Why is it so hard to accept that other people like things that you don't? Seriously, we get so many "why is this or that so popular" threads. I'm pretty sure we already had this question asked a couple times.
There's really no point in these threads, you've already made up your mind and you probably know why most people like Valve already. So everything I'll say won't matter.
That's why I've started to stay out of these kind of threads.
But today I'm in a writing mood, so I'll answer for what it's worth.
I can't exactly tell you why there are many Valve fans here, although they're liked in many other general gaming forums and I don't think that there is a specially high number here, at least from what I can tell. So, it makes sense that there are also many here.
Anyway, you say that the only real game by Valve was Half-Life and that they take over other companies but I disagree. Valve is very good at spotting great talent. They know when people can make good games and then they hire them.
They ask those people whether they want to work at Valve and once they're hired, they're part of Valve. That means, Counter-Strike, TeamFortress, Portal etc. are all games made by Valve because the people who made them, work at Valve.
Valve didn't take over the mods. They hired the people behind the mods. Once hire those people could work on whatever they want but most want to continue work on the mods that they've created. Minh Le put so much work in Counter-Strike, of course he wanted to continue work on that. Naturally, Robin Walker liked to continue work on his mod, he was now even getting paid. Normally, the Digipen students wanted to do something with Portals and puzzles because that was a great mechanic in their game, Narbacular Drop. But none of them were ever forced to continue work on those mods once hired.
The guys at Valve know when they see talent and that is in my opinion a great talent in itself.
The reason why EA keeps the logos of the companies who develop the games is because EA is a publisher while Valve is a developer. The people hired by Valve, work for Valve now. They're part of the company and they're perfectly fine with that. Tell me, when a person is hired by a company, isn't he now part of it and everything he works on is part of the company? The people they've hired wanted that and can leave whenever they want, like Kim Swift did for example.
I really don't get this part of your post. What logo should they keep on the games? The people are Valve employees know, not part of some other companies. Like I said, Valve is a developer and not a publisher.
So tell me, which people lost their titles to Valve? The only one that kind of comes into my mind is Left4Dead but that's it. One game.
As for DOTA 2, the development was put in hand of Icefrog, who again, himself wanted to work at Valve. The original DotA still exists and doesn't belong to Valve and Icefrog can work on it whenever he wants but apparently he prefers to work at Valve on DOTA 2.
Really? You compare the mess that was Duke Nukem Forever with Half-Life 3? First and foremost, it's only been five years since episode 2, Duke Nukem took 12 years. Correct me if I'm wrong but 5 =/= 12.
Half-life 2 took six years and it became a great game. What's more important, the development of Duke Nukem and Half-Life are completely different. The only thing that people see is that it takes longer than one year and everybody screams that it's the same as Duke Nukem, even though there were many other factors involved that led to Duke Nukem that aren't present in Half-Life 3. By know, Valve has stated a couple times why they aren't talking about the next Half-life.
This is already way longer than I initially intended, so just quickly. They like their customers and want to make them happy, they don't have to make shareholders happy. They actually managed to make DRM look attractive to many people. Steam has helped many indie devs. People have bought many games at prices which would have normally taken years to drop that low. And of course thanks to them, there are many great games. Yes like I said, I consider Portal, TF2 etc. as games made by Valve because the people working on them are Valve employees who work on those games on their own accord. These and many other reasons have made Valve popular and companies like EA have helped as well by doing bad things and making Valve look even better.
