Valve: "Valve Time" is a Compliment

[Zack Alklazaris]

Half Life 1 was impressively ground breaking.
Half Life 2 was beautiful and fun throughout.
Half Life 2: Episode 1 was neat and quick
Half Life 2: Episode 2 was just quick

It seems the longer Valve takes the better the game ends up being. Take all the time you want Valve, just please try to release at least the demo before I get so old the arthritis in my hands makes it impossible for me to play.

 

[banksy122]

That's been Blizzard's motto for a long time, and look how people felt about Diablo 3. Honestly, I'll laugh my ass off if the same situation happens with Half-life 3.

Except Blizzard is owned by Activision now. A publisher who demands their devs to force games out.

Actually Blizzard is exempt from Activision control, the studio has full autonomy with the exception of regional customer support and localization.

Oh, so that is why Activision make all Blizzard announcements when it comes to future game scheduled, and it is Blizzards entire fault for the loss of quality of their games since Activisions acquisition.
Captcha: Moot point.

 

[thirion1850]

I get that technically they're different. But think of it this way:

EA: Buys a company under company name, lets them make game, puts out game.
Valve: Buys a company, doesn't let them keep company name, puts out game as valve game.

Except those weren't companies but mod teams. That made games on THEIR ENGINE. Using THEIR GAMES. And got jobs and access directly to THEIR FUNDS to put out bigger, badder plays on their old titles with essentially NO LIMITS to creativity. Not to mention, Valve employees just so happen to be game designers them selves, thus indeed aiding with the newfound projects.

It jars me to see Valve get hate for this of all things. Forget occasional Steam issues, forget Valve time, no. It's because they decided to bring in a mod team, thus continuing a successful business practice that worked since the company's inception, providing consumers with more backed and popular versions of their favorite or previously unheard of mods and letting mod makers go wild in the professions they truly wanted to work in. But here we are with you providing EA as a "good comparison to the miscreants". Seriously. E friggen A. Well done.

 

[Dogstile]

I get that technically they're different. But think of it this way:

EA: Buys a company under company name, lets them make game, puts out game.
Valve: Buys a company, doesn't let them keep company name, puts out game as valve game.

Except those weren't companies but mod teams. That made games on THEIR ENGINE. Using THEIR GAMES. And got jobs and access directly to THEIR FUNDS to put out bigger, badder plays on their old titles with essentially NO LIMITS to creativity. Not to mention, Valve employees just so happen to be game designers them selves, thus indeed aiding with the newfound projects.

It jars me to see Valve get hate for this of all things. Forget occasional Steam issues, forget Valve time, no. It's because they decided to bring in a mod team, thus continuing a successful business practice that worked since the company's inception, providing consumers with more backed and popular versions of their favorite or previously unheard of mods and letting mod makers go wild in the professions they truly wanted to work in. But here we are with you providing EA as a "good comparison to the miscreants". Seriously. E friggen A. Well done.

Oh i'm sorry, did you assume because I think they're more like a publisher than a developer right now because valves own dev teams don't seem to do much nowadays that it means I hate valve?

Let me get this clear, I don't hate valve. They do what any company with the resources they do, would do. That is perfectly ok. The fact is valve does take mod teams (who usually have a name that they go by) and get them to polish their game and then publish it as a solely valve game.

Its not wrong on any level and I certainly didn't say EA was better than valve. If you thought that, then maybe you have a problem with the idea of a company or team not being able to keep its name when being bought out.

 

[MrGalactus]

As much as I hate them, it's impossible not to love them....

 

[Vivi22]

Let's be honest, if it wasn't for Steam, Valve would have gone bankrupt and shut down years ago with the kind of game development schedule they have at the moment.

I don't really believe Valve actually believes in any of these stuff, they just know they can get away with it because of the money made from Steam.

When they made Half-Life, at one point they scrapped just about everything because it wasn't fun enough and redid a lot of it. This was about a year before the game actually released. They didn't go bankrupt. Similar things happened with HL2. Again, didn't go bankrupt (yes they had Steam at that point. No, it wasn't big enough to afford them infinite development time). Since then, they've released almost one game a year, all of which were well received and undeniably successful for them.

For a company that can afford to just sit on their hands and dick around forever without having to release a hit game and turn a profit, they've released an awful lot of hit games that turned a profit.

Again as I pointed out wise assly (not a word, I know) in brackets, games like Portal, LFD, and TF2 were mods from their most critically acclaimed game, Half Life. Much easier to do compared to actually making a game from scratch.

Your ignorance is showing I'm afraid. First off, L4D wasn't a mod of any game. It was in development by Turtle Rock Studios, Valve liked what they were doing so they bought them, brought them into the company and helped finish it. Turtle Rock subsequently left Valve, but regardless, you act as if this practice is something unique in the industry. it's really not.

Second, Portal and TF2 also weren't mods. The former was based on a student project which lead to them hiring those students to work on Portal. TF2 was based on TFC, a mod for Half-Life which Valve hired the original creators of Team Fortress for Quake to port for them. This was years before Steam was ever on the scene. Portal and TF2 however were not easier to make because they were based on other projects. They were completely built from the ground up on the source engine, and very little from the originals survived intact beyond the basic gameplay mechanics. Portal was a big undertaking on a technical level to pull off with the source engine, and TF2 was massively changed and rebalanced from the original. Saying they were easier because they were based on earlier concepts is like saying that making Doom 3 would have been easy because it was based on Doom. The statement is inherently ridiculous and only shows that you don't know that much about the history of these games or game development in general.

Edit: fixed quote tags.

 

[Awexsome]

They can enjoy the luxury that no other developer or publisher in the world has with Steam to actually LET them use "Valve time" and buy smaller groups for a good portion of their games that they just release under their name...

But the good news is that with all that luxury they do give a lot back to their fans, the most in fact 2nd to only Bungie IMO because of how convenient is it to Valve compared to them. So I can't judge them too harshly.

 

[Farther than stars]

"We would infinitely rather have happy customers for decades, rather than a happy batch of customers at one Christmas,"

And those costumers would rather have a definitive answer on Half-Life, than be left waiting for decades.

Well, to be fair it's only been five years since the last installment. But, yes, once the first decade has been reached you might as well add it to the scrap yard, because it's going to be as disjointed as Duke Nukem Forever.

 

[The Hungry Samurai]

You... you both realise that Valve have released 1 massively successful game each year since 2004, right?

But lets look at this in detail.

2004: Half Life 2, Counter Strike Source
2005: Day of Defeat: Source
2006: Half Life Episode 1
2007: Half Life Episode 2, TF2, Portal
2008: Left 4 Dead
2009: Left 4 Dead 2
2010: Aline Swarm (Free game)
2011: Portal 2
2012: Counter Strike Global Offensive (August), Dota 2 (TBA)

Yeah... thats a real shitty release schedule.

EDIT: That's not including everything they have done with TF2 since release.

It fascinates and depresses me, that there is not a single 3 in the entirety of this post. Not in any of the titles, not even in the years. Either 2013 will have HL3, TF3, Portal 3, DOTA3 and L4D3 ?...or Gabe Newell has some weird number phobia, and will shut down Steam and not release a single game for that whole year.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

You... you both realise that Valve have released 1 massively successful game each year since 2004, right?

But lets look at this in detail.

2004: Half Life 2, Counter Strike Source
2005: Day of Defeat: Source
2006: Half Life Episode 1
2007: Half Life Episode 2, TF2, Portal
2008: Left 4 Dead
2009: Left 4 Dead 2
2010: Aline Swarm (Free game)
2011: Portal 2
2012: Counter Strike Global Offensive (August), Dota 2 (TBA)

Yeah... thats a real shitty release schedule.

EDIT: That's not including everything they have done with TF2 since release.

It fascinates and depresses me, that there is not a single 3 in the entirety of this post. Not in any of the titles, not even in the years. Either 2013 will have HL3, TF3, Portal 3, DOTA3 and L4D3 ?...or Gabe Newell has some weird number phobia, and will shut down Steam and not release a single game for that whole year.

Its generally accepted that the 3rd entry in a trilogy is always the worst (except for star wars prequels, where the last one was the best, but thats still not saying much).

Maybe gabe is investing millions to figure out how to beat the fate?

News Just in, Half-Life 3 has been announced, but its called Full-Life... and its better then anyone expected!

Millions spent on a name change... was it worth it?

 

[SirPlindington]

Yes, taking your time to get things right is a good thing, But not 5 years for something that's supposed to be episodic. I love Valve. Steam is fantastic, and most of their games are fabulous. But they should never try to justify Valve Time, because it's just not right. It's really all about Half-Life 2 Episode 3. No matter what you do, if you release 70 great games in six months, it won't matter, because you still haven't released that game.

 

[Smeatza]

I just bought Portal 2 for £3.92, right now I can't see anything to dislike about Valve.

 

[irishda]

That's been Blizzard's motto for a long time, and look how people felt about Diablo 3. Honestly, I'll laugh my ass off if the same situation happens with Half-life 3.

Except Blizzard is owned by Activision now. A publisher who demands their devs to force games out.

Except they still took 12 years to make D3. Plus, the money they earn from WoW probably has earned them leeway from Activision; not that I'm sold on the whole "this is what Activision demands" idea. I'll believe Activision is exercising control over the Blizzard team if we get Diablo 4 pushed out in 2 years.

 

[gamegod25]

That's the problem Valve, it's not a compliment. Don't get me wrong, I fully support quality over quantity and Devs pushing unfinished games out to meet deadlines. That being said, as others have pointed out, you guys are merely a publisher at this point. If it weren't for Steam you would have gone out of business long ago although that may be partly the reason you feel content to sit back and do nothing. I love Steam and all the great deal on games OTHER people made, but at this point there is nothing even remotely on the radar from YOU.

 

[SuperNova221]

It's okay Valve. We'll all forgive you once Half-Life 3 comes out.

But seriously, who else does this? Actually taking the time and effort to go over their games with a fine-tooth comb in order to make sure that they are up to a specific standard, instead of treating their franchises like a machine where you just pull a lever and another installment pops out.

I applaud this kind of business practice. It shows they care about their fanbase enough to risk their ire for taking so long on a much anticipated game, in order to make sure that game is something that is worth such a wait.

I just hope this doesn't end up like the next DNF. :/

The problem with comparing HL3 to DNF is that HL3 hasn't even been announced yet, hell, they haven't even confirmed if they've started making it. Meanwhile, DNF had set a launch date and had even taken preorders, then took 10 or so years after they first said it was due to launch to actually release it. So it's silly to say it's even a similar situation, or that HL3 could be "the next DNF."

Edit: I'm also not sure why people are saying "If Valve didn't have steam they couldn't do this stupidly long prodiction cycle and quality control thing.", because they DO have Steam. So they can do it. If they don't rely on their games to make them money anymore, why bother trying to make money game development, why not just focus on making great games instead and stick to Steam for income?

 

[Ian Mantell]

Sacrifice a headcrab each 13th friday it might help ;-)
Well honestly, I am getting too old to play FPS. My elbows hurt like I'm 80 yrs old from gaming since D00M and my doc says stop using the keyboard like that. Valve, do you read me? My time is running out and i wanted to see them whack that suitcase wielding time agent for good before I'm dead.

 

[major_chaos]

snip

Don't worry. I use Scotch-Guard. I'm good.

Also, I just wanted to complement you on your earlier post. Within the span of two sentences you managed to insult Valve, Valve fans, Steam, the Steam store, "DRM", and (in a "by proxy" sort of way) Gabe Newell.

That's impressive. Well played sir.

Hey I aim to impress, and if I can do it with one short rant I guess I'm doing it right.

you managed to insult ... and (in a "by proxy" sort of way) Gabe Newell.

I'm sure he is devastated, but a quick soak in his money bath and a nap his bed full of money in his room made of money should have him back on his feet in no time.

 

[samaugsch]

It's okay Valve. We'll all forgive you once Half-Life 3 comes out.

But seriously, who else does this? Actually taking the time and effort to go over their games with a fine-tooth comb in order to make sure that they are up to a specific standard, instead of treating their franchises like a machine where you just pull a lever and another installment pops out.

I applaud this kind of business practice. It shows they care about their fanbase enough to risk their ire for taking so long on a much anticipated game, in order to make sure that game is something that is worth such a wait.

I just hope this doesn't end up like the next DNF. :/

The problem with comparing HL3 to DNF is that HL3 hasn't even been announced yet, hell, they haven't even confirmed if they've started making it. Meanwhile, DNF had set a launch date and had even taken preorders, then took 10 or so years after they first said it was due to launch to actually release it. So it's silly to say it's even a similar situation, or that HL3 could be "the next DNF."

Edit: I'm also not sure why people are saying "If Valve didn't have steam they couldn't do this stupidly long prodiction cycle and quality control thing.", because they DO have Steam. So they can do it. If they don't rely on their games to make them money anymore, why bother trying to make money game development, why not just focus on making great games instead and stick to Steam for income?

Seriously, at this point, I think people are just looking for things to complain about. Either that, or they have ridiculously high standards. :/

 

[bafrali]

Sacrifice a headcrab each 13th friday it might help ;-)
Well honestly, I am getting too old to play FPS. My elbows hurt like I'm 80 yrs old from gaming since D00M and my doc says stop using the keyboard like that. Valve, do you read me? My time is running out and i wanted to see them whack that suitcase wielding time agent for good before I'm dead.

I hope you are not waiting for a boss fight with G-man since it would be so...ametaurish considering their take on the character. I know it would piss me off.

Welcome to the escapist BTW

 

[WanderingFool]

It's okay Valve. We'll all forgive you once Half-Life 3 comes out.

But seriously, who else does this? Actually taking the time and effort to go over their games with a fine-tooth comb in order to make sure that they are up to a specific standard, instead of treating their franchises like a machine where you just pull a lever and another installment pops out.

I applaud this kind of business practice. It shows they care about their fanbase enough to risk their ire for taking so long on a much anticipated game, in order to make sure that game is something that is worth such a wait.

One must not forget the fact that such a development style is expensive to maintain. Valve and Blizzard (the only other company I can think of ATM) can get away with it because they have constant income from Steam and Wow, respectivly. If any other developer tries this without such a safety net, they'll hit the ground hard.