What Would PC Gaming Look Like Without Valve?
- Thread starter balimuzz
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The only thing Valve has really given to the PC market, aside from some good games, is the modding community. And it was just a continuation of Quake and Doom's modding community. Half-Life is probably the most modded game, aside from Doom in existence, but Valve actually paid attention to them, including hiring them on as staff. I really don't see them as God's, as some people seem to. They make good games, but really since the first Half-Life, they haven't made amazing, or ground breaking games. Half-Life 2 was good, but it really got boring, especially with all the driving or hover-boating, and honestly Nova-Prospekt just got repetitive and annoying. I also rather fault them with making the scripted sequences mandatory for all games. They worked really well in Half-Life, it was new, never done before. But now every game uses them constantly to create a cinematic experience, but after the first play through you know exactly what's going to happen, and everything acts the same. Completely eliminates the randomness and chance in FPS games. They make good games, but they don't make great games.
It's not like Valve has ever been known for their resource-heavy, bleeding edge engines: that's always been id's -- and later Crytek's job. Same goes for Blizzard, really, in that they intentionally target lower end computers.Abedeus said:
HL1 and 2. They were great games. But, the luster wore off quick.. Valve was nothing without the community plain and simple. It was the hungry PC gamer community that made valve what it is today. We wanted a good FPS and they gave a good game, right place, right time. World wouldn't me much different, Don't get me wrong I own a couple steam games, and use steam as much as I do my other games, but, not a big deal if it shit-canned randomly one day.
One interesting thing of note is that Counter-Strike would probably have existed one form or another without Half-Life. Action Quake 2 was basically a precursor of things to come and without Half-Life, it'd probably just have been a case of finding another engine to make it on.
game distribution would have been set back about five or ten years and there would be no portal so I could`nt listen to still alive on my ipod.
It would look worse. Valve has made some of the best games in gaming history. They've also always supported modding w/ good SDKs.
Jesus Christ. PC gaming was big LONG before Valve came along, they haven't done anything innovative whatsoever. There are other applications that work like Steam, and in my experience, Steam is a bugged annoyance of a programme which I avoid using at all costs.
Valves games aren't even THAT good! They're hardly anything new.
EDIT* And I've just been reminded of the prices of games on Steam. Sometimes double the price of a store bought copy, and you don't even get a physical copy of it...
Valves games aren't even THAT good! They're hardly anything new.
EDIT* And I've just been reminded of the prices of games on Steam. Sometimes double the price of a store bought copy, and you don't even get a physical copy of it...
