Valve, why are they loved?

[royohz]

I don't think there's a quality to The Escapist that attracts Valve fans, as you seem to believe. I just think a lot of gamers appreciate their work/products. It's as simple as that. There's no Valve/Escapist conspiracy. If you really think that, then there's really no point in trying to explain it to you.

 

[Saelune]

They make good games when they actually put them out.
Plus they made Steam, something I have become very familiar with this summer.
I actually just bought the Complete Valve Pack. Replaying Portal 1, and playing Half-Life, since I already beat HL2 on my 360.

 

[captaincabbage]

Because Portal.

Also Half-Life.

Also also Team Fortress.

I'm not really a big fan of Valve, but those three series seem to be the most popular examples given for Valve's status as god of the universe.

Oh yeah also
*checks Steam stores*
Yeah, it's sale time. Again.

 

[Vrach]

Also, I sorta lied about the title, why is valved loved when they are more or less, a monopolistic company?

Because a monopoly is not necessarily a bad thing. It's just that it generally causes the company that's holding it to become greedy, inflate prices etc. Considering Valve is doing the exact opposite of that and using the fact they have a (relative) monopoly to bring down prices and give more back to the consumer than most companies, people don't generally have a problem with it.

The only true valve games are the half-life ones. All the other games are either: Mods, made by another company that is taken over by valve and the game is relesed with a valve logo, or a remake of another developers game "dota 2 anyone?"

Yeah, same can be said of any other company that hires people. Hiring people is good. The fact their logo is not there anymore means it was likely not important enough to the guys who made it (or they'd have fought harder/refused to work for Valve), they were likely content to have a Valve logo there instead and just work for the company.

At least EA allows the company to keep their logo on their games.

Not railing against EA here, but I'd rather see EA allow companies to keep many other things, like vision and such, than a stupid picture no one's gonna give two shits about.

Also valve is sorta sadistic, remeber that April's fools joke? the one about half-life 3?, the only developer that could that is valve, and get away with it.

Anyone who didn't see that joke coming a billion miles away needs to look up the word gullible. Careful, it's not in the standard dictionaries. Also, other companies have done the same tons of times over. Check Blizzard's history for example. It's basically done by any company that has character.

Yes valve may be friendly to theire fans and customers, but what about other developers? how many games have you brought retail and yet needed to install steam to use? How many developers have lost their titles to the valve beast? How long till the gaming culture is overrun with valvies?

Can you explain how or why that's a bad thing? I've bought games without Steam before and had a "you have x more times to install this game" during reinstalls. I consider it a much worse thing than having my games accessible and downloadable at any time, given an internet connection.

Valve may be a good developer, but there also the worst kind of evil"the one that looks and acts nice, but fools into doing there every order, so your helpless to fight back when they attack."

When has Valve "attacked"? You know what we call an enemy that acts like that, except it doesn't attack? A friend >.>

 

[gnihton]

You're really asking this while the absolutely ridiculous summer sale is on.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Steam Sales. /thread

 

[loa]

They run the biggest, most successful game online store there is and they don't pull stunts off like for example EA and capcom do.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Half Life 1 and CS are kinda dated, but Half Life 2 and it's episodes, Portal and Left 4 Dead are all awesome. And what they're doing with Steam is amazing, with the cheap sales and the Steamworks and just how useful it all is. That said, I fear they are starting to lose their way. Portal 2 was great, but not as good as Portal. Left 4 Dead 2 was fun, but it kinda ruined the whole horror atmosphere. And TF2... my god. I have never seen a more unbalanced, lopsided, just plain screwed up mess of a multiplayer game save maybe UMVC3. Valve, stop with the hats and the tie-ins, just make the game good again, please! And CS:GO? Oh good, another realistic gunwank shooter where you die in two shots.

 

[gnihton]

They run the biggest, most successful game online store there is and they don't pull stunts off like for example EA and capcom do.

Apart from the totally rigged Portal 2 ARG.

 

[Dogstile]

The only true valve games are the half-life ones. All the other games are either: Mods, made by another company that is taken over by valve and the game is relesed with a valve logo, or a remake of another developers game "dota 2 anyone?"

False. They also gave us Portal, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead and a handful of others.

No, Portal, Team Fortress, and Left 4 Dead were all originally mods and or developed by people outside of valve and then brought in.

I'm not so sure Portal and Left 4 Dead count. In both cases, the team that made the game was hired by Valve after making an unrelated game -- Narbacular Drop in the case of the Portal devs, and the UT 2004 version of Alien Swarm for the L4D team. I'll grant you that Team Fortress was originally made by a group of outsiders, as were Alien Swarm, DotA, and Counterstrike, but if Portal and L4D aren't really Valve games, then Pong isn't really an Atari game. You see, it was the first game ever made by a new hire -- it was never supposed to be released, it was just busy work to get him to prove himself. Atari called it the ten game rule -- your first ten games suck, and will not be released. His very first game did not suck, and wound up making them mountains of cash, and the point is he was just as much an "acquisition" from outside as the Portal and L4D guys.

Did they either:

A: fire him after
B: make him stay on his first project (so in this case pong, with valve, l4d2) while another (newly hired) team makes the next game?

Because you know, that's probably what people don't like about valve.

Edit: Because some people don't seem to get this.

I don't hate valve, if you're going to accuse me of that over not agreeing with one thing they do, you need to think more

 

[EeveeElectro]

Well to me, they seem to be gamers who make games for gamers.
Rather than most companies who are strictly business men, Valve seem to actually know what gamers want rather than make the most money (looking at the Steam sales, at least, although I can imagine that brings them in a lot of revenue!)
Of course there's issues with them, there always is with game companies.

They're good, I wouldn't say they're the best company in the world but they're better than some.

 

[nymz]

They make top quality games with a lot of love poured into it.
They care about their customer base and the games they make.
They want to innovate.
They are under the philosophy "entertainment as a service".
Free DLC (exceptions occur on consoles, but always free on PC)
Free games (Alien Swarm, TF2, Dota2)
Anyone can start making mods/maps for any of their games.
Biggest electronic platform for gaming and buying games with frequent sales and deals.
Uses this platform to help indie developers.
Makes awesome cinematics and gives you Source Filmmaker so you can too, free of charge.

Even if you don't like any of their games they still have a lot to offer you, for example, maybe learning to mod, awesome game store and source filmmaker

 

[Oly J]

Valve may not be perfect, but I'd rather have them than most other companies, I'm not even a PC gamer, I can't afford a decent gaming rig, but I'd still call myself a Valve fan, just because of Portal and TF2 and not to mention the fact that they actually seem to understand the consumers

 

[Samus Aran but a man]

I love the Portal games although they aren't my favourite game dev studio atm - I love some of Nintendo's teams (Retro Studios and EAD Tokyo) more.

 

[Bloodstain]

Are you thriled for more, Escapees?! Stay tuned for next week's episode of "Why do people like something I don't like?"!

You're aware that EA was voted as the most horrible company, right? I think there was a thing about that around here, somewhere.

And that is complete bullshit. There are company's out there going onto people proprietary and poisoning there water. Bank of America has made people I know pay there mortgage twice in month, and stolen money form me flat out. What has EA done? Band my Origin for a bit of a contrived reason? Yeah that can suck but they are not I repeat trespassing and poisoning water. Worst in the industry maybe. Worst in America unlikely. Worst in the world hell no.

Thank you.
Thank you thank you thank you. I agree wholeheartedly. Voting EA the worst company in America is the epitome of a First World problem.

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