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[Grief.exe]

I don't think Valve has gone the "shitty" route. I think they have just gotten too big and they have so much on their plate that they can't tackle it all. I think they are doing too much with not enough people and resources.

As many has said before me, theyy're probably spread too thin and things take time, you'll probably see a left 4 dead 3 announcement within a year as we at least know that's the game they are working on at the moment.

I've always advocated for Valve to open a separate company that is run more like a typical business. Where they can sustain their typical company culture, while getting unpopular, but essential, jobs done in their satellite company.

TF2 is 8 years old. Not even close to the oldest officially supported game.

Ultima Online turned 18 last week. It's getting an expansion in the next few months.

That's impressive, but support for both games is the exception to the rule in this industry.

Dota 2 has had replays for four years but they haven't worked for less than a month. VALVE SUCKS. DOES ANYBODY ELSE HATE VALVE?

Logic flies out the window in favor of emotional arguments in these threads.

 

[Linkark07]

Business wise, Valve made an excellent choice. With Steam, Dota 2, CS:GO and TF2 they are making millions easily, something that would be hard (or impossible) if they continued developing single player games only.

And the quality of their games is still good. Dota 2 is entertaining and quite competitive. Plus how they managed to make CS:GO relevant is still surprising to me. So no, Valve is still a great company, sans their customer support.

 

[Rezae]

Valve is an interesting company to follow.

On the Steam front, I find their sales to be pretty lackluster these days, but it's partially due to me owning so many games already. I miss their giant publisher bundles. Ultimately the publishers decide on the discounts, but Valve certainly communicates with them (no doubt with tons of data) and they are still partially to blame if publishers don't want to play ball.

On the game front, I've never been a Valve fanatic, but I enjoyed Half Life well enough, think the Portal games are masterpieces, and dabble quite a bit in both CS and DOTA2 (currently my two go-to games, but I'm mediocre in both and don't see myself devoting enough time to get hardcore in the slightest).

I see Valve as having an identity crisis. I still don't know what to make of the whole Steam OS and controller... personally I don't these things will take off as anymore than niche products... whether or not Valve expects them to be more than that, who knows. Steam probably grew much larger than they ever anticipated, and they are reluctant to loosen their grasp a bit (i.e. outsource an actual CS dept, among other things). I think the Steam cashflow is so good that they don't really see an incentive in releasing much of their own games any more, it's just a drop in the hat. Games like CS, DOTA2, and TF are still at the top of the most played list, so why bother with anything else?

Sometimes I think they're too analytical for their own good, and their fans and self-identity are getting lost in the shuffle.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Every time I think Valve is going to announce the end of TF2 support, they turn around and announce a year's worth of plans to improve the game further, that seem to lead into yet another year of more things to develop.

Like they have comp matchmaking coming next year, which they want to add partly to help balance weapons, which just shows they obviously have no plans to discontinue support.

That's impressive.

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

Valve biggest issue right now is EASILY their shitty community managment. They are becoming better at snail pace at least.

And the steam client itself needs a massive rework to be up to modern standards. Reborn was/is shitty, but kind of understable since it is a new engine yada yada. It doesn't stop the bug from being anoying AND game impacting.

 

[RedSwirl]

Nowadays Valve is just a Research and Development company. They only make games as test beds for new technology. Lets see what will happen when they "finish" Source 2 and release Vive (SteamVR).

I think Valve has always been an R&D company. Almost all their games have been vehicles for new tech or economies.

You could argue HL1 was its tool for GoldSrc (?) out of which came a lot of other content, including Counter-Strike. HL2 was Valve's vehicle for not only Source but also Steam's central content delivery system. TF2 eventually introduced that whole fan content-driven economy and brought Valve into F2P. Portal 2 was Valve's first Steam Workshop game if I remember correctly. DOTA2 brought Valve into eSports monetization. The reason we don't have HL3 is because Valve has no new tech planned (that we know of) best served by a single-player FPS.

Right now we just know Valve is trying to get Steam Machines and Steam VR off the ground.

 

[fresquito]

If you think this is not for the user experience, why exactly do you think they are doing this for? I missed the part where they get extra money from this.

You probably then missed how Source2 helps contents creators in a lot of ways, Which, is a plus for me, but if you really think they will be not taking a dent there, then you're obviously missing a part of the big picture.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against Reborn and I think they made the right choice in porting the game over there. They just had to rush it and I'm against rushing things because the one suffering the consequences is always the end user. And that's the thing around what my point pivots: They chose to go a route that's not good for the end user on the short term and there was nothing that prevented them fron holding back for a little longer other than their own schedule (that couldn't meet, and that's why they need to rush now).

And I feel that that's what's going on with a lot of things Valve now. They've got their own schedule and it doesn't matter if it affects negatively the end user or it doesn't. they will just follow that route and then backpedal if needed (like with the Workshop).

 

[ZanDatsu]

The only Valve stuff I've noticed recently is the changes to big picture, which have been really cool and made the whole experience a lot better. The speed at which they iterate and improve put both Microsoft and Sony to shame. Actually that's not true because it went unchanged for a long time, I just mean when they do decide to improve something they make a lot of improvements very quickly, something I don't notice elsewhere, especially with Sony. The monthly Xbox changes were definitely a good thing, and I hope it continues despite me not having turned on my XONE in months.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

When seeking to right problems it helps to not fall to hyperbole, as the ability to get the grease to the squeaky wheels depends upon it.

Also the sales look worse to vets from having most of those games and new comp like key resellers working the steam sale effect.

 

[Pifje]

It feels like they have actually completely forgotten about HL3 by now. They certainly are a different company nowadays.

 

[spindoctor]

You can't watch Tournaments replays. That's why I lost myself the whole american and asian qualifiers for ESL NY.

I just watched a replay of some ESL NY tournament qualifier. It worked fine.

 

[Fuz]

Usually the "shitty route" = the money route.

Pretty much.

 

[Baron von Loathsome]

And the steam client itself needs a massive rework to be up to modern standards.

Ooooooooh yes.

 

[Emerson]

I'm quick to bitch about the way Valve handles Dota in certain ways but in all seriousness I do not understand these complaints.

1) The Reborn client is a massive undertaking that was pushed live to millions of players and is already pretty damn stable with the team having made exceptionally quick changes and fixes in a very short period of time.
2) Steam sales are still pretty goddamn great. I agree that they aren't as batshit crazy as they once were, but they are still pretty much one of a kind in the marketplace and far and beyond anything being done on consoles.
3) They'll make the game you want eventually.
4) Their customer support and community management does indeed suck ass and they need to improve it, but it's inherently nearly impossible to change based on how their company is structured.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

I remember one time me and my friend spent a good week trying to find a day to play RE5 co-op together shortly after the game ditched GFWL and became a steamworks game.

Well on the day we were gonna play the steam servers died for like an hour. We were pretty bummed but decided to kill time playing something else...you know what it was? Lost Planet 2 which is on GFWL.

The fucking irony that GFWL -an abandoned platform- was more reliable on that day than steamworks was incredible to behold.

Steam is garbage, the chat drops at least once a day mid conversation like clockwork, the fact that there is no twitch integration is still ridiculous (asking to watch some ones game is no fucking substite because I can't control my stream settings are well and it kind of crashes the over lay, also if you're not on your computer with your steam client watching isn't possible if i remember right), the whole platform feels bloated and messy and guhajdjs damn it valve if you're not gonna make new games at least make steam work 100% of the time. I know I'm not the only one experiencing these problems either because all my friends experience this shit.

 

[Doctor Ironic]

Valve is doing things that are outside my demographic. They are "taking the shitty route."

Also, why doesn't MTV play music videos anymore!?

The fucking irony that GFWL -an abandoned platform- was more reliable on that day than steamworks was incredible to behold.

Pick a better game to make your point than one with an infamously botched Steamworks port.

 

[KingBroly]

Valve is an interesting company to follow.

On the Steam front, I find their sales to be pretty lackluster these days, but it's partially due to me owning so many games already. I miss their giant publisher bundles. Ultimately the publishers decide on the discounts, but Valve certainly communicates with them (no doubt with tons of data) and they are still partially to blame if publishers don't want to play ball.

On the game front, I've never been a Valve fanatic, but I enjoyed Half Life well enough, think the Portal games are masterpieces, and dabble quite a bit in both CS and DOTA2 (currently my two go-to games, but I'm mediocre in both and don't see myself devoting enough time to get hardcore in the slightest).

I see Valve as having an identity crisis. I still don't know what to make of the whole Steam OS and controller... personally I don't these things will take off as anymore than niche products... whether or not Valve expects them to be more than that, who knows. Steam probably grew much larger than they ever anticipated, and they are reluctant to loosen their grasp a bit (i.e. outsource an actual CS dept, among other things). I think the Steam cashflow is so good that they don't really see an incentive in releasing much of their own games any more, it's just a drop in the hat. Games like CS, DOTA2, and TF are still at the top of the most played list, so why bother with anything else?

Sometimes I think they're too analytical for their own good, and their fans and self-identity are getting lost in the shuffle.

Why does Valve have an identity crisis when they control the market they're in with an iron fist? If you want my opinion, they're doing what they're doing with hardware because they no longer have a desire to do what they were doing with software because they already own it and no one can stop them outside of the Federal Government forcing a breakup due to them being a monopoly, which, for the PC market, they kinda are.

They're not the only company out there sure, but they are the de facto. We're beyond the point of 'is it coming to Steam?' and are now into 'if you're not on Steam, no one cares.' And because we've hit that point, they've gotten lax in a lot of areas, their sales have steadily been drawn back due to more people coming to the service, so they need less enticing to keep people since PC gaming is the end all for a lot of gamers, and Valve knows this.

Valve doesn't need to put out Half Life 3 to get people onto Steam or excited about it. All they need to do right now is just be there because no one, not EA, no Ubisoft, not GOG, are even attempting to compete with them. Until they do, it's only going to get worse.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

game to make your point than one with an infamously botched Steamworks port.

It wasn't a game specific thing ALL the steam servers dropped, we couldn't even play CSGO or anything there was no connection to steam period.

RE5 is also not even remotely botched, joining and playing a game works flawlessly.

 

[Grief.exe]

If you listen to Gabe, and by extension Valve, during interviews they always say they can't justify going back to their old developments with what they have learned.

Valve reaches more people, provides more entertainment value, and generates more revenue through their current development. As much as I want to see Half-Life 3 and Portal 3, it likely won't happen in the foreseeable future. L4D3 development has been leaked and alluded to multiple times, I'm hopeful for an announcement in 2016.

 

[Monochromaticx]

But it's not only that Steam is dropping. Some weeks ago Valve made DOTA 2 a Source 2 game. They sell tickets for online tournaments to be watched through DotaTV. In Source 1 you could watch the replay of each match, play it from the perspective you better liked, or use free camera. You could watch the replay of a match multiple times and learn, if that was your thing. You could, of course, watch your own replays. Not anymore, since Source 2 doesn't support replays at the moment. But they're still charging you the same money for what is basically a glorified Twitch version, since you can only watch the games live now.

? false

 

[Emerson]

? false

Where do people even get this shit? Nevermind the giant Replay tab in the Watch section.

 

[Omega]

Where do people even get this shit? Nevermind the giant Replay tab in the Watch section.

Not surprising.

Most people on GAF don't play games. Hell, some of them clearly don't even follow games. (poster on the first page saying how Valve only has DOTA 2, even though CSGO is right behind it in player count)

 

[Gwarf]

Valve has barely over 300 employees. More than half of them are dedicated to maintenance of their top games. Another huge chunk are support and logistics for the Steam platform.

The rest of the employees are usually allowed to vote and work on whatever they want within reason(i.e. they choose L4D2 themselves). They would need to hire 100 people to compete with the crazy AAA games you want HL3 to be.

I'm not saying they couldn't hire those people and secretly try for a huge mega shooter with cut-scenes and the like but it's really stretching.

If they ever do decide to build HL3 look for it to be a different kind of game that could be done with a smaller team and more focused on a special game play element.

Maybe a very amazing short VR shooter fine tuned in a small very detailed environment or something like that.


TLDR: Valve doesn't have the manpower to make a traditional AAA shooter in the vein of the competition.

 

[patapuf]

Why does Valve have an identity crisis when they control the market they're in with an iron fist? If you want my opinion, they're doing what they're doing with hardware because they no longer have a desire to do what they were doing with software because they already own it and no one can stop them outside of the Federal Government forcing a breakup due to them being a monopoly, which, for the PC market, they kinda are.

They're not the only company out there sure, but they are the de facto. We're beyond the point of 'is it coming to Steam?' and are now into 'if you're not on Steam, no one cares.' And because we've hit that point, they've gotten lax in a lot of areas, their sales have steadily been drawn back due to more people coming to the service, so they need less enticing to keep people since PC gaming is the end all for a lot of gamers, and Valve knows this.

Valve doesn't need to put out Half Life 3 to get people onto Steam or excited about it. All they need to do right now is just be there because no one, not EA, no Ubisoft, not GOG, are even attempting to compete with them. Until they do, it's only going to get worse.

One day people will understand that it's not valve that sets prices, not even during sales.

And outside of key resellers their big sales are quite comparable to the competition.

 

[Lulubop]

it's amazing how irrelevant they are with games now
they aren't even involved with their games anymore, TF2 is basically running off of fan content and hardly anything else
the only thing they got going for them is Dota 2 which wasn't even an original idea in the first place

my head hurts.

 

[Xpliskin]

Yup, I feel the same way man.

 

[Omega]

my head hurts.

that's not even the best part, it's the follow up with how they're not involved with their games anymore.

Yeah, not like they didn't just recently

- Move Dota 2 over to Source2
- Release major CSGO update

 

[fertygo]

Steam's deal still great for me, especially with regional pricing.. what a fucking godsend

Hail Steam

 

[CheesecakeRecipe]

Valve still has several large weaknesses in their structure which has caused parts of the overall Steam ecosystem to fall behind other products. Customer Service being the cause of most vocal outcry, and with good reason. The time it takes to get a response from a representative is embarrassing for such a highly esteemed company in 2015, and is a weakness that the company has gone on record to recognize that they need to improve upon as soon as possible. In the spring, Valve was eyeballing real estate for an office about twice the size of their current compound. Depending on whenever they decide to pull the trigger, we may see them staff up and hopefully address their abysmal Customer Service department.

Steamworks network instability is an all-too-frequent occurrence for a platform that requires such constant interconnection between game servers, friends services, community features and the store. Far too often have I noticed that my Steamworks powered game will boot me from a session or break community functionality so I can't invite my friends until the servers come back up. Chatting also suffers horribly during these black outs. One of my biggest frustrations here, as someone who runs and is an active part of several large steam groups, is the "ghost chat", which occurs anywhere from one to three times a week. Without any indication that the chat has broken, hours will often roll by before we're aware that the chatroom broke and we have to rejoin from the community page. I can't think of any other modern chat service which is so lacking.

Regarding the spirit of the sales of old, I do miss the inventive and very involved metagames from some of the earliest and craziest Steam sales. But, as derExperte pointed out earlier, the most recent sale was one of the best sales they've had in years. Equal attention spread between AAA titles, smaller indies and old classics brought back for digital distribution. No voting to gunk up the waters. No longer were sales repeating where you were seeing Alan Wake on sale as a Community's Choice, Flash Sale and a Daily sale. It was an improvement in almost every way from the issues previous sales had, even if the games I was holding out for didn't go on sale or didn't hit a low enough price point to get me to impulsively pick them up. But that's not on Valve's shoulders.

They've changed so much from when they started and are hardly the same company I remember both loving for giving me Counter Strike and also being frustrated at for forcing their clumsy, garbage Steam client on me back in 2003. They have their own interests in mind right now, but it seems to me like they realize they have a responsibility as the head of the largest marketplace for PC gaming to get their act together where they're lacking. We'll just have to wait and see how much longer it takes.

 

[OnionPowder]

Amazon.

Not since Tony left.

 

[impact]

2007, when I discovered Steam. Back then and through many years, Valve was all about quality and user experience

HAHAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

[Interfectum]

Why does Valve have an identity crisis when they control the market they're in with an iron fist? If you want my opinion, they're doing what they're doing with hardware because they no longer have a desire to do what they were doing with software because they already own it and no one can stop them outside of the Federal Government forcing a breakup due to them being a monopoly, which, for the PC market, they kinda are.

Err no. What would the federal government say to Valve? "Stop being so consumer friendly so Desura has a chance to catch up?"

 

[KingBroly]

One day people will understand that it's not valve that sets prices, not even during sales.

And outside of key resellers their big sales are quite comparable to the competition.

It's not the prices, it the amount of sales, promotional periods themselves that Valve sets for Steam that is my concern.

 

[Interfectum]

it's amazing how irrelevant they are with games now
they aren't even involved with their games anymore, TF2 is basically running off of fan content and hardly anything else
the only thing they got going for them is Dota 2 which wasn't even an original idea in the first place

Not nearly as amazing as your ignorance though.

 

[shintoki]

Because I like Valve for Half Life

That's something between you and Valve then personally.

Valve still makes games and supports them.
CSGO went from a dud to the premier Esports title for shooters.
DOTA2 is still the pinnacle of Esports.
TF2 and L4D2 are still well support.

I like this output far better than Half Life and judging by their model.... a hell of a lot more people do too.

 

[OnionPowder]

It's not the prices, it the amount of sales, promotional periods themselves that Valve sets for Steam that is my concern.

4 huge ones a year with a daily sale and a weekly weekend sales.

How much more do you need?

 

[Boombox On]

This thread burned down faster than I anticipated.

 

[Grief.exe]

Didn't CSGO CEVO major have the highest amount of viewers in the history of esports?

 

[Nzyme32]

Where do people even get this shit? Nevermind the giant Replay tab in the Watch section.

Not surprising.

Most people on GAF don't play games. Hell, some of them clearly don't even follow games. (poster on the first page saying how Valve only has DOTA 2, even though CSGO is right behind it in player count)

Generic Valve thread really. They "don't make games" because they are not on consoles or "games I like" - yet the inaccurate commentary for those games is still all good.

Like everyone else, I'd like to see new games. However I can respect the fact that the company is always spread ridiculously thin on all manner of other projects and likely some games while maintaining the current ones. Almost all their current projects have had a long time in development. With everything set to launch in the next coming months, I'd hopefully expect a bit of a change in what they output.

 

[ashecitism]

Didn't CSGO CEVO major have the highest amount of viewers in the history of esports?

CEVO doesn't organize majors. ESL and DreamHack do. The latest ESL One Cologne had over 1m concurrent, which as far as CS history goes is I think the highest. But as far as eSports in general? Has to be LoL's 11m concurrent finals (which I think was last year, no idea about this year's data).

 

[Overdoziz]

that's not even the best part, it's the follow up with how they're not involved with their games anymore.

Yeah, not like they didn't just recently

- Move Dota 2 over to Source2
- Release major CSGO update

Stattrak music kit aw yiss

 

[tootsi666]

Didn't CSGO CEVO major have the highest amount of viewers in the history of esports?

CEVO doesn't do Majors and I'm pretty sure LoL has a lot more viewers that CS.

 

[Armaly]

I miss buying 4 packs.

 

[dave is ok]

Sidenote: LoL doesn't have replays at all.

 

[patapuf]

I miss buying 4 packs.

What made you stop?

 

[Kintaro]

It's pretty amazing how Steam's customer service is complete shit but people will just sweep that under the rug easily, Any other retailer's customer service goes to shit and its hell on Earth. They are at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to customer service and it needs big improvement for a retailer of their size.

- Steam Client needs updating/revamp.
- Customer Service needs an overhaul. You make a bazillion dollars. Hire some people!

These are my two major issues with Valve/Steam.

Not that I don't have other concerns.

- Where does Valve go if Steam Machine/Controller/Link bomb? People still don't even understand the concept of these products (because Valve hasn't done a great job with that), their market and who they are for. Steam was at the GameStop Manager's Conference with Gabe on stage explaining these products and even he couldn't convey a clear and distinct purpose for these machines/items and why customers should purchase them.

- CSGO, TF2 and DOTA2 are all big games. I get that. I also get that for as many people who play them, many more don't. Don't play them. Don't care about them. This is why people continue to ask Valve about HL3. Or Portal 3. Or even L4D3. The demand is there. Just do it. Personally, I don't care about CSGO, TF2, etc. So, Valve as a game company doesn't really exist to me. Announce HL3 tomorrow? You have my attention. I understand that they're doing what they want to do, but if its of no interest to me, I don't care. It's just natural.

Anyways, only the top two are true issues. Their Customer Service is shit and its a crime a company that makes so much money with a retail platform as big as theirs has service so awful. And their clients needs some help. Being "spread too thin" isn't a defense for poor service and client. It's just plain poor support. That is their choice and with the pros come the cons.

 

[Steiner84]

Noone but yourself should know your login name for security reasons.

doesnt seem to be a problem for PSN, XBL, GAF, ever email hoster or most other services...

 

[XenogearsX]

I dunno I think they're doing a good job with CS:GO at least. I haven't had this much fun playing CS since 1.3-1.6

 

[Comfort Jones]

Honestly I can accept if they're not as interested in developing games but ffs if you're going to be so focused on just managing your store how about some quality control with the nonsense that gets through steam greenlight? It actually bums me out thinking how little of an accomplishment it is to get an independent game on Steam now.

 

[King_Moc]

Valve has barely over 300 employees. More than half of them are dedicated to maintenance of their top games. Another huge chunk are support and logistics for the Steam platform.

The rest of the employees are usually allowed to vote and work on whatever they want within reason(i.e. they choose L4D2 themselves). They would need to hire 100 people to compete with the crazy AAA games you want HL3 to be.

I'm not saying they couldn't hire those people and secretly try for a huge mega shooter with cut-scenes and the like but it's really stretching.

If they ever do decide to build HL3 look for it to be a different kind of game that could be done with a smaller team and more focused on a special game play element.

Maybe a very amazing short VR shooter fine tuned in a small very detailed environment or something like that.


TLDR: Valve doesn't have the manpower to make a traditional AAA shooter in the vein of the competition.

What the hell? Do you know how much money they rake in? Do you know how the competition got big enough to make those AAA games? By expanding when they had the money to do so. Valve refuses to, for some reason. It really seems like they consider themselves a shopfront more than a developer.