3 ms·

Upside is, they'll probably make halflife3 when any of that happens

by jtriangle 3y ago

mlyle 3y ago
Do you think a good game is likely to be made under those circumstances?
- e2le 3y ago
  I hope by the time he's ready to retire, there'll be an AI replica ready to take his place.
  - unsui 3y ago
    brought to you by GabeN-vidia
- jtriangle 3y ago
  I think there's zero chance they can make a halflife 3 that'd live up to the hype and actually feel like halflife, and that's likely why they haven't made it. It's a similar situation to what happened to the fallout series. Bethesda took a stab at it, but, if you loved fallout 1 and 2, nothing they made really felt like fallout, even if they were good games. Not quite on the level of duke nukem forever, mainly because apogee was mismanaged at it's very core, and valve, well, hard to say that it's not managed well. The thing is, making a good game is not really necessary here. They could make a mediocre halflife3, get slaughtered in the reviews, and still make a ton of profit, Gaben just won't do it because he doesn't want to go out like that. Understandable, but, it's mostly his fault that he's in this situation. If they released 3 a couple years after the episodes, they could have continued that incremental release pattern more or less indefinitely, it's just that at the time they were focused on other things (that turned out to be more profitable) and by the time they got back to making games again, it was too late, too much hype to live up to, so on the shelf it goes.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    > Gaben just won't do it because he doesn't want to go out like that. I just don't think he cares. half life 3 can sell 100m copies at $70 a pop (so, 7 billion dollars in raw revenue before various fees) and it still wouldn't touch Steam, which has estimated 9 billion dollar revenue in 2022 alone. Maybe it'd make even more as a service game or by integrating steam marketplace stuff like TF2/Counterstrike, but the number of games that make steam level revenues year after year can be counted on one hand. For some reference, Fortnite hit 6b in 2022 and 26b in 6 years leading up to 2022. very strong average of 4.3b, but fortnite's game team is twice* the number of employees Valve has in the entire studio. A lot of labor needed to maintain one of the highest earning games out there, and Steam still comes out on top in raw revenue. (I can't find exact Valve numbers, but LinkedIn still lists them with "200-500" employees. And since Epic has at least half of its 4000 staff on Fortnite...)

Upside is, they'll probably make halflife3 when any of that happens

mlyle 3y ago

Do you think a good game is likely to be made under those circumstances?

e2le 3y ago
I hope by the time he's ready to retire, there'll be an AI replica ready to take his place.
- unsui 3y ago
  brought to you by GabeN-vidia
jtriangle 3y ago
I think there's zero chance they can make a halflife 3 that'd live up to the hype and actually feel like halflife, and that's likely why they haven't made it. It's a similar situation to what happened to the fallout series. Bethesda took a stab at it, but, if you loved fallout 1 and 2, nothing they made really felt like fallout, even if they were good games. Not quite on the level of duke nukem forever, mainly because apogee was mismanaged at it's very core, and valve, well, hard to say that it's not managed well. The thing is, making a good game is not really necessary here. They could make a mediocre halflife3, get slaughtered in the reviews, and still make a ton of profit, Gaben just won't do it because he doesn't want to go out like that. Understandable, but, it's mostly his fault that he's in this situation. If they released 3 a couple years after the episodes, they could have continued that incremental release pattern more or less indefinitely, it's just that at the time they were focused on other things (that turned out to be more profitable) and by the time they got back to making games again, it was too late, too much hype to live up to, so on the shelf it goes.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  > Gaben just won't do it because he doesn't want to go out like that. I just don't think he cares. half life 3 can sell 100m copies at $70 a pop (so, 7 billion dollars in raw revenue before various fees) and it still wouldn't touch Steam, which has estimated 9 billion dollar revenue in 2022 alone. Maybe it'd make even more as a service game or by integrating steam marketplace stuff like TF2/Counterstrike, but the number of games that make steam level revenues year after year can be counted on one hand. For some reference, Fortnite hit 6b in 2022 and 26b in 6 years leading up to 2022. very strong average of 4.3b, but fortnite's game team is twice* the number of employees Valve has in the entire studio. A lot of labor needed to maintain one of the highest earning games out there, and Steam still comes out on top in raw revenue. (I can't find exact Valve numbers, but LinkedIn still lists them with "200-500" employees. And since Epic has at least half of its 4000 staff on Fortnite...)