Why Valve is the best company out there.

On April 21 2012 22:56 obesechicken13 wrote:
That looks nice. Not sure what's wrong with Google or Blizzard though.

On April 21 2012 22:55 Denzil wrote:
so how long until they become what blizzard and google have become?

On April 21 2012 23:15 Serejai wrote:
I don't see Valve becomming like Blizzard anytime soon. Blizzard was decent from 1992 - 2003, whereas Valve has been decent from 1998-2012. They already have a better track record than Blizzard and unlike Diablo 3 or SC2 I simply can't picture HL3 being a disappointment so it's probably safe to say Valve has at least another few years of guaranteed quality left in them.

It would take a lot to make Valve fall... mostly because they're not motivated by money like Blizzard is since they can rely on Steam for revenue. It's not a matter of "put in the least amount of effort for the most amount of profit" like it is for Blizzard. It's closer to "make a good game at any cost"... something nearly all game developers have lost in the last decade.

On April 22 2012 02:31 Djzapz wrote:
Valve is a horrible company, even though it was formerly respectable before about 2005-ish. Gabe Newell is pretty much swimming in money, but Steam is incredibly profitable while requiring just about no work, and TF2 is a cash cow.

They haven't managed to make HL2:E3 come to life even though it's yet another POS on their outdated Source engine, which probably requires a few millions of dollars in development. And yeah, all their upcoming games are going to be on Source, an engine from 2004. Have you guys seen CS:GO? It looks, uh, acceptable for today's standards. A disgrace for a company like Valve that could do some solid work.

Valve is a company that figured out a way to get as much money as possible by doing as little as it can. That's why they don't spend the money writing a better engine, and that's why only a tiny portion of their budget actually goes to making games.

I may be biased, however, because I consider that DOTA2 is a not a game but the bastard child of a terrible genre, and its free-to-play business model is nothing short of despicable, and it disgusts me.

Valve gave us a semi-functional platform, and the rest is garbage since HL2.

On April 22 2012 02:37 Resilient wrote:


I'm not sure if you're a terrible troll or an amazingly delusion person. I'd love to hear what you have to say about Ubisoft, EA and Activision :D

On April 22 2012 02:37 Resilient wrote:


I'm not sure if you're a terrible troll or an amazingly delusion person. I'd love to hear what you have to say about Ubisoft, EA and Activision :D

On April 22 2012 02:56 ZenDeX wrote:

Errr... He must be an employee of a competitor. lol

On April 22 2012 03:24 Djzapz wrote:

I have much, much worse things to say about those especially about EA and Activision. Tell me how I'm deluded though, please. Why did they start making a LOT more money and their games got a LOT worse at the same time? You'd think games would get better.


Crazy, I have none of the skills required to be hired at any of those companies. (Except at game testing, but that's too dreadful for me).

On April 22 2012 04:13 Clues wrote:

HL2:E3 isn't coming out, they've already said they're on to HL3.

Do you understand how much work it is to build a new 3D engine? Its fucking awful. You've also got some idea that since an engine came out in 2005 it hasn't been updated since, which is also wrong. I haven't seen CS:Go so I can't say wether it looks amazing or not, but the Source engine is the one they have full control over, so yea I'd expect their internal games to use it. How do you know they're not working a new engine? I'm just not sure why they're so horrible if you don't have any real insight into what they are working on.

Steam has done a lot of things unrelated to making games, in a lot of ways it has fostered the indie game making scene and let more people play more games (Find some articles on the economics of steam sales).

TF2 was solid, if you are falling back on the tired "ITS ALL HATS WTF" argument you are over-generalizing. I also think that your nostalgia for the previous titles is ensuring that *nobody* could make the game you want in this franchise.

After reading the Valve guidebook and the blog from the guy who is working on wearable computing at Valve, I believe they aren't just about making standard games. I think they're doing all sorts of things behind the scenes that fail, that don't pan out. But they're out there on the edge doing interesting things. Ultimately they can't make everyone happy and I think you are way too harsh on an entire company because you are mad they didn't make the exact game you wanted to play

BTW: Why is not liking dota a reason to shit all over a game that hasn't yet been released? I think the competitive community has gotten behind Dota2 and only recently did they even give a hint as to its payment structure (F2P "With a Twist") so how about you cool your jets and either 1)Shut the fuck up because you aren't going to play it anyway or 2)Wait until its actually released and see how this new experimental system works out.

On April 22 2012 05:11 Zaphid wrote:
Okay, I'm still waiting for any actual points that Valve fails at, Source is getting massive upgrades with every new game and I like it when games don't require a small power plant to run at decent settings. Blizzard games can also look dated and nobody cares. Steam making money is why they run a business, not a charity. Even gog.com is ran for profit. CS:GO is beta and can change rapidly. TF2, just find a decent server with stable community and it's still great. Portal 1+2 never cost 120$, because Portal 1 was part of Orange Box and both of those games were incidentally some of the best moments in my gaming over the last 5 years.

Yeah, you are shitting on them just because you want to.

I'm standing behind them because they have flawless track record and I use their products almost daily, only other company like that is Blizzard.

On April 22 2012 05:14 Resilient wrote:
@Djzapz
Not sure how you can say their games got worse. Portal 2 _was_ amazing regardless of it's length and clearly worth the money to me.
And even though you seem to hate Dota 2/the genre in general, it's an incredible game and a fantastic almost 100% port of Dota 1. You also have to pay homage to the coding and developing they put into Dota 2. They gave us a direct spectator client which operates almost in real time, and a fantastic interface. Basically they did everything right that Blizzard did wrong in SC2.

Also you can't know what else Valve has lined up ready for announcement in this E3. They've hinted that big things are coming.

I'll agree that CS:GO is looking pretty average now, but lets face it, it's very very difficult to produce something better than 1.6.

On April 22 2012 05:20 Djzapz wrote:

How are you so blind that you can't conceive of any problems with Valve, if you prefer games that look bad in 2012 then that's your thing but we're not all like that. I played CS:GO and it's not very good, plus it really does looks old. Source is NOT getting massive upgrades, it's getting small updates and is still incredibly limited, even in comparison to garbage like IW.

And yes Steam is making money like a business, which is not a reason to be a fan of that company.
I don't like TF2 anymore, that's just my opinion. But you seem to disagree that I'm allowed to have an opinion because you're so full of yourself.

And yeah sorry I didn't remember Portal came with the orange box, just figured it was $60 because I got it at release. My bad.

On April 22 2012 05:27 Zaphid wrote:

I prefer to play games that are fun, rather than just those that have modern graphics, but to each their own I guess.

On April 22 2012 05:35 dontforgetosmile wrote:
no one comes close to valve games design-wise. it takes a real bitter person to nitpick about their graphics quality when, despite their engine being old, they produce some of the best looking games that aren't extremely cluttered and distracting like most modern games.

On April 22 2012 06:04 Djzapz wrote:

You're getting me wrong though, I value gameplay over graphics every time, which is why I think CS 1.6 is the best shooter ever made and Starcraft BW is the best RTS ever made. However, if you're Valve, you can afford to do something more. You can get an engine that's more malleable than Source, which despite all the updates, is incredibly limited at this point.

Valve falls short in both departments lately. CSGO is not all that fun and it looks like 2008.


None of their games have looked good for their time since HL2. Name one good looking Valve game since HL2. It's not about being bitter.

Portal was released in 2007 and was fun but didn't look good. It was extremely short. Fair enough.
TF2 was not about graphics, kudos for the 2007 release. The patching was horrible, and the switch to F2P murdered it forever.
L4D was an interesting concept, it looks awful for a 2008 release. I didn't like it but cheers for the concept.
L4D2 came out right after L4D. Probably an incredibly cheap-to-make expansion pack sold as a full price standalone. Disgusting business practice. Game still looks awful for 2009.
Alien Swarm was cute
Portal 2 looked average and was incredibly short for its full price release.

Obviously they're not about great graphics, which is too bad - but how can you say that they have some of the best looking games? No way. And I personally find their titles to be quite boring at this point, except the Portal franchise which offers games with reasonable production value at best.

On April 22 2012 02:21 Xxio wrote:
Google is still awesome - for good programmers at least.

On April 22 2012 08:51 Anon06 wrote:
I'm with djzaps on this one, even though I like valve and their concern for gamers (customers) they haven't put out a quality game since HL2. left 4 dead was pretty good but they killed it by releasing the free expansion that was promised as a sequel really early on which split the the community in half and ruined the simplicity of the game (by adding melee weapons and new infected) that made left4dead competitive.

On April 22 2012 07:44 WolfintheSheep wrote:

So...you don't like their newer games, therefore Valve is terrible?

On April 22 2012 07:49 konadora wrote:
lol if you're really going to base games off graphics then you should never play any games that are older than a year -_-

and btw, valve set up a private server for a community-organised competition's grand finals for dota 2 (The Defense) like 10 minutes after they were contacted for assistance.

name me just one other company that will do that.

On April 22 2012 09:21 Loanshark wrote:


I agree that L4D2 full price seemed like a money-grubbing attempt, but it was followed up by multiple free DLCs and also lots of custom maps and campaigns made by players themselves. And the campaigns in L4D2 were not in any way inferior to those in L4D, and possibly better in some cases (Midnight Riders? Gassing up the car? Hard Rain? The final bridge scene?).
Perhaps you don't like the melee weapons and the new infected but that's purely subjective, I thought they were a great addition to the game.

Not counting L4D(2) and the HL2 episodes, we still have Portal 1/2, Alien Swarm, and the upcoming Dota 2. If those don't count as quality games, I'm not sure what does. And honestly, I'd prefer them to take their time releasing quality games, rather than flooding the market with tons of crappy, half-assed sequels like the Call of Duty franchise.

On April 22 2012 09:21 Djzapz wrote:

No. You should be ashamed of yourself for thinking that's what I said.

On April 22 2012 12:00 WolfintheSheep wrote:

Really? Because that's all you've been doing, bitching about all the games post HL2. They don't meet your qualifications of quality productions, so they must be crap.

On April 23 2012 12:25 Nspire wrote:
What are some games you think look amazing?

On April 24 2012 03:21 Djzapz wrote:
@Vod.kaholic, that's true, but I think people should refrain from idolizing a company for those reasons.

Also, even though I'm not a big Blizzard fan, I still like to see it as a company somewhat distinct from Activision to a certain extent. EA and Activision are garbage, and although Blizzard is now the property of Activision, it hasn't gone "dark side" yet. Blizzard hasn't ever released a "questionable" game, in my opinion. I mean, I don't like SC2 too much but it's still a premium title.

Note: Actually some WoW expansions have been quite terrible.

Either way, comparing companies is not very useful. It's really rare for big corps to have any integrity at all. I used to fly the Blizzard flag before they had been acquired by Activision. That's until I had to deal with their customer support and realized that they actually give the lowest amount of fuck humanly possible. Now I'm a fan of Starcraft and Diablo, and the faceless individuals who have worked to make those games possible. Valve and Blizzard's business is to fuck you, they're just more subtle about it than EA and Activision.

Anyway, just an opinion. It doesn't mean I hate them.

On April 24 2012 06:01 Vod.kaholic wrote:


However, looking through their employee handbook makes me respect that kind of workplace philosophy. If that actually translates to how they make games (which I suppose is debatable) they should be producing enjoyable games slowly, making the best use of their engine. That and how much I enjoy their games is why I still don't feel negatively about their company, even if you think their capitalistic interests get in the way of that.