15 ms·

> shiny tech and new games You mean Half Life with it's last full iteration from 10 years ago, and the second episode with a cliffhanger from 2009? Or the Sour

by frik 10y ago

> shiny tech and new games You mean Half Life with it's last full iteration from 10 years ago, and the second episode with a cliffhanger from 2009? Or the Source engine (HL2) which evolved from GoldSource (HL1) which was based on Quake 1 engine (with some parts from Quake 2 engine) - even the Call of Duty engine which aged well too is based on the more modern Quake 3 engine, and I wouldn't consider it shiny in 2016. Rockstar's RAGE engine as well as Crytek engine (StarCitizen, Crysis), and the Frostbite (Battlefield 1) are light years ahead and far superior in every aspect and that's what I would consider shiny tech. Valve is what Valve is today because of the success of steam. They produce little games like Dota2 more for fun than anything else, they gt rich with steam.

Johan-bjareholt 10y ago
Source 2 is in DOTA 2, but that game doesn't show its full potential. Let's just wait for their next game until we say that they are "years behind".
AimHere 10y ago
It's a bit disingenuous to just mention Half Life, although note that work on Half Life series games was still ongoing as of last year (and they did a fair amount of work on the whole series in ~2012/2013 porting it to other operating systems). Those 'blank' 10 years saw the release of Left 4 Dead 1/2, Team Fortress 2, Portal 1/2 and CSGO, for instance, as well as that 'little' Dota2 (which is clearly a large game by any metric you care to choose). At least three of those games involve regular ongoing content infusions. Add in the development of the Source 2 engine, and the Steam Controller, and the work on the SteamOS platform and whatever else on Steam Machines. This is out of the 330 employees that also support those >100 million customers using the service on a regular, possibly daily, basis. As I pointed out, Rockstar uses more manpower than Valve just to create essentially one game every few years. The last GTA game I bought (San Andreas) did have graphics well behind the state of the art too. Even if we assume that those 330 employees are doing nothing but working on Steam, it's still a tiny number compared to the customer base. AirBnB, for instance, has had 2 million listings in it's lifetime, and it has about 2300 employees. Uber has over 6000 employees on about 8 million customers, and both those cases are ones where people aren't typically regular users.
- huac 10y ago
  the majority of those airbnb/uber numbers are customer support not engineering
  - AimHere 10y ago
    Which makes whatever Valve does all the more impressive.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- izacus 10y ago
  None of the "blank" games are Valve's IPs but acquisitions which kind of stopped in development or releases after Valve acquisition. Half-Life was their last original IP and even that ended in a complete cliff hanger with Episode 3 or sequel nowhere to be found. It seems that Valve has serious problems actually pushing their games to completion since they started printing money with Steam and pressure to actually release went away.
  - AimHere 10y ago
    > None of the "blank" games are Valve's IPs but acquisitions which kind of stopped in development or releases after Valve acquisition. TF2, CSGO and Dota 2 are regularly, and visibly updated constantly. In no way are these moribund or 'stopped in development'; the latter two are still among the most played and watched competitive games online. It's also stretching things to say that Valve 'acquired' Portal and it was dropped 'after acquisition', since Valve essentially bought the team that made a small gameplay prototype and fleshed out the mechanic into two full-fledged AAA games. So that just leaves 'Left 4 Dead', which was a case of Valve buying a company, publishing it's game and then putting out a full-on sequel. Given how similar L4D2 was to L4D1 (to the point where the first game was essentially contained inside the second, and there was even a threatened boycott by fans), would it really have been a smart move to make a third so soon? Sure, it's been, what, three years since the last full game release by Valve. That's quite a long time, and there is no doubt less pressure to release sooner because they're sitting on their money-printing machine, but that sort of timeframe isn't exactly unprecedented in this business. The Rockstar studio I mentioned is on a 5-7 year turnaround for it's one main title - though it does aid and abet Rockstar's other studios. I suspect part of what's going on is that Valve is uber PR-conscious these days, given it's position in the market and can afford to be a ultra-conservative about quality control (though hopefully not in game design) in any new game it's going to put out.
squeaky-clean 10y ago
You don't mention Portal 2, Dota 2, CS:GO, all the TF2 updates, Source 2, all the advancements to Steam, the Steam Controller, Steam Link, the Vive, the Lab VR demos. Sure the Battlefield team has made Frostbite which is shinier than Source. Did they also make their own store, gamepad, and VR headset?
- theinternetman 10y ago
  > the Lab VR demos Wii minigames in VR are still just Wii minigames, whole thing feels like something I'd expect from a hackday from a company as supposedly prolific as valve. Got a strong feeling the talent is long gone.
  - squeaky-clean 10y ago
    > Insults 1 thing from list of 10. Ignores other 9 things.
antisthenes 10y ago
> They produce little games like Dota2 more for fun than anything else, they gt rich with steam. Little games like Dota2? It's the biggest title on Steam in terms of players by a large margin and probably the 2nd most popular game worldwide on PC to ever exist (behind LoL) It also generates a significant amount of revenue for Valve through the sales of tournament ticket and cosmetics.

by frik 10y ago

Johan-bjareholt 10y ago

Source 2 is in DOTA 2, but that game doesn't show its full potential. Let's just wait for their next game until we say that they are "years behind".

AimHere 10y ago

It's a bit disingenuous to just mention Half Life, although note that work on Half Life series games was still ongoing as of last year (and they did a fair amount of work on the whole series in ~2012/2013 porting it to other operating systems). Those 'blank' 10 years saw the release of Left 4 Dead 1/2, Team Fortress 2, Portal 1/2 and CSGO, for instance, as well as that 'little' Dota2 (which is clearly a large game by any metric you care to choose). At least three of those games involve regular ongoing content infusions. Add in the development of the Source 2 engine, and the Steam Controller, and the work on the SteamOS platform and whatever else on Steam Machines. This is out of the 330 employees that also support those >100 million customers using the service on a regular, possibly daily, basis. As I pointed out, Rockstar uses more manpower than Valve just to create essentially one game every few years. The last GTA game I bought (San Andreas) did have graphics well behind the state of the art too. Even if we assume that those 330 employees are doing nothing but working on Steam, it's still a tiny number compared to the customer base. AirBnB, for instance, has had 2 million listings in it's lifetime, and it has about 2300 employees. Uber has over 6000 employees on about 8 million customers, and both those cases are ones where people aren't typically regular users.

huac 10y ago
the majority of those airbnb/uber numbers are customer support not engineering
- AimHere 10y ago
  Which makes whatever Valve does all the more impressive.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
izacus 10y ago
None of the "blank" games are Valve's IPs but acquisitions which kind of stopped in development or releases after Valve acquisition. Half-Life was their last original IP and even that ended in a complete cliff hanger with Episode 3 or sequel nowhere to be found. It seems that Valve has serious problems actually pushing their games to completion since they started printing money with Steam and pressure to actually release went away.
- AimHere 10y ago
  > None of the "blank" games are Valve's IPs but acquisitions which kind of stopped in development or releases after Valve acquisition. TF2, CSGO and Dota 2 are regularly, and visibly updated constantly. In no way are these moribund or 'stopped in development'; the latter two are still among the most played and watched competitive games online. It's also stretching things to say that Valve 'acquired' Portal and it was dropped 'after acquisition', since Valve essentially bought the team that made a small gameplay prototype and fleshed out the mechanic into two full-fledged AAA games. So that just leaves 'Left 4 Dead', which was a case of Valve buying a company, publishing it's game and then putting out a full-on sequel. Given how similar L4D2 was to L4D1 (to the point where the first game was essentially contained inside the second, and there was even a threatened boycott by fans), would it really have been a smart move to make a third so soon? Sure, it's been, what, three years since the last full game release by Valve. That's quite a long time, and there is no doubt less pressure to release sooner because they're sitting on their money-printing machine, but that sort of timeframe isn't exactly unprecedented in this business. The Rockstar studio I mentioned is on a 5-7 year turnaround for it's one main title - though it does aid and abet Rockstar's other studios. I suspect part of what's going on is that Valve is uber PR-conscious these days, given it's position in the market and can afford to be a ultra-conservative about quality control (though hopefully not in game design) in any new game it's going to put out.

squeaky-clean 10y ago

You don't mention Portal 2, Dota 2, CS:GO, all the TF2 updates, Source 2, all the advancements to Steam, the Steam Controller, Steam Link, the Vive, the Lab VR demos. Sure the Battlefield team has made Frostbite which is shinier than Source. Did they also make their own store, gamepad, and VR headset?

theinternetman 10y ago
> the Lab VR demos Wii minigames in VR are still just Wii minigames, whole thing feels like something I'd expect from a hackday from a company as supposedly prolific as valve. Got a strong feeling the talent is long gone.
- squeaky-clean 10y ago
  > Insults 1 thing from list of 10. Ignores other 9 things.

antisthenes 10y ago

> They produce little games like Dota2 more for fun than anything else, they gt rich with steam. Little games like Dota2? It's the biggest title on Steam in terms of players by a large margin and probably the 2nd most popular game worldwide on PC to ever exist (behind LoL) It also generates a significant amount of revenue for Valve through the sales of tournament ticket and cosmetics.