Gabe Newell – he doesn’t seem interested in making games anymore (Picture: The Project)
A reader is upset that Gabe Newell’s recent comments about game development underline how long it is since he’s made anything new.
There are many mysteries in the video games industry, from what the secret of Monkey Island is to why Sony released the PlayStation VR2 and then instantly abandoned it. For me though, the thing I ponder the most is what do Valve do all day? Not the people that run Steam, but the ones that used to make video games but no longer do.
It’s 12 years since Portal 2, the last normal game Valve developed, that wasn’t a VR tech demo or a multiplayer-only game. I imagine there are many younger games that don’t even realise Valve are, or were, a games developer. Believe it or not, but at one time they were one of the most revered studios in the world – now they’re not even part of the conversation.
Gabe Newell used to be a creative, an important and influential person in the games industry, and now he’s just a retail executive. I assume he’s happy in what he’s doing, because he’s got so much money he can do whatever he want, but I don’t understand how he can be fulfilled knowing that he used to make groundbreaking, important video games.
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I say this because the recent Half-Life 25th anniversary video had some interesting comments from him that made the news. He uttered a version of the famous, ‘A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad’ quote that I now understand was never said by Shigeru Miyamoto.
I like the fact that Gabe said something similar, because for me he’s just as talented and influential as Miyamoto. The only difference is that Miyamoto didn’t just give up after a handful of games.
It’s his (half-)life, he can do whatever he wants, but what struck me is his other quote from that video, where he argued against video games being too realistic.
‘Somebody [would] say, that’s not realistic and you’re like, ‘Okay, what does that have? Explain to me why that’s interesting.’ Because in the real world, I have to write up lists of stuff I have to go to the grocery store to buy. And I have never thought to myself that realism is fun. I go play games to have fun.’
For me that’s an amazing quote and exactly how I think about video games, and I think the sentiment is not appreciated enough by other developers. We have too many simulations and not enough games, and yet I don’t think anyone would think of Half-Life or Portal as being particularly wacky or silly – being unrealistic doesn’t mean you have to be like a cartoon, it just means you put gameplay first and Gabe obviously understands this.
So why doesn’t he want to put any of this into practice anymore? Why is he more interested in making the Steam Deck 2 than Half-Life 3? I have no idea, but it saddens me. I have no idea what Valve’s VR games are like because I can’t afford a headset, but I hear they’re very good. But what’s the point if so few people ever get to play them?
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Why is someone so obviously talented and heavily invested in the games industry so disinterested in contributing to it creatively? Again, I have no idea.
Even by the time of Portal 2, Valve were starting to really slow down. Half-Life 2: Episode Three never materialised and the whole concept of Valve as a video game developer quickly disappeared. I feel we’ve been robbed of a decade and a half of one of the greatest video games companies ever and I don’t understand why.
Maybe one day there will be a proper Half-Life 3, that is an actual normal single-player game, that you don’t have to buy new hardware for, but maybe there won’t be. Maybe Valve are just happy to fade into memory. Everything they’ve done for the last decade and more suggests they just don’t care, and that’s a shame.
By Cubrick
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A reader is upset that Gabe Newell’s recent comments about game development underline how long it is since he’s made anything new.