworks partners will have access to some of the hard work that we do to get our games up on Mac," Holtman said, "and they'll be able to incorporate that into their games -- and our hope is it gets them there faster." Holtman also provided clues as to the success of Steam's Mac edition, stating that "we're seeing between a 15 and 20 percent increase in games that have a Mac version on Steam." It turns out that Mac owners will buy games if they're available!
Valve: Keep listening to your customers, keep listening to your developers
Regardless of what some developers may say about Valve's digital distribution service, Steam, the Left 4 Dead 2 developer remains steadfast in its belief that listening to customers and developers is the best way to stay on top of the game. Ars Technica spoke with Valve director of business development Jason Holtman before his keynote at the Montreal International Games Summit, and Holtman explained his company's one-two-punch plan of listening to Steam customers and developers for advice on running the operation. "They're actually usually far better predictors of success than we ever could be," he said. He was also quick to point out that, despite the cyclical claims that PC gaming is "dying," Steam has been enjoying strong digital sales for years. During his presentation in Montreal, he noted that Valve's games have doubling sales numbers (or more) when they're put on sale, with Team Fortress 2 sales having jumped by as much as 520 percent when the Sniper vs Spy update was released. With numbers like that to back up his claim, it's starting to make a lot more sense to us why developers were so happy to defend Steam last month.
Key Square Enix, Media Molecule, Valve, Maxis staff keynoting Montreal game summit
The keynote speaker lineup for the Montreal International Game Summit 09 has been announced, and, fittingly, it's an international bunch. In fact, the Canadian event, which runs November 16 and 17, will be kicked off by Square Enix prez Yoichi Wada.Other speakers announced include Paul Holden, lead architect at LittleBigPlanet dev Media Molecule; Chris Hecker, lead architect at EA Maxis; Valve's Jason Holtman, the bizdev exec who heads up Steam; and author slash NPR games contributor Heather Chaplin. It's Hecker who will wind up the event with a discussion titled, "Can video games be considered as cultural products in the same way as literature or theatre?" Yes, the "games as art debate" -- or at least one person's views on it.
Digital distribution panel: Retail and downloads work together
Newsweek's N'Gai Croal hosted a GDC discussion about digital distribution, featuring panelists from Bioware, Valve, Microsoft, Telltale Games, and GameTap. The session interested us most for its comments on how retail and digital distribution work together and thoughts on the media's lack of digital-only games coverage.Valve's Jason Holtman said, "The myth of digital distribution cannibalizing retail sales isn't true. ... The first couple times we ran [free weekends for games], we found out they increased retail sales as well [as digital sales.]"Holtman later said, "We love selling our boxed products. We like selling our digital products, too. ... Retail is going to be here to stay. It's a great channel for games. Digital is also a great channel for games."Ray Muzka of Bioware said, "They're incredibly complimentary. ... You can get research, you can get data from your digital distribution to make better games."Dan Connors of Telltale Games described how his company's games benefit from initial digital distribution. He said, "By the time it gets to retail, it's a known quantity. ... It was thought of from the ground up that we're going to launch online and [move to retail.] ... I think we've managed to take revenues from a range of places."Near the end of the session, Croal asked if he and other journalists had covered digital distribution enough. Rick Sanchez of GameTap vehemently said that the press hadn't and that they don't know how to treat his game-download service. The other panelists thought their projects were getting enough coverage, although they echoed the slow recognition of their digital projects.Other than Microsoft's Xbox Live games, GameTap represented the only company with a digital-only distribution method. Could that affect GameTap's recognition, because the public -- and journalists -- still need a boxed copy to take notice?
