This is an interesting take, especially coming from a non-haning focused tech website like Ars Technica. I feel like it’s been too long since people were truly hyped about half life 3 though, and this wouldn’t be enough.
People are increasingly unhappy with windows though, and the EoL of windows 10 may push people to Linux anyways.
We all know Valve can’t count past two.
SteamOS 3.6 though 🙂
I stand corrected.
Also, make the names of save files case sensitive, and name them like:
- aaaaaa
- aaaaaA
- aaaaAa
- aaaAaa
- aaAaaa
- aAaaaa
- Aaaaaa
It’s always funny to see periodicals talk about Valve like they’re a normal puplicly traded tech company.
Valve is private. That fact alone is neither inherently good, nor bad. What it means though, is that Valve will very likely behave very differently than other companies in the same market. Heck, I very much doubt half life Alyx would exist if they were public. If we get HL3, it will likely be a similar case.
Valve is private. That fact alone is neither inherently good, nor bad.
I’m leaning towards being a public company is inherently bad, so being a private company is preferable as the primary “not bad” option.
My main experiences with public companies lately is that they prioritize quarterly and yearly profits over long term health of the company and a good relationship with their customers. I don’t think that approach will be healthy for the company long term, and hurts consumers short term.
Privately owned companies can be just as shitty as publicly owned companies, but they’re not required to put short term shareholder profits first. The well run ones (especially family run ones) are more likely to prioritize building a good reputation and consumer loyalty, which is how you get companies that don’t suck to interact with.
You make good points, but I doubt you’d continue to feel that way if you were a shareholder
won’t somebody think of those poor poor shareholders
As much of a Linux fanboy as I am, I just kinda hate platform exclusives in general when it comes to gaming.
Something fun could be Steam items you can only gain through playing the game on Linux, Like the promotional in-game items you got for playing TF2 on the launch of the Mac and Linux versions.
I think it would be cool as a freebie to steamOS users. Would encourage people to try out installing steamOS to get the game for free.
Could either be that they just need to try it once to claim the game, or the game is free to play as long as they stay on Linux/steamOS to encourage them to use it long enough to finish the game.
I think if they did a special launch on SteamOS and made it super polished it would be a nice demonstration… Or maybe an exclusive demo or minigame or something along those lines. They did some nifty stuff for VR this way and it got people pretty hyped about it for a while back when Vive launched.
This is not only dumb, but also manages to ignore Gabe’s past declarations on the matter. It even ignores the fact they even released CounterStrike (of all things) on consoles.
Genius way to create a ton of ill will towards Valve, SteamOS and Linux as a whole.
There is no chance Valve will make HL2 SteamOS or Linux exclusive.
There is no chance Valve will make HL3
SteamOS or Linux exclusive.I think it will get made someday but likely will suck and/or be too late for anyone to really care
It won’t suck because Valve playtests the hell out of their games, but it might be bland/old fashioned feeling. The biggest issue with Valve is that they’ve really lost their edge. They used to be this young scrappy company that would innovate as easily as breathe, but over time they’ve begun to become so senior-heavy that now they just foster promising talents more than actually produce games.
is everyone forgetting that they made half life alyx? valve hasn’t lost their edge, they just operate on doing things they want to do, and they don’t want to make “half life 2 episode 15”
bland/old fashioned feeling.
Would be described as sucking by many
A competent, fun-to-play game that does nothing new doesn’t suck IMO, thus the distinction.
Saying anything that doesn’t do something new or exciting sucks is a pretty bad take IMO.
Like you wouldn’t say a new horror movie sucks just because it’s about a serial killer holding a family captive in their house and there’s like 50 movies with that premise already, y’know? Execution counts and Valve is still amazing at execution, is my main point. They would absolutely make a fun game that feels intuitive to play with great level design. It just might not necessarily be anything special in terms of mechanics. Mechanically I haven’t seen much new from them since maybe Portal 2.
you wouldn’t say a new horror movie sucks just because it’s about a serial killer holding a family captive in their house and there’s like 50 movies with that premise already, y’know?
Lol perfect classic example of something I would say sucks for the exact reason you named
It’s already too late. HL1 came out 27 years ago, HL2 came out 20 years ago.
Only old people will be hyped. Old people don’t hype well.
I think his is underestimating how big HL3 is as a part of gaming culture. Half Life really wasn’t part of my generation, but I grew up with HL3 being memed constantly. The constant fake leaks and rumors have kept the idea alive. Just a couple months ago I saw a lot of people genuinely believe it was going to be announced during The Gaming Awards thanks to a leak that Valve would be present. Every gaming event has chat full of people spamming Half Life 3 memes. Plus, Alyx got a lot of younger gamers to play the series.
If Half-Life 3 were actually announced the hype would 100% be there, even if most of it will be from people who had never played the games.
It’s because we are all tired and something usually hurts. The thing that hurts and the reason it hurts changes, but “something hurts” is near constant state of being.
alyx was really good though. Like still top 10 VR games ever made.
Only a few people have VR, and its easy to get into that top 10 when there are maybe 15 good games for VR on the steam store total.
But, maybe we can make a super clickbaity article anyway?
Are ‘super-clickbaity’ articles a thing of the past? The signs point to yes!
@DScratch 7 reasons why you don’t see super-clickbaity articles anymore, number 4 is going to blow your mind!
There won’t be exclusives. That isn’t good business for Steam or Linux.
Horrendous idea, sorry.
If anything making it exclusive would just make your average Joe resent SteamOSback when they were trying to do steam machines, i was saying that’s what they needed. even if it was just a limited time exclusive, like hl3 comes out on linux in june, and on windows in december, it could’ve done a lot to solidify their os and hardware scheme. now though? idk if there’s enough hype remaining around the idea of hl3, and steamOS is already a success due to handhelds, and proton has made it way more appealing to do games from linux in general, so i don’t think it’d be so dramatic of an effect, and they’d probably lose out on sales to people who’re really into windows.
all that said, exclusives are usually the deciding factor when choosing between systems. linux has never really had a ‘killer app’. nobody wants to develop a program exclusively for linux because of its small market share, and it stays at a small market share because its competitors have important exclusives that folks can’t bear to go without.
Making HL3 only GNU/Linux exclusive would be the gigachadest thing ever done. Well even better than exclusivity. Make the game playable on windows but only with a downgrade in performance or need of emulation, like the whole industry has made with GNU/Linux.
Imagine if the Windows version requires WSL to work.
We already got half life 3. It was called half life alyx specifically to get away from the massive pressure that came with the meme.
Its also important to know valves strength is that they don’t need to pump out games, they make profit enough though steam. This makes sure they can put time in exploring new concepts and innovation and only release games that maintain the perception of excellence, which they could lose fast if they released a “mid” tier game.
I’ll copy what I said on Mastodon
I don’t know, even though Valve are pushing Steam OS they still treat all their platforms equally, and I don’t think asking gamers to replace their OS (or install alongside their existing one) or buy a new PC in order to play Half-Life 3 is a good marketing strategy. Half-Life Alyx is a great example: as great a game it is, few people actually bought VR headsets to play it.
PS: I’m one of those guys who bought a headset for HLA, but I know I’m part of the minority here.
Ewww exclusives.
Exclusivity can eat my ass.
