On Valve and HL3 - A Different Perspective

[Arnoxthe1]

A little while ago, Bethesda's Pete Hines made a comment about The Elder Scrolls VI. He said...

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...

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?

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.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I think the difference is Bethesda actually still makes games, and has a passionate fanbase in both Fallout and Elder Scrolls games. Its understandable, if unreasonable, for fans to want new installments once every few years. And its equally understandable for Bethesda to say 'look be patient, these games take a lot of work to write, animate, debug, etc...'.

Valve on the other hand doesn't have that excuse. Excluding the whole they said Half Life 3 was a thing part, its been over a decade. They've had plenty of time to write and animate. Its not like they've been doing anything else. They're not making Gordon Freeman Skyrim and Gordon Freeman Fallout 4. They're just kinda sitting there letting Steam keep them afloat, and good will is draining fast. People just don't buy that Gabe can't think of something to do with the HL franchise - he had a pretty good idea when he decided on a trilogy, rather than just 2 games.
It's like the makers of the Mario movie saying they didn't really have an idea for a sequel when they made it. Sure, then why did you leave it on a literal cliffhanger?

As for damage, yeah Valve has fucked the gaming industry hard. Steam is a cancer and has poisoned indie devs and PC gaming. For every worth while indie game, there are a thousand lazy asset flips from Russian image board idiots using stolen assets in a bid to out-meme each other.
And Steam doesn't do anything, because hey, they paid to get on the store front. When the finally scores are counted, I doubt Steam will be viewed as having been a good thing for PC gaming. Popular, sure, and even stream-lining PC purchasing. But they only made terrible shit indie games popular and stream-lined asset flips and trading card bait games.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Steam is a cancer and has poisoned indie devs and PC gaming.

Oh c'mon. If that was really true then quality indie games wouldn't sell nearly as well. If it was true, then games like Undertale and OneShot shouldn't have gotten the fanbases they did. There's many other ways to promote your game besides, you know, releasing it on Steam. Steam is not your advertising service. It is a digital distribution platform. Nothing more or less.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Steam is a cancer and has poisoned indie devs and PC gaming.

Oh c'mon. If that was really true then quality indie games wouldn't sell nearly as well. If it was true, then games like Undertale and OneShot shouldn't have gotten the fanbases they did. There's many other ways to promote your game besides, you know, releasing it on Steam. Steam is not your advertising service. It is a digital distribution platform. Nothing more or less.

Steam is also a brand, and it used to mean something to get a game on Steam. Steam was about quality control, about making sure games worth playing got on.
Now a days it's just about getting paid and turning a blind eye. Yatzhee said it in his review, each game that goes up gets an implied Approved stamp by Valve.
So they're okay with House Party, and the Slaughtering Grounds and Gabe Newell simulator and literally thousands of others.
And if all we got in return was Undertale and Super Hot and like at best a few dozen others, then I say that's not worth it. Bad indie games to good indie games is probably at a 1000-1 ratio.

 

[sXeth]

I'm pretty onboard with a company leaving the IP in the garage if they don't have any good ideas for it, rather then regurgitating stale elements, or smashing their other ideas into that franchise (Metal Gear Survive, for instance).

From what I gather though, the ill will stems more for Half Life 2 ending on an unsatisfying note, and a blind faith that some sort of sequel would actually fix that. Folks don't want Half Life 3, they want Half Life 2 Remastered/Remade with a missing chapter finished on or whatever.

 

[Ninjamedic]

Gonna copy paste this from the the ZP vid:

Over the past few years I've come to regard Half Life 2 as the origin point for all that plagues modern Single Player shooter design, and I'm still surprised how little thought has been put into how it was the true beginning of graphical showboating over actual gameplay mechanics.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Steam is also a brand, and it used to mean something to get a game on Steam. Steam was about quality control, about making sure games worth playing got on.
Now a days it's just about getting paid and turning a blind eye. Yatzhee said it in his review, each game that goes up gets an implied Approved stamp by Valve.
So they're okay with House Party, and the Slaughtering Grounds and Gabe Newell simulator and literally thousands of others.
And if all we got in return was Undertale and Super Hot and like at best a few dozen others, then I say that's not worth it. Bad indie games to good indie games is probably at a 1000-1 ratio.

But who gets to say what should be on Steam and what shouldn't be? Obviously the game needs to actually work, but that's not actually going to work to cut out a lot of the trash. After that, you're getting into reviewing territory, and that's pretty subjective. If I have to choose between the walled garden that was Steam before and the free-for-all that it is now, I'll take the free-for-all. At least we know nothing's getting cut down unfairly just because someone at Valve didn't particularly care for your game.

Over the past few years I've come to regard Half Life 2 as the origin point for all that plagues modern Single Player shooter design, and I'm still surprised how little thought it put into how it was the true beginning of graphical showboating over actual gameplay mechanics.

Well, it's not like HL2 didn't innovate. It did. But yeah, I agree. I think it's aged badly these days.

 

[Ninjamedic]

Well, it's not like HL2 didn't innovate. It did.

Debatable, when you compare it's design to that of Goldeneye, Thief, Deus Ex, No One Lives Forever, XIII and even (no, especially) Duke Nukem 3D among other First-Person games and how they developed the genre I see the linearity, repetition and reduced variety as a regression and a pattern for the likes of Call Of Duty to follow, and it's not as if the sacrifices to the gameplay were made in service of a sophisticated narrative.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Well, it's not like HL2 didn't innovate. It did.

Debatable, when you compare it's design to that of Goldeneye, Thief, Deus Ex, No One Lives Forever, XIII and even (no, especially) Duke Nukem 3D among other First-Person games and how they developed the genre I see the linearity, repetition and reduced variety as a regression and a pattern for the likes of Call Of Duty to follow, and it's not as if the sacrifices to the gameplay were made in service of a sophisticated narrative.

You forgot the physics engine.

 

[Sticky]

I think the thing to keep in mind is that the people who made the Orange box, not just Half Life 2, have moved on to other things.
At some point a project has to be considered done or at the very least get some interest in it. HL3 has been put off for so long (longer than Duke Nukem Forever next month) that any interest is long since dead. DNF had the excuse of being the lynchpin of 3Drealms, something with so much investment money behind it that it would mean the end of the company if it ended. HL3 has no such problem, and is therefore lower on the totem pole than something that probably won't let everyone on earth down like DOTA2 or that new card game.

 

[Trunkage]

I think the thing to keep in mind is that the people who made the Orange box, not just Half Life 2, have moved on to other things.
At some point a project has to be considered done or at the very least get some interest in it. HL3 has been put off for so long (longer than Duke Nukem Forever next month) that any interest is long since dead. DNF had the excuse of being the lynchpin of 3Drealms, something with so much investment money behind it that it would mean the end of the company if it ended. HL3 has no such problem, and is therefore lower on the totem pole than something that probably won't let everyone on earth down like DOTA2 or that new card game.

They moved to projects that are profitable with very little effort. Gun skins. Why would you put effort into a game when you can basically do nothing and earn a fortune.

 

[Sticky]

I think the thing to keep in mind is that the people who made the Orange box, not just Half Life 2, have moved on to other things.
At some point a project has to be considered done or at the very least get some interest in it. HL3 has been put off for so long (longer than Duke Nukem Forever next month) that any interest is long since dead. DNF had the excuse of being the lynchpin of 3Drealms, something with so much investment money behind it that it would mean the end of the company if it ended. HL3 has no such problem, and is therefore lower on the totem pole than something that probably won't let everyone on earth down like DOTA2 or that new card game.

They moved to projects that are profitable with very little effort. Gun skins. Why would you put effort into a game when you can basically do nothing and earn a fortune.

I would think some section of them would continue doing something vaguely game related for the purposes of not rusting.
At the same time I can't say how I would behave if I knew every day I went to work I would be earning money for existing.

 

[Trunkage]

I think the thing to keep in mind is that the people who made the Orange box, not just Half Life 2, have moved on to other things.
At some point a project has to be considered done or at the very least get some interest in it. HL3 has been put off for so long (longer than Duke Nukem Forever next month) that any interest is long since dead. DNF had the excuse of being the lynchpin of 3Drealms, something with so much investment money behind it that it would mean the end of the company if it ended. HL3 has no such problem, and is therefore lower on the totem pole than something that probably won't let everyone on earth down like DOTA2 or that new card game.

They moved to projects that are profitable with very little effort. Gun skins. Why would you put effort into a game when you can basically do nothing and earn a fortune.

I would think some section of them would continue doing something vaguely game related for the purposes of not rusting.
At the same time I can't say how I would behave if I knew every day I went to work I would be earning money for existing.

it's pretty clear to me what KPIs are used to define bonuses. It's not customer satisfaction.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

Well Valve obviously gets to pick what goes on Steam. Presumably they have a team inside, that yeah, as the Valve team, gets to choose. That's their job and Valve's prerogative as Steam owners. No Dev, great or small, is entitled to get onto Steam.
And with the plague of 'devs' just buying premade Engine demo games and reselling them on Steam, hundreds at a time, or the 'devs' who break up a game so each level is a entire game of its own, I'd push back and say close the fucking gates, you're letting the trash in!
I will always choose one guy deciding Undertale isn't worth it over no one letting in 1000+ copies of the same game in one weekend.
I'm willing to sacrifice one great game so we don't have thousands of shit ones.

My favorite game of all time is Bioshock and I wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice it if it meant microtransactions were gone for good. So too with Steam.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Does anyone actually think of them as a vending machine outside of the biggest colossal morons around? Because yeah obviously they're not. On the other hand they've left the Half-life audience hanging for, what, 15 years now? That's almost putting Duke Nukem Forever to shame and at least that finally came out. Valve doesn't even have to decency to officially declare it cancelled if they're not working on it anymore. While it's probably true that they don't really owe us anything, it doesn't make the company look good when they leave their audience hanging like that. It esp. doesn't look good when they let blatant copyright violations of their IP go unchallenged, but they allow them to be sold on their storefront. I don't even care about Half-life, but I can understand the frustration of those that do.

 

[TilMorrow]

A little while ago, Bethesda's Pete Hines made a comment about The Elder Scrolls VI. He said...

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...

I know this isn't your tweet Arnox but I just want to say it's clearly not just a two-button vending machine... it's a three button vending machine with the "An Original Elder Scrolls" button and "An Original Fallout" button being rusted and in need of maintenance whilst the third "Skyrim" button is well oiled and shiny and has someone lying on it 24/7 whilst their hand is resting on the creation club lever which they jerk every so often when they have a night terror about someone converting their old games to the newer engines and adding multiplayer for free. Now that's out of the way...

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?

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.

Whilst I agree that Valve doesn't owe its fan base a HL3 or an Episode 3, although leaving a game on a major cliff hanger after specifically splitting it into episodes for reasons of better developing it and technical improvement whilst also stating a third was on the way to complete the story is definitely a good discussion point for integrity and Valve's view of their audience, I still believe Valve should have care for the quality and legacy that their games had and the fact that they allowed Hunt the Freeman not only on their store front but actually allowed it to sell for money is bloody ludicrous. At this point they've shown how little they care for their IP by essentially endorsing this atrocity by allowing it on the very home of the Half Life series and source engine and although they may never want to make one, the only real way they could make up for this colossal fuck up is by making HL3 or HL2: Episode 3 and showing their fans that they actually still care about quality and are not content with letting their series being using as the festering bedrock from which shitty knock offs can arise from and maybe then they can apply that sort of thinking to their storefront for improving it. Additionally Valve might not be a Half-Life vending machine (well it'd be a joke to say it was since they last released a Half Life Game nearly 11 years ago and the last game they actually released of their own design was Portal 2 from 7 years ago) but it certainly seems content with churning out microtransactable items for DOTA2, skins for CS:GO and occasionally Hats for TF2 when they deem to remember that it exists. Oh and look it's planning to get into the DCCG business with Artifact which is essentially card pack Microtransactions galore.

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.

Granted Valve is not being and has never been malicious (unless you count their refund system and certain region restrictions to be criminal) but what they're doing is something that is equally as bad, being lazy and/or ignorant. You may be saying there are bigger fish to fry (which I'm guessing EA and Ubisoft in particular) but consider this. Valve used to be considered the Paragon of the gaming industry, the developer that everyone pointed at and said that's how you make a quality game, that's the sort of standard you should hold yourself to and grew from that adoration, praise and investment of it's fans. Heck its presence was so strong that EA tried to copy it and say "Look we've created a Steam! We're just as good!" and was appropriately laughed at and their attempt at disguising spyware in their launcher that it was quickly removed and remarketed as being bug free and still failed to get major traction. Now we have a Valve that has grown obese and dull on it's former successes who has neglected the value of its own work and persists on the takings of games that are now just dumped on it's platform and the skin and sword sales from the stores of it's aging releases and yet we try to criticise other developers for their shoddy and frankly malicious lootbox and item sales strategy when they could just as simply turn us around and point whilst whispering "Look we're just like your Idol now. Isn't that what you've always wanted? Isn't that what you've always preached for us to be?" In other words, Valve really needs to wake up and smell the ashes, the Freeman's gotta come home and win the war.

 

[C117]

Steam is also a brand, and it used to mean something to get a game on Steam. Steam was about quality control, about making sure games worth playing got on.
Now a days it's just about getting paid and turning a blind eye. Yatzhee said it in his review, each game that goes up gets an implied Approved stamp by Valve.
So they're okay with House Party, and the Slaughtering Grounds and Gabe Newell simulator and literally thousands of others.
And if all we got in return was Undertale and Super Hot and like at best a few dozen others, then I say that's not worth it. Bad indie games to good indie games is probably at a 1000-1 ratio.

But who gets to say what should be on Steam and what shouldn't be? Obviously the game needs to actually work, but that's not actually going to work to cut out a lot of the trash. After that, you're getting into reviewing territory, and that's pretty subjective. If I have to choose between the walled garden that was Steam before and the free-for-all that it is now, I'll take the free-for-all. At least we know nothing's getting cut down unfairly just because someone at Valve didn't particularly care for your game.

Well, let's put it like this: say you are running a toy store, and let's assume you've got enough holding power that you are not part of a chain, but rather you ARE the chain. You even manufacture some stuff yourself. You have complete control over what your store will and won't sell. Anyone who comes to you with a product has the possibility of being sold in your store, as long as you give your final stamp of approval. Would it not be in your right to turn away anyone who comes to you and says "yeah, you should totally sell my product! Oh sure, it is painted with leadbased paint and has a tendency to spontaneously combust, but kids are stupid, they'll buy anything"? And in the same vein, would it not be in your right to turn away anyone who shows up with a knockoff Dragon Ball Z-figure called Dragoon Balls that they clearly put together by frankensteining together actual official Dragon Ball Z-figures?

There is one point where your control becomes more sinister, and that is that you have a personal negative preference against RC cars (after a RC car tragically blew up your uncle, or whatever). So if someone shows up to you with a brand new RC car that goes smoothly, looks spiffy, is totally safe for kids, and is an absolute masterpiece... you are actually in your right to turn them away too. It sucks for the consumer that they don't get to buy it, it sucks for the creator of this RC masterpiece that they don't get to sell it, it sucks from a professional standpoint that you let your personal feelings get in the way of a great deal, but the fact is that this is your store. You decide what is sold. You have the right to turn them away because you don't like their product. But if it gets out that your turned away this masterpiece, you have to deal with the negative press, and maybe see your rival stores pick it up and just raking it in.

Because however you look at it, Steam is a store, and Valve owns that store. The problem is that they don't give a toss what goes up on the store, and instead are content to just let it be flooded with asset flips and bug-riddled crap. If they start actually vetting stuff properly we might miss out on a few good games, sure, but there are enough venues out there that not getting onto Steam isn't the deathblow it used to be, provided you've actually got a game on your hands and not a barely working technological nightmare.

 

[Hawki]

As someone who isn't really enamored with Valve or Half-Life...

Valve on the other hand doesn't have that excuse. Excluding the whole they said Half Life 3 was a thing part, its been over a decade. They've had plenty of time to write and animate. Its not like they've been doing anything else. They're not making Gordon Freeman Skyrim and Gordon Freeman Fallout 4. They're just kinda sitting there letting Steam keep them afloat, and good will is draining fast. People just don't buy that Gabe can't think of something to do with the HL franchise - he had a pretty good idea when he decided on a trilogy, rather than just 2 games.

Playing devil's advocate, they did make numerous games post-HL2, not to mention their tech endeavors.

Sure, then why did you leave it on a literal cliffhanger?

We really counting that as a cliffhanger? I always saw it as more of a "the Mario Bros adventures are just beginning." It's kind of like saying The Incredibles ends on a cliffhanger. Yes, the Underminer emerges and the family gets ready to face him, but it's not really a plot point in of itself.

I don't even care about Half-life, but I can understand the frustration of those that do.

The Canadian Autobot speaks for me.

 

[Dalisclock]

A little while ago, Bethesda's Pete Hines made a comment about The Elder Scrolls VI. He said...

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...

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?

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.

I think part of why people are so annoyed by it is that not only did they drop HL without giving it a proper ending(Instead, it will forever end with Alex Crying over her father's body) but they refuse to even talk about it anymore and that's the maddening thing. If they had just went "Sorry, we're done with HL. Thanks for playing" then there wouldn't have been the years of people desperately hoping for any sign of a finale. Sure, people would have still been salty over the cliffhanger ending, but there would have been the acknowledgement that is the end.