Why do People love Valve so much?

[Gameguy20100]

Valve games are, in general, Die Hard, absolutely EXCELLENT executions of structure and design that do absolutely NOTHING to rise above just being a video game.

Ahh What did you expect from their GAMES? To cure your cancer? To bring about the world peace ?Which games out there transcend their medium and become something more? Why does that sound so pretentious? Why is the sky blue?

To answer all those questions.

Valve fans seem to think so[applies to the first 3]

Because it is

Because of the sun light shining through the water droplets in our atmosphere

 

[Zykmiester]

They always release excellent games with free DLC, constant Steam sales and treating it's customers with respect unlike EA, Sony and Ubisoft

 

[bafrali]

snip

Really? Who are those fans? Where are those claims? Can you quote someone? Aside from yourself who seems to be misinformed at best and horribly biased at worst.

 

[wizzy555]

Value stuck behind the PC when most others moved to consoles. The PC market probably wouldn't be in the good state it is if not for them.

PC gamers are basically indebted to them for their existence, that's why they love them so much.

 

[VeneratedWulfen93]

Im not a fan of Valve, like Steam on my PC its just kinda there. In a world of crap puplishers and customer service the company that doesn't act like a dick is king. Valve has never done anything exceptionaly stupid to piss people off and for that they are beloved. They've just treated there customers better. Valve isn't doing anything special, everyone else is just an asshole.

 

[Frotality]

because its obvious valve puts SOME kind of effort into making their products high quality and easy to use. steam has no shortage of problems and no one has ever said different, but when you can buy the last 15 games in a classic series for 20$ a few annoying-but-nonmalaicious DRM hoops isnt so bad. ive taken issue with them lately for seeming to focus all their attention on everything not half life 3 related though: just get this out of the way so i can care about everything else you do, the only reason im never buying the left for dead series is because i cannot care about anything with a valve label until the finish what they bloody started.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Origin lets you log into it's client without an internet connection.

Origin wins by that alone.

Being honest about this, as long as I exit Steam and not have my PC force it off when I shut my computer down, it allows me to access offline mode after trying to connect when my net has been out every time, as long as it is on the same computer. When you exit Steam I think it saves a little bit of login info etc that allows this. Problem most people have is that they just shut their PC down and have it force things to close, things like Steam.

This is my personal experience, I don't know if others who do the same as me vary in results, but just thought I'd throw in my two cents

 

[TreuloseTomate]

I became a Valve "fan" because of The Orange Box.

 

[Nomanslander]

Because they're the band of nerdy developers we like.

You see, for major game buffs like us, we've gone past liking just the game, we know who the developers are not just professionally but personally. When you play as many games as we do, you get the sense of who the developers are through their games and how ow the studio is run.

Let's go back to the original Half Life. Back then we had another developer of FPS games that was also big called id that made Doom and Quake. As much as gamers loved those games, they were also pretty dumb and we got the sense that the devs were also a bit pretentious. You think of early id and you think of John Romero and John Carmack. Now came Valve with Half Life, and the game was smarter, the developers wanted to tell a progressing story, and the main character was a nerd that took on douchbag marines. As nerds ourselves, we really found ourselves to like Valve from the very beginning.

Valve are the cool nerds that in the end, create games and have business practices that evoke our sensibilities.

They always create games with unique gameplay mechanics that are revolutionary. With Half Life 2, they made NPCs more human with their models and facial expressions... a common development practice now, but Valve started it. They introduced physics into a game and made it a staple. In almost all their games, the characters are multiracial instead of all white dudes, sometimes mixed races. Alyx Vance is probably the first black Asian character in any video game... and I can't even tell you want Chell is. They're a big supporter of PC game in an age almost every major developer has given up on it.

This is why we love Valve.

Now let's look at other development teams and why they don't hold up.

Epic Games: they created one of the most douchiest dudebros game series ever: Gears of War. Character aesthetics are based on brooding 90s characters and racial stereotypes (Cole train). Three games and barely any evolution in the Gears series. Cliffy motherfucking B.

Bethesda: Their games never have any really refinement or polish to any game play aspect. Buggy games... so f-ing buggy. They bought out Fallout series and turned it into something different; pissing off a lot of original FO fans.

Bioware: Now here are a group of developers that use to stand for a lot of what gamers use to love, but recently they've seemed to have "sold out," and are now making games with more mainstream appeal. I don't think I have any better examples than DA2 and ME3 when it comes to this.

Irrational Games: we all love Bioshock and Bioshock: infinite. But Ken Levine is starting to come across... or, well I'm personally sorta worried he might turn into the M. Night Shyamalan of video games.

Naughty Dog: they like to make games that are "cinematic." Need I say more.

Blizzard: so, when can we expect another game from these guys, 2056? WoW is evil. They ruined my life with their addicting, time consuming games. WoW is evil! So you made 50 godgillion dollars on WoW, when can we expect this Titan MMO... what's that? 4034 AD?

Rockstar: They think they're "rockstars," well... aren't they cute. They spent 100 million dollars on GTA4 just so I can drive your fat cousin Roman around a fake town and play darts with him and go to comedy clubs to listen to bad comics. No refinement in any gameplay aspect, instead you get a thousands tutorials on how to use a cell phone. They're stories are B quality and all their games have toilet humor. Hot coffee.

 

[Gameguy20100]

Because they're the band of nerdy developers we like.

You see, for major game buffs like us, we've gone past liking just the game, we know who the developers are not just professionally but personally. When you play as many games as we do, you get the sense of who the developers are through their games and how ow the studio is run.

Let's go back to the original Half Life. Back then we had another developer of FPS games that was also big called id that made Doom and Quake. As much as gamers loved those games, they were also pretty dumb and we got the sense that the devs were also a bit pretentious. You think of early id and you think of John Romero and John Carmack. Now came Valve with Half Life, and the game was smarter, the developers wanted to tell a progressing story, and the main character was a nerd that took on douchbag marines. As nerds ourselves, we really found ourselves to like Valve from the very beginning.

Valve are the cool nerds that in the end, create games and have business practices that evoke our sensibilities.

They always create games with unique gameplay mechanics that are revolutionary. With Half Life 2, they made NPCs more human with their models and facial expressions... a common development practice now, but Valve started it. They introduced physics into a game and made it a staple. In almost all their games, the characters are multiracial instead of all white dudes, sometimes mixed races. Alyx Vance is probably the first black Asian character in any video game... and I can't even tell you want Chell is. They're a big supporter of PC game in an age almost every major developer has given up on it.

This is why we love Valve.

Now let's look at other development teams and why they don't hold up.

Epic Games: they created one of the most douchiest dudebros game series ever: Gears of War. Character aesthetics are based on brooding 90s characters and racial stereotypes (Cole train). Three games and barely any evolution in the Gears series. Cliffy motherfucking B.

Bethesda: Their games never have any really refinement or polish to any game play aspect. Buggy games... so f-ing buggy. They bought out Fallout series and turned it into something different; pissing off a lot of original FO fans.

Bioware: Now here are a group of developers that use to stand for a lot of what gamers use to love, but recently they've seemed to have "sold out," and are now making games with more mainstream appeal. I don't think I have any better examples than DA2 and ME3 when it comes to this.

Irrational Games: we all love Bioshock and Bioshock: infinite. But Ken Levine is starting to come across... or, well I'm personally sorta worried he might turn into the M. Night Shyamalan of video games.

Naughty Dog: they like to make games that are "cinematic." Need I say more.

Blizzard: so, when can we expect another game from these guys, 2056? WoW is evil. They ruined my life with their addicting, time consuming games. WoW is evil! So you made 50 godgillion dollars on WoW, when can we expect this Titan MMO... what's that? 4034 AD?

Rockstar: They think they're "rockstars," well... aren't they cute. They spent 100 million dollars on GTA4 just so I can drive your fat cousin Roman around a fake town and play darts with him and go to comedy clubs to listen to bad comics. No refinement in any gameplay aspect, instead you get a thousands tutorials on how to use a cell phone. They're stories are B quality and all their games have toilet humor. Hot coffee.

While whats all fair I have to say you could have just said "I like them so shut up" and I would be satisfied.

P.s who the hell is Chell?

 

[black_knight1337]

Yeah, I've never really got all this love for Valve. The only thing that I like about then is Steam. And that's purely for the sales they have. Outside of those it's consistently causing problems. Their games? Sure, they're decent, but there are plenty of other devs that make decent games and don't get anywhere near the amount of praise that Valve does.

And another thing is their lack of creativity with new IPs. Seriously, they suck when it comes to this. Go on, count how many IPs they've actually come with them themselves. Got it? Okay, well, here's a rude awakening for you. The answer is two. That's right, a measly two in 17 years. And I know you're thinking 'but they've made half life and team fortress and counter strike and portal...' That first one is right, but the others aren't. Half-Life and Ricochet are the only IPs that they have come up with in house. Team Fortress, Counter Strike, Day of Defeat, Alien Swarm and Dota all started off as mods. Left 4 Dead? That was made by Turtle Rock Studios. Haven't heard of them? Well that's because Valve bought them out, got them to finish Left 4 Dead for them and then let them become independent again. Portal? That was created by Nuclear Monkey Studios as the spiritual successor to their senior game project, Narbacular Drop. So yeah, they haven't come up with much. They manage to snipe the decent ideas though, can't fault them for that.

-Excellent customer service

Heh, "Excellent" is a hell of a long way off from my experiences with them. Four times in the past I've had this particularly nasty bug where Steam would just lock up on the logging in bit. Nothing I did would change that so of course, I contacted Valve and explained what was happening. Three out of the four times I got no response at all. The other time they just suggested general stuff, like restarting my computer and reinstalling. Neither of which worked. Told them that and once again, got no response. Ended up digging through a heap of forums for about a week and found the solution. I had to do a clean reinstall but in a different directory.
And then there was the time I got my account hacked. Contacted Valve and they told me to provide cd-keys to prove it was my account. So I pulled out a bunch of Steam games, took photos of them like they asked and sent them in. Wanna know what their response was? That evidence to the contrary had been provided by the guy who hacked my account. How I'm supposed to have more evidence than someone who can click view cd-key on all my games, idk.

 

[DoPo]

Its called stockholm syndrome. Seriously people love valve because they are used to them and there is a massive amount of games on steam.

Wait, so you're telling me that Valve have created time travel and mind control rays to make me like them before there was Steam when I played Half-Life. Huh, who knew. I mean, you gotta give them props for going to such lengths - breaking time and space for their eeevil agenda. EA loses marks here - that's why people don't like them - EA isn't trying hard enough, just pretending laws of the world matter.

While whats all fair I have to say you could have just said "I like them so shut up" and I would be satisfied.

That would be a fucking novelty. But something in the way you've NEVER DONE IT tells me you wouldn't have.

P.s who the hell is Chell?

The main character in Portal.

 

[Gameguy20100]

Its called stockholm syndrome. Seriously people love valve because they are used to them and there is a massive amount of games on steam.

Wait, so you're telling me that Valve have created time travel and mind control rays to make me like them before there was Steam when I played Half-Life. Huh, who knew. I mean, you gotta give them props for going to such lengths - breaking time and space for their eeevil agenda. EA loses marks here - that's why people don't like them - EA isn't trying hard enough, just pretending laws of the world matter.

While whats all fair I have to say you could have just said "I like them so shut up" and I would be satisfied.

That would be a fucking novelty. But something in the way you've NEVER DONE IT tells me you wouldn't have.

P.s who the hell is Chell?

The main character in Portal.

I thought the main Character was nameless I never heard anyone call her Chell that Said I have only played the first one so I'm probably talking out of ignorance.

 

[Zenn3k]

Cause their games aren't terrible? Perfect is a bit much, but they have really never released a BAD game, not one. Which is very impressive.

 

[Shpongled]

Yeah, I've never really got all this love for Valve. The only thing that I like about then is Steam. And that's purely for the sales they have. Outside of those it's consistently causing problems. Their games? Sure, they're decent, but there are plenty of other devs that make decent games and don't get anywhere near the amount of praise that Valve does.

That's because all those other developers don't do Steam, like you just said. Developer that does Steam + decent games = developer that's probably going to be more popular than developer that just does decent games. Besides that lots of developers get loads of praise. CDProjekt, Obsidian, Bioware were worshiped prior to DA2/ME3, Nintendo, i could go on. Maybe those developers don't get quite as much praise as Valve, but they certainly get a hell of a lot less shit, so it evens out really.

Also i don't know what all these other problems are that Steam is consistently causing. Unless having all my games in one easy to access place, downloadable wherever, whenever, along with a functional community system overlaying almost all games, is a problem.

Also, I'm assuming you got your account back in the end or you'd be kicking up a massive stink about not getting it back at all, which you aren't. Clearly they managed to work through the problem for you in the end, you can't really expect more than that from them. And your bug problem sounds exceedingly specific to your PC alone, and the solution so simple i can't help but feel you could have solved that yourself with minimal effort, especially considering you found the answer on the internet anyway.

 

[Austin Howe]

Valve games are, in general, Die Hard, absolutely EXCELLENT executions of structure and design that do absolutely NOTHING to rise above just being a video game.

Ahh What did you expect from their GAMES? To cure your cancer? To bring about the world peace ?Which games out there transcend their medium and become something more? Why does that sound so pretentious? Why is the sky blue?

The phrase "just a game" here only refers to quality, not medium. Valve games are in general quite good, but they're not at all transcendent pieces. Again, Die Hard. Valve has not made a single game aside from the two Portal titles that I would tell people who do not play video games to play. Hideo Kojima on the other hand? Bethesda? (despite the fact that they still need to hire actual writers?) 90's Square titles? Even Mario games manage some degree of transcendence by taking their lack of narrative cohesion and building the appropriate atmosphere for the task at hand by completely throwing out the rulebook on realism and saying "Fuck it, here's your abstract surrealist platformer. The soundtrack is like, this Caribbean steel drum stuff! Check it out!"

Games can be more than what Valve has to offer. That's all I'm saying.

Also, nice claiming that I need games to cure my cancer. Not just cancer, my cancer. Real classy.

 

[bafrali]

snip

First of all it was a fucking joke!

As for the rest I think It is rather pretentious to dismiss hardwork just becuase it is not being IN YOUR FACE with its features. It is called being subtle. Something every AAA developer ever seems to have forgotten. What you call style, I would call overcompensating with excessive action, redundant dialogue and pretentious story telling that is too stuck up its own ass. I see mediocrity that is covered up by empty words, bloom and whimsy.

I also love the mindset that normal people wouldn't play a game if they don't see a bloom of colours or read a quotation from some philosopher at the beginning of the game. News flash! Not every person has ADD. Some of us enjoy the kind of production that has confidence in itself and the attention span of its audience.

You think people are praising HalfLife for its gameplay after all these years? No! It taught us that you don't have to crank something up to eleven to cover the rest of the shit. You just need to have balance, pacing and some cleverness in your game design and story.

And again It was a fuking joke. You know, nothing personal?

 

[G-Force]

-Excellent customer service

Heh, "Excellent" is a hell of a long way off from my experiences with them. Four times in the past I've had this particularly nasty bug where Steam would just lock up on the logging in bit. Nothing I did would change that so of course, I contacted Valve and explained what was happening. Three out of the four times I got no response at all. The other time they just suggested general stuff, like restarting my computer and reinstalling. Neither of which worked. Told them that and once again, got no response. Ended up digging through a heap of forums for about a week and found the solution. I had to do a clean reinstall but in a different directory.
And then there was the time I got my account hacked. Contacted Valve and they told me to provide cd-keys to prove it was my account. So I pulled out a bunch of Steam games, took photos of them like they asked and sent them in. Wanna know what their response was? That evidence to the contrary had been provided by the guy who hacked my account. How I'm supposed to have more evidence than someone who can click view cd-key on all my games, idk.

Examples of good service

- Steam sales
- Free game giveaways
- Added content to their games for free
- Easy online online game invite/joining service
- Steamgreen light allows for smaller games to get better exposure
- Steam is able to sell niche art games

 

[Lovely Mixture]

And then there was the time I got my account hacked. Contacted Valve and they told me to provide cd-keys to prove it was my account. So I pulled out a bunch of Steam games, took photos of them like they asked and sent them in. Wanna know what their response was? That evidence to the contrary had been provided by the guy who hacked my account. How I'm supposed to have more evidence than someone who can click view cd-key on all my games, idk.

Did that eventually get resolved? I had my account phished last year, and they got it back to me without any hassle.