Originally published at: Half-Life retrospective documentary | Boing Boing
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But we did get Half-Life: Alyx just a few years ago, and I’m willing to forgive a lot after that.
I want a Vortigaunt pal. I love those guys.
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I still haven’t played it but heard good things. I do think it’s egregious that they’re actively avoiding making games because they just don’t need to. They make so much money off Steam that any games they make is pretty low priority beyond Counter Strike.
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It’s far and away the best VR experience I’ve ever had. Beats the competition by miles, running well on really modest hardware (my 2015 PC build upgraded with an RTX3060 ran it without breaking a sweat) and creating a level of immersivity I’ve never seen in other VR titles. And the story added all kinds of layers to stuff we’d already seen - it was genuinely jaw-dropping. I keep going back just to experience the environments again and again.
“Egregious” seems a bit extreme, no? I mean, it’s disappointing that they never released HL3, sure, although by this point I kinda doubt it would be what the fanbase has imagined it to be. But there’s nothing evil or abusive about it beyond the base level inherent to capitalism.
I agree that it wouldn’t live up to whatever people want. See also: Duke Nukem Forever
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Marc Laidlaw hasn’t worked for Valve since 2016, so I don’t think it could happen now even if they wanted to make HL3.
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No, egregious is a fair word. I’m not just talking about HL3 but all of their other titles that they’ve left behind. Was an avid TF2 player and the community was thriving until they left a handful of devs on it, and the end result was slow updates and tons of hackers. Community is still going but its just not the same any more. Their L4D series is pretty much dead in the water. and DOTA is also pretty much dead in the water.
Last few games they’ve actually done was HL Alyx, some card games no one asked for and CS.
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If not making entertainment products because it’s less profitable than other business ventures is egregious behavior, the word ceases to lose any meaning. This is basic business. We’re talking about a company that has decided to not make videogames, not one that has decided to gouge diabetics for insulin.
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I did not see that ending coming. Those goggles are gathering dust now but damn if they weren’t worth it for Half-Life
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While I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s immoral, it’s definitely contemptuous of their fans. I don’t mind that they haven’t made another Left 4 Dead or another Portal because those series didn’t end on cliffhangers. Half Life cut off right in the middle of the story, without any resolution to anything, which is just maddening. Devoting some small part of their moneymaking empire to finishing that story would be… considerate, let’s say.
Of course, this perspective of mine is several years old- I haven’t yet played Alyx, which may change my mind about the whole thing, and it’s hard to be genuinely upset when I apparently no longer even have enough time to play their games when they are released.
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The thing about Valve is they don’t like to release anything that’s not as polished as they can make it, and by all accounts they’ve tried to make Half Life 2: Episode 3* several times, but never come up with something they felt was ‘good enough’. I’m sure other companies would have just knocked out a sequel and made all the money from it, to my mind I prefer Valve’s approach of only releasing good games.
Mind you, and much as I’m a Valve fanboi, I know that first and foremost I’m a customer, not a fan.
*which has morphed into HL3 in the minds of fans, because we’ve waited this long, so it has to be a full game right?
TL/dr Valve are scared of the number 3
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