Newell On Half-Life 2 Delay

Thanks to GameSpot for their brief interview with Valve's Gabe Newell, in which he discusses when the ravenously-awaited Half-Life 2 will finally come out. He laments: "I hate release dates because no matter how hard we try, we screw them up. We held back talking about our release date going into September 30th because I wanted to have a much clearer idea of what day we were going to ship on." As for an actual day, he offers: "Right now all we can say is holidays of this year, which to me feels really unfortunate." Elsewhere, Newell refuses to elaborate on the little-known multiplayer modes for the game, saying they're "...something we're not talking about because we want to keep it as a surprise for our customers as we roll into our launch cycle."

Comments

Re:Wrong questions

[desenz]

My guess, (as outlandish and wrong as it probably is) is that they probably found out the game was easily hackable. Big name game, easy hack, on Kazaa and BT in hours. Pure speculation of course. Don't take it seriously. I have no idea why it was really delayed.

Re:Wrong questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Well announced a delay and then followed that up a few weeks later with the announcement of an ATI/HL2 bundle.

It may be ATI causing the delay and not them due to such a huge co-launching of two major products. Blah.

Re:Wrong questions

[Babbster]

You've stumbled onto the state of gaming "journalism." The hard questions don't get asked and every upcoming game is exciting and interesting.

In this case, though, they did ask your first "why" question and Mr. Newell answered by citing play-testing. Still, like virtually all game industry "interviews," it's a [very] thinly veiled advertisement for Half-Life 2.

It's too bad that real journalism school graduates cost more money to hire than people with BAs in English Lit who've always dreamed of a job in the video game industry...

Clearly the multiplayer modes

[Tim_F]

Will centre around the long awaited Team Fortress 2. I seriously doubt that Valve would just shelve all of the effort that they put into that product. Besides, games along the lines of Natural Selection have helped to get players used to the RTS as FPS gameplay that TF2 will herald.

Re:Clearly the multiplayer modes

[Babbster]

This is less clear than you might think. While it would certainly be good of Valve to give us Team Fortress 2 (or its equivalent) as a free bonus with Half-Life, given their development of Steam as a revenue-generating content delivery service I think it's unlikely. It's it far more likely that it will be an add-on pack that will cost extra for all those people who choose not to buy Half-Life on the Steam subscription plan.

Re:Wrong questions

[Black Hitler]

Well announced a delay and then followed that up a few weeks later with the announcement of an ATI/HL2 bundle.

Except it's not a real bundle. It's the card plus a voucher. The cards are due out in something like three weeks IIRC, there's no way on god's earth HL2 will be ready by then.

Re:Wrong questions

[Dot.Com.CEO]

As a person who has worked in the editorial business, albeit not as a journalist, let me assure you 100% that the first "hard" question you asked a "celebrity" would be your last one as he/she would not only walk out but you'd be blacked out from all subsequent events. Also, I don't understand how someone with a BA in Journalism would be better writing for a gaming site than, say, one with no formal qualifications. You need to like games, understand how they work and be able to see through the hype. Gamespy, gamespot and ign are not fan gaming sites, they are industry fed sites and if you think you will see hard hitting commentary there, you are living in a world of your own. Even the excellent gamespot "gamespotting" features are harmless little ramblings.