They are doing their own thing with DOTA2 and TF2 and of course Steam. It's nice and all but they are also bleeding creative people so badly that I'm not really sure how are they planning to make any real Valve games in the future.
Are Valve even AWARE of how badly they're screwing up?
- Thread starter Arcane Azmadi
- Start date
Yeah I don't get it either OP there are games out there fans are outright saying you NEED to do this take our money already! and yet the devs and publishers just go nope, we've got the next COD and Pokemon to develop....money is waiting to be thrown their way and it seems like they don't want it, its a very stupid business decision I guess it goes right up there with fem leads if they think even a tiny bit they'll get something not quite right or that they can't blow this thing outside of the solar system they decide welp lets not do it at all, making a killing compared to making a dynasty load of cash just isn't worth our time.
Valve doesn't care about it, the fans do (and they like having the fans questioning them, because it makes them relevant as a game developer). Valve doesn't want to get into Half Life 3, because they know they could hardly make a jump between 2 and 3 like they did between 1 and 2.Vigormortis said:
Valve is the one that no longer cares (at least, not enough to commit serious resources to it); it does care that people remember them as "those people that developed those beloved/critically acclaimed games" (the same way SEGA still tries to sell the idea that Team Sonic are the people behind the original games, despite most of the original team being no longer there).
The fans still care, and many people would jump to Half Life 3 if it was out tomorrow, part as fanboyism and part because of curiosity; but most of the fans are past the part of active care (some of them rationalize the disinterest of Valve, some of them fear that (if ever released) there is no way the game would live up to expectations, some of them simply understood that their demands are not being met by Valve). They will, however, return to being actively interested the moment Valve announces something (the same way there seems to be a lot more people that genuinely cared about Duke Nukem after we discovered it was going to be a real game, a lot more than when the game was only an Internet joke).
About your question "not be cared about and never live up to expectations", is not so weird if you consider caring about something is not a binary choice. It is not "either you actively, deeply care about something, or you don't care at all". It is a gradient... many people don't care about it so deeply that they are constantly posting in forums about Half Life, wear HL2 memorabilia, and adding Half Life 3 to their list of most anticipated games of the next year, every year; many of them jumped out of the hype train after they realized how long since Valve said something concrete, but they care enough that they will jump right back the moment an official trailer is released or a date is announced.
Is it irrational? Perhaps, but we are talking about a mass of people reacting to hype here... it doesn't have to be rational.
Valve does care about the Half-Life franchise, though. They have had the project in active development for at least the past three years.[footnote]If you want evidence of this, just go back to one of my earlier posts.[/footnote] So they clearly do care about the project, and not solely for the PR related to it's mystery.hermes200 said:
The crux of my argument from my previous post was that saying one doesn't care about a thing, while simultaneously saying one has expectations of a thing, is a contradictory statement. One can't have expectations about something they care nothing of. (And just to clarify: Caring about something can have a negative connotation. It doesn't mean you have to like the thing.)
And I know there are varying degrees of 'care'; or investment, if you will. However, a statement like, "No one cares" is very much binary. One could say, "No one cares enough anymore to be waiting on bated breath for it's release, but even if it does come I don't think it will live up to the hype.", and that would make sense. But 'no one cares' isn't some varied degree, it's the absence of.
Now, I must clarify something about you and the others of whom I quoted in my post. I wasn't specifically targeting any of you. I only quoted the four of you to show how often I hear that sentiment. If it felt like a personal 'attack', I must apologize. That was not my intention.
[sub]And yes, I'm being a stickler on semantics. I'm stubborn that way.[/sub]
I think what made Valve the company they are today...is making a Digital platform that wasn't disgustingly offensive and is known across the internet for sucking your wallet dry because of great deals and not being overpriced crap.
Infact, Half Life 2 brought steam along as a DRM and everyone HATED it and them for it. So, really Half Life 2 brought them a lot of flack and issues.
Infact, Half Life 2 brought steam along as a DRM and everyone HATED it and them for it. So, really Half Life 2 brought them a lot of flack and issues.
I think it reached the "no-one cares anymore" stage a long time ago, and that is likely the reason Valve will never make it. As you said - whatever they make will be crushed beneath the weight of its expectations, so why make it if it's doomed to fail?Arcane Azmadi said:
As for why Valve never bothered making it, or made it so excruciating slow that they realised it would never live up to the hype and canned it, is a real f*cking good question. One that I think they plan to take with them to the grave.
At this point; asking "Where is Half-Life 3?" is like asking "Where is Amelia Earhart?". Just move on.
You... You DO realize how long Pokemon fans waited for R/S remakes, right? I think Ruby and Sapphire came out in early 2003 in NA. We have been waiting for more than 11 years for Ruby/Sapphire remakes, and you know what? The anticipation went the same way as Half-Life 3's did. I'm sure you know about "Hoenn Confirmed", where hopeful fanboys interpreted anything related to Gen 3 as a sign that the next game was going to be a Ruby/Sapphire remake. And then it happened. It actually fucking happened. And the Pokemon community literally exploded from sheer joy and amazement.
Need another example? Fire Emblem fans waited for five years after the Shadow Dragon remake for Awakening, and that was an even bigger gamble for Intelligent Systems than HL-3 would be for Valve at this point - mainly because there was absolutely no hype for a new FE game, even among IS itself! They literally thought the series was dead and the only reason Awakening was a thing was to be a swansong to the series and a kind of thank-you to the few international FE fans left, and then the series would be done. Except the gaming community was like "HOYL SHEET NEW FIRE EMBLEM" and the game sold better than any previous Fire Emblem title.
Not to mention that a big part of the delay is probably due to the fact that Valve has been busting their ass working on the Source2 Engine, which, with a smaller team than most modern engine makers, has to be graphically better than existing engines, now including Kojima's FOX Engine (which looks fucking amazing), has to be accessible, and the almost impossible feat, has to be more modular and easily modifiable than it's predecessor, in order to be competitive in the market. In other words, Valve now has to improve what is already regarded as one of the most successful game engines in the industry. And they've spent years trying to do that. Now it looks like Source2 is finally nearing the end of its production. Does this portent Hl-3 in the future? Maybe, maybe not. One thing is for certain, though - It will probably have enough star power to sell well, and it will probably be a good game (hell, if you have a story and halfway decent AI (something that can be done with the existing Source Engine), then you're already better than 90% of the games on the market now).
Need another example? Fire Emblem fans waited for five years after the Shadow Dragon remake for Awakening, and that was an even bigger gamble for Intelligent Systems than HL-3 would be for Valve at this point - mainly because there was absolutely no hype for a new FE game, even among IS itself! They literally thought the series was dead and the only reason Awakening was a thing was to be a swansong to the series and a kind of thank-you to the few international FE fans left, and then the series would be done. Except the gaming community was like "HOYL SHEET NEW FIRE EMBLEM" and the game sold better than any previous Fire Emblem title.
Not to mention that a big part of the delay is probably due to the fact that Valve has been busting their ass working on the Source2 Engine, which, with a smaller team than most modern engine makers, has to be graphically better than existing engines, now including Kojima's FOX Engine (which looks fucking amazing), has to be accessible, and the almost impossible feat, has to be more modular and easily modifiable than it's predecessor, in order to be competitive in the market. In other words, Valve now has to improve what is already regarded as one of the most successful game engines in the industry. And they've spent years trying to do that. Now it looks like Source2 is finally nearing the end of its production. Does this portent Hl-3 in the future? Maybe, maybe not. One thing is for certain, though - It will probably have enough star power to sell well, and it will probably be a good game (hell, if you have a story and halfway decent AI (something that can be done with the existing Source Engine), then you're already better than 90% of the games on the market now).
Because making Half-Life 2 was a horrible experience.
Delays, surreal crunch times, leaks, stress, etc.
That combined with the high expectations, the fact that the "episodic content" thing didn't really pan out...
I think most of the people working at Valve just don't feel like it. You know, looking at the task ahead of them, sighing and then muttering something like: "Going through all that shit again and not having any guarantee of success in the ever-changing gaming landscape? Yeah, no thanks, I'm gonna check if the Steam-team needs anything done - safer and less stressful."
Delays, surreal crunch times, leaks, stress, etc.
That combined with the high expectations, the fact that the "episodic content" thing didn't really pan out...
I think most of the people working at Valve just don't feel like it. You know, looking at the task ahead of them, sighing and then muttering something like: "Going through all that shit again and not having any guarantee of success in the ever-changing gaming landscape? Yeah, no thanks, I'm gonna check if the Steam-team needs anything done - safer and less stressful."
Valve seems to have a very VERY high reputation compared to other large industry companies, so I imagine it would be a lot of pressure put on them. Seeing the stress put into releasing Half-Life 2 years ago, and Portal 2 years later, I can understand why they might not want to release the game at all. Nowadays most of their time is notably spent into TF2 updates, steam and it's community, Dota 2 updates and events, and the occasional source engine bug fixes.
Now I was personally a big fan of the Half-Life series like many others, yet I still think the hype will never be fully satisfied after waiting so long, no matter how gorgeous the game looks or feels. If they actually did decide to drop the franchise, then I think it would be better to let the public know before the waiting gets out of hand.
But I could also be wrong. The Source engine was and is still a big deal. They did a good job working with the object physics and character expressions, so a third source engine may have the potential to blow our minds from our skulls. I will still hold out hope for such a possibility, but will also understand if that is not the case. Like many of you, I just wish Valve would say SOMETHING. One of the worst things that could happen to the company now is to lose the trust of it's customers...
Now I was personally a big fan of the Half-Life series like many others, yet I still think the hype will never be fully satisfied after waiting so long, no matter how gorgeous the game looks or feels. If they actually did decide to drop the franchise, then I think it would be better to let the public know before the waiting gets out of hand.
But I could also be wrong. The Source engine was and is still a big deal. They did a good job working with the object physics and character expressions, so a third source engine may have the potential to blow our minds from our skulls. I will still hold out hope for such a possibility, but will also understand if that is not the case. Like many of you, I just wish Valve would say SOMETHING. One of the worst things that could happen to the company now is to lose the trust of it's customers...
communist gamer said:
Actually, the lack of fog was caused by a hardware issue. Silent Hill games on the PS2 used a hardware function to create the fog effects, so when it was remade in HD on different hardware, the fog simply vanished.cookyt said:
At that point, it should have been caught by quality control, but apparently no one bothered to play the HD remake before they tried to sell it in stores. If someone had, they could have put the fog back in with some new code... but no one bothered.
There's nothing wrong with HD remakes in general. It was just that Silent Hill HD had no quality control or really any effort at all put into it.
OT: I don't much care about Half Life (never really enjoyed the franchise) but I do hope that Valve can get over it's so-called fear of threes and put out Portal 3.
Messing up what now? Steam makes money hand over fist on the PC market. Sure I'm not happy about lack of half life 3 but valve is the kind of company that would scrap a finished game if they thought it wasn't up to snuff. Besides it's not like i;m not going to buy half life 3 if it comes out next year... or the year after that.. or after that
I'm not convinced Valve cares period. Steam is looking more cluttered and full of crap every day.
So you feel entitled to Half-Life 3?
I forgot when you were a master at business theory and economics. Valve makes oodles of dosh, and that isn't because they sell lots of l4d, csgo, and portal. No, valve makes money by getting people on to steam. The potential money to be gained from making Half-Life3 pales in comparison to the potential money they can make by getting people to switch to Steam. That's why they are investing in things like streaming, SteamOS/Steambox, and steam controllers.
They aren't stupid, they are rich.
I forgot when you were a master at business theory and economics. Valve makes oodles of dosh, and that isn't because they sell lots of l4d, csgo, and portal. No, valve makes money by getting people on to steam. The potential money to be gained from making Half-Life3 pales in comparison to the potential money they can make by getting people to switch to Steam. That's why they are investing in things like streaming, SteamOS/Steambox, and steam controllers.
They aren't stupid, they are rich.
Given that both Origins and Halo 4 seemed to forget the legendary ending besides that one line I don't think they were continuing the story at all.J Tyran said:
Halo 3 ended with the implication that Chief and Cortana would end up on that Forerunner planet, but that doesn't seem to be the case in Halo 4 or the Origins story from Halo Legends (for the record, I was a bit annoyed at Origins as well for this. I know I come off as bitter to a silly degree).
You know how they introduced trading cards in order to monetize profile features last year? Well this past weekend I had to fill out a tax form -from within the Steam client- before I could "sell" any more.
That's who Valve is in 2014.
That's who Valve is in 2014.
Each to his own, I enjoyed Halo 4 a lot more than ODST and Reach. 343s attempts to humanise the Chief show promise, I mean they did a pretty good job of the game in a lot of ways. It was polished and fluid, pacing was a little off and the Cheif vs Didact didn't really work but its one of the better games in the series.Evonisia said:
Could it be that Valve is one of the very few companies that understands letting something have a great run, come to a conclusion and be over while it is still good? Could it be they understand that releasing a sequel of an IP every year or every few years even, makes them part of the samey, vanilla, boring, congealed glob of FPS games and Ass Creeds? Could it be that they understand that since people have built Half Life 3 up into this end all, be all legend of their own individual, nebulous imagination with a bunch of hugely different and completely non-cohesive expectations would only lead to a huge flop that stands as a stark disappointment compared to the games of yore? No... No that cant be right... They're just stupid... That's it
Oh dear, Valve will go bankrupt without your favorite game, that doesn't exist?
How will they ever survive?
How will they ever survive?