A rant to valve.

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

(I am going to try to use only constructive critisism, sorry if I don't)

What can we say about valve? They are a great company. They made such an open engine to create a community, an Easy to use SDK for game makers to get their start. They made great games like Half Life, Counter Strike: Source, and Team Fortress 2...
But they have seemed to peak...

Lets look at what they did to make themselves disliked currently in my eyes.

Alright, so to start this, we have to look back back. Back to the realease of Counterstike and Team Fortress. Both games helped valve carve their name into the gaming market. Fast forward to now. How did valve make all of it's money? Feeding off of the same games for years now. Counter Strike Source is still the #1 game played on steam (An extreamly sad fact). But I can understand this, and I forgive them for this, because if it is not broken, don't fix it. But are steam players seriously so closed minded that this is the main game they play? Why don't they go explore new titles? If you ask me, It is pointless to have all of these other games on steam if your market is based around a crap old game.

But however, valve does have its ways to try to tempt gamers into buying these games.

So goes to the 2nd reason I dislike valve.
Team Fortress 2
How can I hate such a great game? I don't. It's the market based around the game. What happens whenever most steam games come out? I get an update where if I prebuy a game, I get a hat in TF2. Valve's entire market is based around it. And valve has grown calm to this idea, keep the game, people like it, we still make money, we get rich. This is a cheap, heartless way to kick a gamer in the balls. Valve, Your money can't come souly from hats! For chrissakes come up with new ideas! I don't need a virtual hat for forking out 60 bucks on a new game! I NEED THE GAME! I admit, I play Team fortress 2 a lot. I play counterstrike a lot. But come the realease of Crysis 2, I wont. I'll have a game to play. And I'm not buying it on steam. Hell, I'm probably buying it on Xbox.

But I want to help valve.

This is my point, COME OUT WITH NEW IDEAS. Sure, portal 2 will probably be a good game, but not great. A few new things, but nothing outstanding. Valve, eventually people will move one from these games, what happens when your current generation grows up? Doing the same things over and over again will not attract new people, you're stuck with what you have, and fanbois are like Oil, they don't last forever. Valve, come up with new Ideas. A new game series, But make it more innovative and open to other gamers! Don't restrict yourself to the same damn thing, open up!

Yes, I'm making my game through the source engine, but this is to test out how I like making games. I am trying not to limit myself, but I will probably have to.

So valve, if you want to be arround for a long time, and inscribe your name in greatness, Think outside of the box. You can do it. You've done it before. I'd absolutly hate for you to be remembered as a way to pass time.

I know that steam was made mainly for valve games, but look at all of it's potential. They made one of the most powerful gaming tools in the universe, and they let gamers sink into their valve based comfort zone.

Thank you for reading, and post what you think of valve.
(I really hope valve reads this, though they probably will not)

Edit:
Okay, yes valve has created some cool ideas in the past, but none of them have reached the mainstream sucess of other titles. To this point, Valve has a sliver of the online game market, While other companies have a booming percent. It is like valve is becoming an exclusive cult, and their market is dying out because of this. You may think the games are popular, but look at the numbers, and compair those to other games. (Not the steam versions)

Now that people are begining to bring age into the topic, Let's concider something.
If halo 2 were still active, it would probably have 50,000 players. I sure as hell know I would play it. And bungi was able to make 2 more mainstream success games, barley breaking a sweat. Valve has a lot of compitition, and it is taking over the market. I just want them to stay arround, y'know? I like TF2, but I get bored of it. I love half life, but Playing the same campaign over and over gets boring.

 

[Freshman]

Really I'm thinking this is more of a rant on the whole gaming industry. Name a title from a major developer which came out recently and doesn't have a number on the end. Homefront. ok cool, now name one with an original concept. Yea.
Alright now try it with an indie developer. (minecraft doesn't count, clearly brilliant and in defiance of the stagnation of the games industry) Rules: no 2d sidescroller or galaga clone. Damn, got me again.

 

[Drago-Morph]

Gasp! There are a group of gamers that prefer an older game!

Gasp! A company trying to extend the lifespan of an multiplayer game!

1. How is it Valve's fault for players continuing to enjoy one of their games? It's not, and to imply so is ridiculous.

2. That's what companies do. They attempt to advertise their product to you and entice you to buy it.

And Valve has already "inscribed their name into greatness", by making a ton of amazingly fun and popular games. Y'know, as opposed to milking TF2 dry before moving on. I can't say that for a lot of companies.

What is the point of this thread, exactly? To complain that Valve games are popular? To complain that Valve wants you to play Valve games? Or do you want Valve to ban Valve games from Steam? None of that makes any sense.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Well, most of the companies in the gaming industry are set to a way better standpoint than valve. Valve made a cult, and relies on set cult.

 

[Jordi]

I really don't understand your criticism. It's not really Valve's fault that they make games that are so awesome that people play them for many years. In fact, I think it's great that they continue to fully support those games. And as for your rant about the free hats: would you rather have free nothing? I don't care about the hats at all, but I guess it's kind of nice for TF2 players.

I also don't really see how they are not being creative, apart from the fact that they only make FPSs. But given their genre, they are one of the most innovative companies around. This is a company that made Half-Life, Portal, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress and Left 4 Dead. Each of these games are immensely popular and contained many innovative features. The only criticism I can think of is that they don't seem to develop games very fast.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Gasp! There are a group of gamers that prefer an older game!

Gasp! A company trying to extend the lifespan of an multiplayer game!

1. How is it Valve's fault for players continuing to enjoy one of their games? It's not, and to imply so is ridiculous.

2. That's what companies do. They attempt to advertise their product to you and entice you to buy it.

And Valve has already "inscribed their name into greatness", by making a ton of amazingly fun and popular games. Y'know, as opposed to milking TF2 dry before moving on. I can't say that for a lot of companies.

What is the point of this thread, exactly? To complain that Valve games are popular? To complain that Valve wants you to play Valve games? Or do you want Valve to ban Valve games from Steam? None of that makes any sense.

They aren't popular. They have about 50000 people playing counter strike right now. That is sad. Halo 3 probably has that. Get on Halo Reach, 900,000 people maybe? Valve is closing itself in. I don't care if people like old games, but their is a time to move on. And that time is now for me, either valve makes new games with new concepts, or I will stop buying and playing games made by them.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

This is one of the strangest threads I've seen.

Your bringing up all this stuff but I'm not sure if your really saying anything worth mentioning.

 

[Netrigan]

Okay, let me get this straight. A company that has released Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, and Portal in the last 12 years needs to come out with more new ideas.

Honestly, I can't think of too many companies which have had five hit IPs in the last 12 years.

Bungie milked Halo and only Halo for that entire time. Epic had Unreal Tournament, Gears Of War, and Bulletstorm. Rockstar is doing about as well as Valve with GTA, Red Dead Redemption, and a few other open-world IPs.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

I really don't understand your criticism. It's not really Valve's fault that they make games that are so awesome that people play them for many years. In fact, I think it's great that they continue to fully support those games. And as for your rant about the free hats: would you rather have free nothing? I don't care about the hats at all, but I guess it's kind of nice for TF2 players.

I also don't really see how they are not being creative, apart from the fact that they only make FPSs. But given their genre, they are one of the most innovative companies around. This is a company that made Half-Life, Portal, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress and Left 4 Dead. Each of these games are immensely popular and contained many innovative features. The only criticism I can think of is that they don't seem to develop games very fast.

They are NOT popular. Compair them to Call of Duty, the numbers of people in one black ops playlist will stampead that 25000 playing TF2. Valve is closing its market, and they are loosing supporters, It's either come up with something new, or die out.

 

[Mr. Omega]

You're going to get a lot of hate. remember what site you're on...

OT: The only real issue I've been having with TF2 is all this promotional BS they've been doing recently. Sure, when they did it a few times, it was cute. But now as soon as one promotional item event is done, they have a new one coming out. And while the crate system was much worse at the start, it's still a terrible idea (unless they got rid of crates recently).

 

[blankedboy]

If you don't want to buy hats, don't buy them. They're not compulsory.

And they are coming up with new ideas, and they're using TF2 and TF2 Beta to test them out before putting them into a proper game.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

You're going to get a lot of hate. remember what site you're on...

OT: The only real issue I've been having with TF2 is all this promotional BS they've been doing recently. Sure, when they did it a few times, it was cute. But now as soon as one promotional item event is done, they have a new one coming out. And while the crate system was much worse at the start, it's still a terrible idea (unless they got rid of crates recently).

Crates are still their, I've like 12 in my invintory.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

If you don't want to buy hats, don't buy them. They're not compulsory.

And they are coming up with new ideas, and they're using TF2 and TF2 Beta to test them out before putting them into a proper game.

I mean an entirely new game. Sure it is cute when they have a class update, but it gets boring, and they use it to keep people playing, or to make money from people buying the stuff from the update.

 

[Freshman]

What is the point of this thread, exactly? To complain that Valve games are popular? To complain that Valve wants you to play Valve games? Or do you want Valve to ban Valve games from Steam? None of that makes any sense.

They aren't popular. They have about 50000 people playing counter strike right now. That is sad. Halo 3 probably has that. Get on Halo Reach, 900,000 people maybe? Valve is closing itself in. I don't care if people like old games, but their is a time to move on. And that time is now for me, either valve makes new games with new concepts, or I will stop buying and playing games made by them.

Well 50000 may not be much in comparison to 900,000, but for an 11-ish(?) year old game, those are some staggering numbers. Can't think of any other old ass games with that kind of a fan base left. But seriously what did valve do to you? usually when people hate something this much, There's a reason, or they are just blaming it for something else non-related going shitty in their life. Like i hate Iceburg lettuce with a fiery passion because the last time I ate it, I happened to be on the verge of getting really sick. realistically, not the lettuces fault, but i still hate it.

 

[Drago-Morph]

Gasp! There are a group of gamers that prefer an older game!

Gasp! A company trying to extend the lifespan of an multiplayer game!

1. How is it Valve's fault for players continuing to enjoy one of their games? It's not, and to imply so is ridiculous.

2. That's what companies do. They attempt to advertise their product to you and entice you to buy it.

And Valve has already "inscribed their name into greatness", by making a ton of amazingly fun and popular games. Y'know, as opposed to milking TF2 dry before moving on. I can't say that for a lot of companies.

What is the point of this thread, exactly? To complain that Valve games are popular? To complain that Valve wants you to play Valve games? Or do you want Valve to ban Valve games from Steam? None of that makes any sense.

They aren't popular. They have about 50000 people playing counter strike right now. That is sad. Halo 3 probably has that. Get on Halo Reach, 900,000 people maybe? Valve is closing itself in. I don't care if people like old games, but their is a time to move on. And that time is now for me, either valve makes new games with new concepts, or I will stop buying and playing games made by them.

Yeah, 50,000 people on a game that's how old? Valve is hugely popular, their multiplayer games have some of the longest lifespans, and it's practically unheard of to find a gamer who isn't super-casual and hasn't played Half-Life, Portal, or Left 4 Dead.

 

[fix-the-spade]

But are steam players seriously so closed minded that this is the main game they play? Why don't they go explore new titles? If you ask me, It is pointless to have all of these other games on steam if your market is based around a crap old game.

Two very good reasons.

i)Most shooters released are boring, derivative shit.
That CS keeps it's players wile others so steadily bleed out is more a damning indictment of the other games than a reflection of CS's players.


ii) CS and indeed Goldsrc and Source games are a bottomless pit of mods, alternate modes and communities.
Once you have a Source Engine game you have access to hundreds of complete conversion mods and tens of thousands of extra maps, skins and modes for the existing official games.

For example Call of Duty doesn't have surfing, or balloon racing, or dodgeball, or RPGs, or zombies- wait, it's got zombies, but it took it five years after CS had them to get there. Activision have in fact taken active steps to prevent mods happening on their games, it's a deliberate move to monetize what was traditionally the realm of modders, maps, skins, play modes etc. The upshot is it kills of a game quickly, which suits Activision's rampants short termism but isn't so good for giving a game a long lifespan. EA are steadily going the same route too, I can't see BF3 being anything like as mod friendly as 1942/2.

I can see where you're coming from, Valve are very much a first person shooter developer. Everything they do riffs on the central theme, but to call them and CS players close minded when the world seems content to play the same CoD game or Clone with a different skin each year is a bit wide of the mark. Even Crysis seems to have just dropped into it's CoD but with super powers, which was a bit disheartening for me. It's better to go deeper with what you have to take everything at face value.

The only shooter series that a Valve shooter or mod hasn't replicated (well) yet, is Battlefield. BF 1942/V/2/2142 are still pretty much unique as a series, Quake Wars came pretty close, it was better in a lot of respects, but had no longevity.

PS, what is it that makes CS being the number 1 played game sad?

For a product to still be being updated and recieving attention more than a decade after release is extremely good. It also shows how crap everyone else it their job...

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

What is the point of this thread, exactly? To complain that Valve games are popular? To complain that Valve wants you to play Valve games? Or do you want Valve to ban Valve games from Steam? None of that makes any sense.

They aren't popular. They have about 50000 people playing counter strike right now. That is sad. Halo 3 probably has that. Get on Halo Reach, 900,000 people maybe? Valve is closing itself in. I don't care if people like old games, but their is a time to move on. And that time is now for me, either valve makes new games with new concepts, or I will stop buying and playing games made by them.

Well 50000 may not be much in comparison to 900,000, but for an 11-ish(?) year old game, those are some staggering numbers. Can't think of any other old ass games with that kind of a fan base left. But seriously what did valve do to you? usually when people hate something this much, There's a reason, or they are just blaming it for something else non-related going shitty in their life. Like i hate Iceburg lettuce with a fiery passion because the last time I ate it, I happened to be on the verge of getting really sick. realistically, not the lettuces fault, but i still hate it.

(I was talking about CounterStrike Source, so 7-ish.) But if Halo 2 online were still active, it would probably have 50,000. and bungi was able to make a game better than that, that was one of the biggest hits to the face for the video game market in YEARS. Valve has done absolutly nothing to me (In a bad way). I'm just fearing for them. I love valve, I just hate their marketing. I don't want to see them go away from something as dumb as laziness, espicially when they have the power to keep making super mega awesome titles.

 

[RanD00M]

They aren't popular.

Well shit, now you have to explain yourself. They are one of the most popular video game companies in the market at the moment.
Where did you get that fact anyway?

 

[Hawknight]

I'm not sure why there's a problem with Valve throwing in custom hats for pre-ordering games. It's something innocent and it's not like they're charging you for the thing. And I'm not sure if you were implying this, but it sounds like you're saying that people are pre-buying these games solely for a TF2 hat. Which is stupid. I highly doubt someone is going to drop $60 on a game just for a stupid hat. Also, how many other games out there (Bioware comes to mind) put DLC for other games in their new releases to encourage pre-buying. The Blood Dragon armor in ME2 is my first thought.

I really don't understand your criticism. It's not really Valve's fault that they make games that are so awesome that people play them for many years.

This. It's not like Valve is forcing people to play CS:Source. There are thousands of other games available. I mean, Modern Warfare and Black Ops are both on Steam so it's not like the marketplace is lacking in competition. If it says anything about anyone, it's going to be about the consumers.

Admittedly having some more IPs out there might not hurt, but they seem to like focusing on one thing at a time and doing it well rather than do several things and do them just alright.

 

[IrishBandit]

Popularity =/= Quality