A little while ago, Bethesda's Pete Hines made a comment about The Elder Scrolls VI. He said...
Well, I wanna take a minute and go against the established public opinion about this some and present a different side of things. I want to present the argument that, like Bethesda, Valve is not a Half-Life vending machine. Like it or not, they're a studio of actual people. Not robots. And in that regard, they don't really owe us anything. Just as we don't owe them anything.
Now, is it bad that they said that HL2 Episode 3 would surface and it never did? Yeah. Definitely not arguing that. Having said that though, they aren't actually acting particularly malicious at all. They're just quietly operating Steam and maybe releasing a card game or whatever. Valve hasn't done anything in a while to earn it praise, but at the same time, they haven't actually done anything harmful at all either, and they aren't beholden to us to make HL3. Ever.
It's disappointing, absolutely. But I'm definitely not gonna cry about it. It is what it is, and in terms of the current state of AAA gaming, I got MUCH bigger fish to fry than Valve. We all do.
I bring this up because people are now talking about HL3 due to Yahtzee's latest review of Hunt Down the Freeman. Specifically, they're talking about how Valve could let this happen. Why don't they do anything with the Half-Life property? Why don't they do anything at all?This studio is not a vending machine. They're not a two-button vending machine, where first we press Elder Scrolls and then we press Fallout, and then we press Elder Scrolls and then we press Fallout...
Well, I wanna take a minute and go against the established public opinion about this some and present a different side of things. I want to present the argument that, like Bethesda, Valve is not a Half-Life vending machine. Like it or not, they're a studio of actual people. Not robots. And in that regard, they don't really owe us anything. Just as we don't owe them anything.
Now, is it bad that they said that HL2 Episode 3 would surface and it never did? Yeah. Definitely not arguing that. Having said that though, they aren't actually acting particularly malicious at all. They're just quietly operating Steam and maybe releasing a card game or whatever. Valve hasn't done anything in a while to earn it praise, but at the same time, they haven't actually done anything harmful at all either, and they aren't beholden to us to make HL3. Ever.
It's disappointing, absolutely. But I'm definitely not gonna cry about it. It is what it is, and in terms of the current state of AAA gaming, I got MUCH bigger fish to fry than Valve. We all do.