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Gabe Newell Understands Half-Life Fans, Not Promising Any Sequels
jones_supa writes Half-Life 3 is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated games in history. While Valve transitioned from the revolutionary series that brought the company most of its original success, to online games like Team Fortress, Dota and Left 4 Dead, people still desperately want to believe that there is more coming for Half-Life.
In a recent podcast interview he had with Geoff Keighley, Valve CEO Gabe Newell opens up the current situation a bit more: "I'm a fan of TV shows, I'm a fan of writers, I'm a fan of movies, I'm a fan of games and I certainly understand why people are like, you know, hey I remember this awesome experience and I'm starting to get worried that I'm never going to have it again. I am a fan of Terry Pratchett and he has Alzheimer's, it's like, Oh my god, I may never get another great Discworld novel. [...] We aren't going to go all retro because there are too many interesting things that have been learned. The only reason we would go back and do a 'super classic' kind of product is if a whole bunch of people internally at Valve said they wanted to do it, and had a reasonable explanation for why it was."
In a recent podcast interview he had with Geoff Keighley, Valve CEO Gabe Newell opens up the current situation a bit more: "I'm a fan of TV shows, I'm a fan of writers, I'm a fan of movies, I'm a fan of games and I certainly understand why people are like, you know, hey I remember this awesome experience and I'm starting to get worried that I'm never going to have it again. I am a fan of Terry Pratchett and he has Alzheimer's, it's like, Oh my god, I may never get another great Discworld novel. [...] We aren't going to go all retro because there are too many interesting things that have been learned. The only reason we would go back and do a 'super classic' kind of product is if a whole bunch of people internally at Valve said they wanted to do it, and had a reasonable explanation for why it was."
Just announce Half Life 2: Episode Three: Blue Shift 2. You once again play as Barney, this time explaining where he was and what he was doing in Episode Two. Everyone would love you for this.
seems they ended it with a cliffhanger and now they dont know how to end it
How about... oh I don't know... to finish the story?
At this point, those gamertards are probably in their late 30's. Seriously, it's starting to be a long time now.
It very much reads like they have no intention of doing another one. Which is actually fine, but why play coy? It's not like they ended the series in any sort of final way. People like the series and wanted to play again.
Something makes me wonder if Gabe developed a personal issue with the series and just doesn't want to do another one. That or they have something big up their sleeve and want HL3 to be the flagship title for that thing, whatever it is.
Heck, if there's nothing else you want to do with the gameplay, write a novel (or, probably better, get a well-known SF writer to do it) to give it all a proper ending.
There's an existing horde of people clamoring to buy Valve's sequel/product sight-unseen. They don't want a stupid VR headset or overpriced Linux gamerbox thingy, yet Valve is wasting resources at various dead ends, instead of updating the product category that brought them success and relevance.
Well, Gabe, Half-Life 3 wouldn't be "Retro" if you hadn't WAITED SO FREEKIN LONG!
Let's be honest... we love Valve because of Half Life, and GabeN's voice through the years.
That's been gone for a long time. They are a money machine now, and their Steam platform is basically a printing press for said money. Where are the improvements to the Steam platform? When you rank behind EA in customer service, you have to think that there's something amiss.
Don't get me wrong, I love Valve games, I love Steam not because it's a great platform (it's actually pretty shit), but because I have a whole bunch of games at a cheap price. The communication tools ingame are pretty terrible, the game updates themselves are pretty terrible (coming from a CSGO player), and they make exceptions to their marketplace to allow bots to trade, so they can keep a very shady betting scene from the likes of CSGOLounge/DotaLounge going strong. After all, they get a cut of every marketplace transaction. It's also the reason for the big push behind Steam Machines, which are positioned so that the likes of Microsoft and the Xbox/Windows integration to an app store (and games!) never competes. In short, Valve isn't that "indy" group of lovable "gamers who make games" any more -- they are a pretty ruthless business.
Long story short... I don't care about Half Life 3. That's about something that isn't even here yet. I care more about their attention to the games they have out now, engagement with the community (which is how they got this big to start), and a start to a conversation with the gamers. Half Life 3 will come when it comes; I am sure Valve wants to get it out too so they can cash in another big check.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
I think they got conscious of their success and realized that they could not live up to the hype.
Look at Duke Nukem: the sequel took forever and... sucked. Well, not exactly sucked, but it was just mediocre, which was worse than sucking. It was supposed to be the Messiah of Games and ended up being a Wal-Mart bargain bin special.
Half Life, as a series, still has the same kind of aura that Doom and Duke Nukem had gathered about themselves. It hasn't been ruined yet: in fact, it's been augmented by the Portal series, which wasn't a sequel but rather a symbiotic addition. The words "Half Life" raise an expectation in the audience, and Gabe knows that HL3 would have trouble living up to that expectation. He doesn't want to be responsible for the next Duke Nukem Forever.
HL2 ended with a fucking cliff hanger FFS! We were left thinking that it's time to take it to where the baddies live. What's so desperate to believe they intended to make a third installment? I always assumed that we'd see HL3 when they came out with their Source 2 gaming engine. Now Gabe's talking like HL is "retro" and the article makes it sound as if Valve has no intention to make new games that are single player. Personally, after reading that article, I hope they don't release a new HL. Gabe comes off as a major asshole who forgot that they set up the whole ending of HL2 as a segue to a sequel and is now acting like anyone who wants them to finish their story is a sorry ass loser. So fuck them. I don't buy many games, and haven't bought a Valve game since Portal2 and will make damn sure that's my last Valve purchase ever unless HL3 is released and they stop talking about their customers like they are worthless trash who are idiots for wanting a finished story when left with a cliff hanger.
DNF changed hands, was abandoned, resurrected, revamped, rewritten, etc. with the details in public before it ever got close to a release. The screenshots from 10 years before look NOTHING like the final game at all. At some point, someone just said "Let's push anything and live off the scam to at least recoup our money".
HL3 doesn't have that legacy. Same guys (probably not exactly, but near enough). Same software. Same engine. Same designers. Same artists. Same programmers. Same company. No hype. No feature promises. No screenshots, even. A company making money hand-over-fist outside of game development to invest into the game. It's a totally different scenario (which makes it much more frustrating).
At this point a HDR HL2 sequel that was written in the same engine, same quality of graphics and game style with a few gimmicks would go down just as well and you can just say "This is Episode 3, the same as Episode 1 and 2 but finishing the story somewhat, and Half-Life 3 will come out later".
That they don't do this makes me think they have something planned. SteamOS maybe? I don't know. But I'd rather they kept the HL universe alive with some "expansion" to HL2 than cocked-up HL3 in the same way as DNF. I can't imagine them doing either, though.
People hate Valve's customer service, sure, but across my 5 accounts (including my kids accounts) I have never had a reason to need support on Steam. I have bought 3 EA games in the last decade and have had to contact EA support 4 times. They were helpful each time. But which company gave me better customer service? The one that made a system where I don't need support at all, or the one that forced me to TALK ON THE PHONE like some sort of oxcart driver in order to unfuck my Sim City singleplayer online game.
Customer service scores are great and all, but if I never need support at all, that ranks much higher on my hierarchy of ratings.
The Duke Nukem release did do at least one bit of good for the community: It got everyone to stop talking about Duke Nukem Forever. Apparently some people just need closure.
I read the internet for the articles.
Valve has no commercial interest in making Half-Life 3. It's not that the game wouldn't be profitable. It almost certainly would be - lots of people would buy it. But it would risk the wider strategy they've been pursuing for a decade now.
Valve's income these days isn't from making and selling games; it's from charging other people to sell games via Steam. Seriously - you buy a game on Steam and a big slug of the price you pay goes straight to Valve. Sure, they have hosting costs, but there is a lot of pure profit in there.
Ever since Steam started to be a big thing, Valve has focussed on more niche games rather than big-budget fpses. It does not want to be seen as threatening or a rival to its biggest business partners. EA have already taken their toys and gone home to Origin; Valve's dominance of the PC gaming market relies on keeping Activision, Ubisoft and others on board.
And a big part of that is not being seen as a competitor. If Activision wants to pay Valve a lot of money to plaster the Steam front-page with a huge Call of Duty advert, then that's good for Valve. But Activision might get nervous if they worried that the platform they were using was run by a company that was actively pushing a game in competition with theirs.
Over in console-land, Sony and Microsoft's first party exclusives are generally put out there to sell consoles (not always a profitable activity in itself). They build up the installed base to get the third parties interested. The only platform-owner to really emphasise first-party games development is Nintendo, who, surprise surprise, have terrible third-party relationships.
Far easier for Valve to allow other people to put the effort in to making money for them, rather than take the risk of investing in games development to make direct income from sales. Particularly now that Steam is so ubiquitous as a platform that it doesn't need first-party games to grow the installed base.
Now people expect better AI, destructible environments, the focus of FPS is shifting more towards multiplayer including coop mode.
Am I the only one who actually still prefers single-player campaign to co-op/multiplayer? I mean it's ok sometimes, and there's nothing wrong with it. But when the multiplayer fad came along it always seemed like such a tween sub-culture to me.
I have to work for a living and I have a wife & kids.... which means I don't hide in my Mommy's basement every night "pwning teh n00bs" nor do I want to associate with those morons in online game play.