Verno wrote on Dec 2, 2011, 15:10:
Gabe being a good boss who cares about his employees doesn't mean he lets them run around doing whatever they want all day. If you don't believe there is any authority or management at Valve then I have some land and a bridge in Africa to sell you.
Now enough dodging, what do we get from you when HL3 comes out?
GABE is the authority and management at valve. They aren't publicly traded, so they have no shareholders to be responsible to. In those quotes, he just described in detail how the company works (everyone decides for themselves what to do even during crunch time, desks on wheels, hire generalists not specialists, etc), at a minimum that interview is worth a read. The portal 2 book about its development with interviews with many top valve employees and gabe confirm that's exactly how all this works. Its not just this one interview.
A good boss is one thing, but valve carries it to an extreme. Like gabe says, its literally an "obsession" with him. It's a GREAT model for the employees, at the expense of customers. I'm not saying they should abandon this model, just a slight amount more direction from the top, and hiring of specialists (such as UI people for steam) would do wonders.
And hey, valve could never develop a single game again and rely on solely on steady and growing steam income, and be just fine as a company. I'd be disappointed in this outcome as would every one of their fans.
Fortunately, they ARE doing some game development, even if it doesn't seem to be on the HL series.
Valve may well go back into the HL series, I just don't believe they are doing that right now.
What do you get from me? It depends if/when HL3/ep3 comes out. If it takes more than a couple years from now, I'd say that's an indicator it wasn't under much development at this time, and I was right. I dunno, what would be appropriate? Kicking in towards a purchase of HL3? but I'd need some type of reciprocal agreement, such as the other person kicking in towards a valve game if HL3/ep3 doesn't come out in that time frame.
Given that the longest between hl games has been 6 years between hl1 & hl2, and that 2013 will be 6 years since last hl game came out, I think 2013 is a fair deadline to have.
Alternatively, I could just post and admit I was wrong. I'm not always right.