Steam success holding up Half-Life development?

[Ron2K]

Steam is a huge success, and it's arguably the leading digital distribution platform for gamers on the PC. But has the growth of Steam's business led to a slowdown in Valve's own games development? Is the so-called "Valve Time" actually a symptom of Steam's hogging Valve's resources? That's the argument that Stardock's Brad Wardell made to IndustryGamers this week.

Source

Yes, I'm still patiently waiting for Episode 3...

[rustypup]

err.. no.

as was pointed out at /., valve released half life in 1998, half life 2 in 2004 and portal in 2007, now portal 2 in 2011 - these are valve's games... (a staggering basket of 2 games and 2 remakes)

counter strike was a community mod they took over...

team fortress was a community mod the took over...

day of defeat was a community mod the took over...

how, then, has their development cycle been impacted?...

[Siemens]

So the 2 episodes doesn't count as much?

[rustypup]

the 2 episodes were tech-demo drivel.. an hour or two worth of play time... hardly a "game"... they're add-ons...

[Siemens]

Not really, They were much longer than 2 hours.
Episode 1 average completion time 5hours and 40 minutes. http://www.steampowered.com/status/ep1/
Episode 2 average completion time 6hours and 53minutes http://www.steampowered.com/status/ep2/ep2_stats.php
They were both crucial for the development of the story line so you can't see them as mere add-ons. Both episodes also introduced new concepts to the game. They really are each in their own right individual games.

[rustypup]

They were both crucial for the development of the story line

same engine, (with a few tweaks), and < 10 hours of gameplay != a game... they were add-ons.

not forgetting that they were only tenuously attached to the original storyline, (which was more of a pamphlet to begin with)...

[DAE_JA_VOO]

I honestly couldn't care less about Episode 3. Episode 1 and 2 were crap, and releasing episode 3 now is sort of pointless.

HL2 came out in 2004. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not particularly amped to play an FPS on a 7 year old engine. And that's on the assumption that Ep3 will come out this year, and there are no signs of that.

I played episode 2 again a few weeks ago, and I saw one thing: you can feel its age.

All I care about is Valve releasing Portal 2, which they are about to. Once that's out, I'll be happy

[Siemens]

Oh please, CoD has been using the same engine for years now and their games are no where near 10 hours. And how can you argue the episodes wasn't part of the story? Have you even played the episodes? And you do realise that this thread is actually about yet another episode? You best be trolling.

Dae, you make it sound like they don't update the engine at all.

[Siemens]

Also Dae, Are you getting the preorder one with the rubix cube?

[rustypup]

CoD has been using the same engine for years now and their games are no where near 10 hours.

beyond CoD 2, nothing else in the franchise is worth mentioning... it's been hollywood all the way... repackage, add currently relevant inanities for the next generation of mouth-breathers, market to the rafters, rinse, repeat...

episode 1 and 2 plots were disjointed after-thoughts... read a book and call me a liar...

[Siemens]

CoD has been using the same engine for years now and their games are no where near 10 hours.

beyond CoD 2, nothing else in the franchise is worth mentioning... it's been hollywood all the way... repackage, add currently relevant inanities for the next generation of mouth-breathers, market to the rafters, rinse, repeat...

episode 1 and 2 plots were disjointed after-thoughts... read a book and call me a liar...

Yes, you do that. Pretend that bad games does not exist.

[StarBound]

Personally I'm crossing fingers that Steam and PSN merges properly and that all future Valve games on ps3 comes with a pc version of the game included. I think once that barrier has been crossed we could see the next set of games form them.

I wont say Steam is the big reason that HL episode 3 isnt released yet since it is your source of income yet unlike wow it is a distribution system. The question is do we want HL2 EP3 or do we want HL3 instead? Atm I'd rather take the later as HL2 is outdated and games can look much better than L4D2 does. The other side of the fence is that Half-Life was one of those big industry shaping games and if you look at games today they dont stack up to it. They are just mindless forward military shooters and half life wasnt like that even when you had the special forces on your case.

You could perhapes argue that L4D is a testing ground to see how a full fleshed 12-20 hour 4 player co-op game would be like in the HL universe and if you look at what borderlands did you might change your game based on that.

Is the source engine still good enough? Yes but it can be better.
Do you wanna see another HL game? Yes but make it revolutionary.

[DAE_JA_VOO]

Oh please, CoD has been using the same engine for years now and their games are no where near 10 hours.

Seriously? CoD?

The only good game to come from the CoD franchise since the old games was MW. That's my personal opinion, though. And before you come with your "HAVE YOU EVEN PLAYED CoD YOU IDJIT", yes, I've played them all. Like I said, that's my personal opinion.

And how can you argue the episodes wasn't part of the story?

Go ahead and show me where I said that. Quote exactly where I said that.

Have you even played the episodes?

Well, the only way I could say "Episode 1 and 2 were crap" is if I played them. So yes, I played them.

And you do realise that this thread is actually about yet another episode? You best be trolling.

My opening line to my post:

I honestly couldn't care less about Episode 3.

It seems YOU are the one that's trolling.

Dae, you make it sound like they don't update the engine at all.

No no. I'm fully aware that they update the engine. But there's only SO much you can do to an old engine. Compare the engine at Episode 2 to what's being demoed today, and you'll see what I mean.

[rustypup]

@DAE - i believe most of that was aimed at me ...

[edit]

you do realise that this thread is actually about yet another episode?

no, it isn't. it's about the spurious assertion that the steam side of the business has impacted valve's development cycle... which is clearly nonsense...

@starbound: i left L4D off of the list, but that too was a mod which they snapped up when it began to look like a contender...
[/edit]

[Siemens]

Lol Dae, that was aimed at Rusty he is claiming that a bad game isn't a game. So calm down little fella.

[StarBound]

Well if the modders gets the money for their IP then all is well. A 50/50 split almost seems fair if you consider that one made the method to bring it to life while the other gave it the reason for living.

[rustypup]

i fully agree. just pointing out it isn't a "valve" game, so it shouldn't be tallied into their output...

[DAE_JA_VOO]

Lol Dae, that was aimed at Rusty he is claiming that a bad game isn't a game. So calm down little fella.

LOL! My bad I read your post and thought "Is this guy kidding me?!"

[Siemens]

No prob, so are you getting the Rubix Cube pre order special?

[StarBound]

Not sure. I just pre-ordered. More interested in getting it for the crossplatforming. I want to see how my steam and psn accounts gets together. That way if someone wants to play something on ps3 I can hop to ps3 and if someone wants to play something on pc I can hop to pc.

[Siemens]

You get the cube if you pre-order at BTGames.

[StarBound]

Apparently not all pre-orders get the cube though. Hoping I get one but will see. Else I will just have to buy a rubic cube somewhere else. But if I get one then its a 3 time score. A cube, the game and the other platforms game.

[DAE_JA_VOO]

No prob, so are you getting the Rubix Cube pre order special?

Nope I pre-ordered my copy of Portal 2 on Steam AGES ago already

[crathob]

Valve please release Episode 3!

My guess is that they are designing a new engine for episode 3, because the source engine is lagging behind the latest engines like CryEngine3, Frostbite 2 and Unreal Engine (with the updates they are planning). Half Life 2 is my favourite game of all time, and I've been waiting for Ep3 since it's supposed release date in I think 2006 or 2007.