5 ms·

It depends on Source 2, which is not open source.

by tapoxi 11mo ago

charcircuit 11mo ago
Originally people thought the Source 2 sdk, was going to be released with Half Life Alyx, but it never materialized.
- super256 11mo ago
  It feels like Valve's management changed a few years (decade?) ago. I remember when they were still shipping SDKs and proper mod support, even for their multiplayer games. Today they are just killing everything that could divert revenue from their cash cow CS2 and shipping a half baked js-based scripting engine for their maps. (And in the meanwhile they kill fan projects like CS:Legacy, which is a whole game and not even a mod, with their army of lawyers. I don't think stuff like this would have happened 13+ years ago).
  - wavemode 11mo ago
    Valve's cash cow is Steam. All of their games (Dota 2, CS, and the other ones they hardly maintain anymore) are basically just passion projects at this point, lingering on from a bygone age when they were a game development company. Their most recent title, Half-Life: Alyx, probably only got greenlit because someone internally was able to convince leadership that it would help sell VR headsets.
    - npinsker 11mo ago
      CS2 makes an enormous and non-negligible amount of money.
      - mjr00 11mo ago
        Dota2 as well. Like I'm sure CS2/Dota2 are small compared to Steam, but the revenue from these games alone dwarfs what most other companies are making.
      - wavemode 11mo ago
        Valve's financials are nonpublic, and any numbers you find are rough, indirect estimates. In any case, my point was not that these games make no money, but simply that Valve doesn't need them. The total number of people buying games on Steam vastly dwarfs the number of people who play Dota 2 and CS2 (even just counting total players - how much more when you narrow down to players who spend money).
    - silver_silver 11mo ago
      They’re (genuinely) gearing up to release Half-Life 3 at the moment, and not as a VR exclusive
      - mudkipdev 11mo ago
        evidence?
        Philpax 11mo ago
        https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVINqBTwM=/ https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVINqBTwM=/
  - TehCorwiz 11mo ago
    They just opened up the source to TF2 with an SDK not too long ago. Explicitly for modding and community driven development. https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=238809 https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=238809
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
jsheard 11mo ago
That's pretty shaky ground too, even if you can overlook the foundation being closed source, Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs. They're not trying to be Epic or Unity. The most obvious aspect to that is that Source 2 doesn't support consoles. Valve don't need it, so they didn't implement it.
- embedding-shape 11mo ago
  > Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs. Valve has a long history of supporting the modding community and outside users of Source, not sure where you're getting your information from but I don't think they've worked with the Source engine before. One of the biggest and most popular mods of all time was built on Source, and took the world by storm, with pretty big support by Valve through the years as well. Eventually they even bought the whole IP.
  - jsheard 11mo ago
    That was then, in 2025 they don't have a public Source 2 SDK, nor do they generally license the engine to third parties, S&box being the sole exception. They barely have their toes in the middleware game anymore. Even when they were more open with their tech it was on the basis of "you can play with the tools we used to make Half Life and if your idea is sufficiently Half Life shaped then it will probably work", not trying to be a general purpose toolkit a la Unity.
    - embedding-shape 11mo ago
      S&B existing and being what it is, effectively makes it the Source 2 SDK, although it's not from Valve. But fair point Source 2 isn't licensed to others, I think the expectation is that if you wanna build a Source 2 game, you have to use S&B. At least for now, who knows what their ideas and ambitions really lie.
    - fngjdflmdflg 11mo ago
      >They barely have their toes in the middleware game anymore. Well they do have Steam Audio but yeah I agree. I think Epic is much better in this space, even though its only source available in practice they do a lot to support engine modifications and also accept external PRs. I think Valve has a lot to gain from open sourcing Source 2 and they should realize how important modding was to their initial success. The issue is now they can just print money with Steam so there is no need to invest in modding support.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

It depends on Source 2, which is not open source.

by tapoxi 11mo ago

It depends on Source 2, which is not open source.

charcircuit 11mo ago

Originally people thought the Source 2 sdk, was going to be released with Half Life Alyx, but it never materialized.

super256 11mo ago
It feels like Valve's management changed a few years (decade?) ago. I remember when they were still shipping SDKs and proper mod support, even for their multiplayer games. Today they are just killing everything that could divert revenue from their cash cow CS2 and shipping a half baked js-based scripting engine for their maps. (And in the meanwhile they kill fan projects like CS:Legacy, which is a whole game and not even a mod, with their army of lawyers. I don't think stuff like this would have happened 13+ years ago).
- wavemode 11mo ago
  Valve's cash cow is Steam. All of their games (Dota 2, CS, and the other ones they hardly maintain anymore) are basically just passion projects at this point, lingering on from a bygone age when they were a game development company. Their most recent title, Half-Life: Alyx, probably only got greenlit because someone internally was able to convince leadership that it would help sell VR headsets.
  - npinsker 11mo ago
    CS2 makes an enormous and non-negligible amount of money.
    - mjr00 11mo ago
      Dota2 as well. Like I'm sure CS2/Dota2 are small compared to Steam, but the revenue from these games alone dwarfs what most other companies are making.
    - wavemode 11mo ago
      Valve's financials are nonpublic, and any numbers you find are rough, indirect estimates. In any case, my point was not that these games make no money, but simply that Valve doesn't need them. The total number of people buying games on Steam vastly dwarfs the number of people who play Dota 2 and CS2 (even just counting total players - how much more when you narrow down to players who spend money).
  - silver_silver 11mo ago
    They’re (genuinely) gearing up to release Half-Life 3 at the moment, and not as a VR exclusive
    - mudkipdev 11mo ago
      evidence?
      - Philpax 11mo ago
        https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVINqBTwM=/ https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVINqBTwM=/
- TehCorwiz 11mo ago
  They just opened up the source to TF2 with an SDK not too long ago. Explicitly for modding and community driven development. https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=238809 https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=238809

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

jsheard 11mo ago

That's pretty shaky ground too, even if you can overlook the foundation being closed source, Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs. They're not trying to be Epic or Unity. The most obvious aspect to that is that Source 2 doesn't support consoles. Valve don't need it, so they didn't implement it.

embedding-shape 11mo ago
> Valve aren't really known for supporting their engines very well beyond their own internal needs. Valve has a long history of supporting the modding community and outside users of Source, not sure where you're getting your information from but I don't think they've worked with the Source engine before. One of the biggest and most popular mods of all time was built on Source, and took the world by storm, with pretty big support by Valve through the years as well. Eventually they even bought the whole IP.
- jsheard 11mo ago
  That was then, in 2025 they don't have a public Source 2 SDK, nor do they generally license the engine to third parties, S&box being the sole exception. They barely have their toes in the middleware game anymore. Even when they were more open with their tech it was on the basis of "you can play with the tools we used to make Half Life and if your idea is sufficiently Half Life shaped then it will probably work", not trying to be a general purpose toolkit a la Unity.
  - embedding-shape 11mo ago
    S&B existing and being what it is, effectively makes it the Source 2 SDK, although it's not from Valve. But fair point Source 2 isn't licensed to others, I think the expectation is that if you wanna build a Source 2 game, you have to use S&B. At least for now, who knows what their ideas and ambitions really lie.
  - fngjdflmdflg 11mo ago
    >They barely have their toes in the middleware game anymore. Well they do have Steam Audio but yeah I agree. I think Epic is much better in this space, even though its only source available in practice they do a lot to support engine modifications and also accept external PRs. I think Valve has a lot to gain from open sourcing Source 2 and they should realize how important modding was to their initial success. The issue is now they can just print money with Steam so there is no need to invest in modding support.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]