Why Valve Doesn't Make New Games Anymore

halflife portal Left 4 Dead Counterstrike valve is responsible for some of the most iconic games in gaming history and practically every game they've ever made has been a massive success if Ubisoft was valve they have already released halflife 19 some convoluted mess of a game milking the IP for all it's worth so where's halflife 3 why doesn't valve take advantage of their Sterling reputation to keep selling chart Toppers like so many others it doesn't make sense but when you look at Val's history it all becomes clear and there's still hope we might get the game we've been waiting a decade for and it all started when valve was formed by two former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell Mike Harrington these two guys saw how successful doom and Quake were and figured they could get into the industry choosing to make an FPS game on the Quake engine with a small team a valve spent 2 years developing their first game halflife an Innovative first-person shooter that told an amazing story while you played it blew people people away you need to understand the impact this title had on the industry Gamespot said it was the closest thing to a revolutionary step the genre had ever taken completely redefining the firstperson shooters and preparing the way for games like Halo Call of Duty and Battlefield 2013 IGN said you could divide the FPS genre into pre and post halflife showing just how far halflife pushed technical envelope along with being universally praised by everyone the game was a massive monetary success which one title valve immediately became a Top Dog Studio swimming in cash pretty rare for a first-time developer and they didn't stop there Team Fortress classic Counter-Strike halflife 2 portal Left 4 Dead Dota 2 all of these titles came from them all games that redefined or created entire genres and the money just kept pouring in every one of these games elevated valve higher reaching a Godlike status and causing people to believe the studio and Gabe new could do no [Music] wrong any other Studio that saw this level of success would have turned their Flagship IPS into yearly franchises but not valve what makes them so different why not just print money making sequels like everyone else because they've got a unique strategy that works even better you see of all the IP valve owns only halflife came from valve originally counter- strike halflife mod valve harder the creators don't 2 Warcraft 3 mod valve hire the lead designer Team Fortress Quake mod valve hire the developers portal this next test is impossible originally a freear game and valve hired the dev team Left 4 Dead made by Turtle Rock Studios valve acquired them shortly before the game released you get it valve is an expert at letting their Community create value for them now this isn't trying to diminish valve at all they see what gameplay Loops resonate well with the community hire the devs once they have something successful and then they then repackage and release as a valve game the sheer number of hits and Trend Setters they have released can't be a coincidence even if a valve game misses every once in a while artifact they know what they are doing but it's much rarer for them to make their own game from the ground up and that's because valve only makes their own games when certain conditions are met this strategy sets valve apart from the rest of their competition and his why valve has always been at the Forefront of their industry no one does it like them yes there are other innovative Studios but they're held back held back from trying unique strategies and forced to release new titles left and right forced by shareholders who expect bigger returns every year when you start taking outside financing those are often the people who are going to be perturbing your decisions in ways that sometimes are helpful and sometimes are you know the death of your company this is a key reason for valve success and why they release a new title so rarely valve is still a private company the same guy that started valve still has the majority control over valve and because the company isn't accountable to anybody they are very careful about what games they release he explains to me that valve doesn't move forward with projects that don't seem promising or aren't working out describing play testing as their judge and jury so valve religiously validates their games through Play testing and if they aren't happy with the results they just scrap the project but don't let that fool you into thinking valve doesn't care about money they just have other ways to get it if we look at valve's releas scheduled before 2013 and then after things look a little different before 2013 valve gave us all of these but after that year V only released an Asian Counter-Strike spin-off artifact DOTA underlords aperture Des job and CS2 all either spin-off games Tech demos or new engine ports since 2013 we've really only got two brand new games the lab and halflife Alex and there's something in common with these games both are on VR and both are pushing valve's newest technology that's what's changed valve used to be a game developer or at least someone that published great games that was the focus but not anymore cuz way back in 2003 valve struck digital gold that year valve created steam originally it was just a platform to update valve's titles online but then it replaced the world opponent Network an online service for multiplayer following the change valve started offering digital copies of valve games through Steam games like Counter-Strike in halflife 2 then finally valve made one of the greatest moves in gaming history they let third party developers sell their games on Steam most know what happened next steam became the biggest online video game Marketplace in the world the platform brings in billions of dollars a year and valve barely has to do anything all of valve's games combined don't even come close to the money that steam brings in because valve gets 30% of every game just for context to understand how much money that is it's estimated that steam alone made valve around $10 billion in 2022 which means 30 to4 billion were transacted on the platform and that number is just growing yearly yeah it's no surprise valve isn't interested in making games anymore they just let others do it Val took the concept of let the community build for you to a whole new level why make your own games or even buy up validated games when you can just become the platform to host all the games valve just kept evolving no longer thinking in $1 million but billions we could make trillions why make trillions when we could make billions when valve created steam in 2003 I imagine they saw it as a place to host all of their games and make updating easier but now that steam has become the go-to video game Marketplace valve prints money combin that with their big three Cash cows Counterstrike Dota 2 and TF2 all making money from their in-game marketplaces there's not really an incentive for valve to make more games so what does this mean for the future of valve as a studio will they ever make more games what what about Half Life 3 the game we've been waiting over a decade for this is your daily Half Life 3 update there is no news well I still think there's hope in an interview with IGN Gabe new said this halflight games are supposed to solve interesting problems and this lines up with what we've seen valve strives to innovate their games game engine steam their VR Hardware show that valve want to be on the Forefront of the industry but the industry they're working in now isn't video games it's game hardware and software when they make games now it's to help sell their Innovations and show what they are capable of it's why we got a halflife game for VR and not for PC or console so when will we ever get halflife 3 we will eventually but Val won't make it just to make it we'll have to wait for Val to push something new some big Tech innovation in VR or steam or God forbid on mobile valve used to be a game publisher but now they're a hardware manufacturer and a software distributor I want valve to keep releasing great games just as much as the next guy but valve doesn't make games anymore and our only hope is that valve creates something so Innovative that they finally release halflife 3 this week's indie game highlight is Celeste which doesn't need much of an intro since it's pretty popular but man if you haven't tried this game you should it's a 2d platformer with a very high skill level where you help mateline survive her inner demons on her journey to the top of Celeste Mountain got to go try this out it's a good one thanks so much for joining we'll see you later

Channel: Going Indie

Views: 858,779

Keywords: going indie, video game business, video game marketing, game devlogs, valve, gabe newell, counter strike

Id: _PZilNPyyks

Length: 8min 31sec (511 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 07 2023