Slick wrote on Aug 29, 2017, 14:17:
Mr. Tact wrote on Aug 29, 2017, 07:24:
I don't know -- it just struck me as completely unfair to imply they are cowards. HL3 is a no win situation for them as far as I can tell. Yeah, it would probably make money, but no matter what they do, hell will rain down on them.
Dude, that's the very same dilemma every human faces when walking out their front door every day. Some people will just shit on them, it's called the human condition.
Being paralyzed by fear is cowardly.
"This thing that everyone wants, that we BUILT our whole brand on, we're not going to fulfil the storyline because waaaaaaah trolls exist. Better to never even try!"
Buck up, grow a pair, and get it done. If you're too scared to do anything because some people might not like it, then you have no business being in a creative field.
The problem with these huge gaming companies like Valve and Acti-Bliz is that they don't take chances. And the fact that we're defining THE MOST REQUESTED game in history (HL3) as "taking a risk"... then we have a big problem. And it's a fucking sequel... why in the hell are we having to beg for a fucking sequel of a top 5 most well-known IPs in gaming history... that's the definition of "low risk"
If they're more concerned with keeping their image and not fulfilling this storyline that's 20 years old, then they're openly shitting on their fans, and are more concerned with utter market dominance rather than making games. Not really a newsflash if you've been paying attention for the last 10 years, but still, I think this is a final nail in the coffin. Valve isn't a gaming company, they're an online 3rd party reseller store. No point in even thinking otherwise.
You're arguing with a made up narrative in the first place...
It has nothing to do with risk and everything to do with motivation.
Their employees can do anything they want at an individual level... that paradigm doesn't support a full length AAA game.
So until everyone decides to work on the same thing (and not quit when the going gets tough) or until Gabe says, "guess what, no more laissez faire... we're all making HL3 and I'm starting by assigning roles" it's not going to happen.
It hasn't happened since Portal 2... and that's because everyone was so happy with Portal (which was mostly developed by new hires) that they couldn't wait to start working on a sequel... The old timers paused their pet projects and went to work on big AAA title... and even then once the going got tough (the tedious, tough things, bugs, QA, translations, etc. etc.) Gabe had to step in and make sure it got finished. Right after that he basically said not to expect another single player game, because he knew it would break his studio paradigm again.