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[NKKKK]

EA has tried "over the years" to buy out Valve, the New York Times
reports. These talks, had they ever reached negotiation, would have
valued Valve at "well over $1 billion," NYT says, which is most likely a
ridiculous understatement.

Valve is a private company controlled
by founder Gabe Newell, who doesn't release any of its financials, but
Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter estimates Valve is worth $2.5
billion today.

Newell says it's likely Valve's employees would scatter and the company would "disintegrate" before it would be sold.

"It's
way more likely we would head in that direction than say, 'Let's find
some giant company that wants to cash us out and wait two or three years
to have our employment agreements terminate,'" Newell says.

That's REAL artistic integrity

[Allan Schumacher]

Ghost Lightning wrote...

NKKKK wrote...

This talk about people losing jobs is funny too, the first thing EA loves to do with their companies is lay off half of their employees.

Delayed game? So what! He can entertain us with other games while we wait. Better long development time than a year and half (DRAGON AGE 2)

I actually agree with this a lot. More time = more polish. It may not garuntee that the game will be good, or live up to expectaions, but more time is  more work. And at least it means that they refuse to release an inferior product for the sake of time or money.

If we're to believe the New Employee Handbook that Valve supposedly puts out, I'd say it most likely means that very few people at Valve are actually working on Half-Life (either Episode 3 or Half-Life 3), if any at all.  If no one at Valve is saying "we have to get new Half-Life out right away" then there's no need for it to happen.

Fun fact #2: Valve and Activision screwed over Troika during development
by giving them an incomplete Source Engine to work with, then releasing
HL 2 on the same day as Bloodlines.

The reason why Half-Life 2 was released the same day as Bloodlines is because Troika was contractually obligated to not release before Half-Life 2 came out.

Since we are "fun facting" though, it's not at all uncommon for companies to license "incomplete engines" and take code drops from the engine designer as features come in (on top of creating their own engine modifications and improvements).


For the record I love Bloodlines.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 12 septembre 2012 - 04:20 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Filament wrote...

2***? So optimistic.

Hahaha I was thinking the same thing.

[Allan Schumacher]

hangmans tree wrote...

OnlyShallow89 wrote...

Why do people go head over heels for Valve?

Gaben's just stated that he would let 100 (or is it 300 now? I forget) people lose their jobs before letting themselves be bought by EA.

That. Is. Not. What. He. Said.
"[...] employees would scatter and the company would disintegrate" does not implicate firing employees.

The quote doesn't say anything about firing people either.  Just "losing their jobs" which if a company disintegrates, is probably a reasonable assumption.

[Allan Schumacher]

CrustyBot wrote...

I was actually talking about sales more than development. Imagine if Alpha Protocol was released on the same day as Mass Effect 2. Or if The Witcher 1 was released on the same day as Dragon Age: Origins.

Also, considering how buggy Bloodlines was out of the box (boat CTD), you'd want them to have more time rather than less. Bloodlines probably needed another couple of months getting polished IMO.

I have zero doubt that if Bloodlines had a couple of extra months and could hype up the Source Engine without having to compete with HL 2, it would've been more successful financially.

This is much more on Activision though.  Ironically Bloodlines got more time than expected because of delays to Half-Life 2.

I followed Bloodlines development exceptionally close and it pretty much got to a point where they were just sitting on the game.  They were already in dire straits financially at this time and when Bloodlines wasn't a runaway success, it was their death knell.

[Allan Schumacher]

no i don't since you see e.a. as positve for making alot of sub par games, mostly through the companies they own **cough**bioware**cough** they have the same sports games every year with little inavation like madden which has no competition since they have an eclusive deal with the N.F.L. (which is just disturbing). And valve is good yea there a business too but not in the way e.a. is, and thanks to steam i didn't have to go and run around looking for the games i wanted, and its not like i have to make a steam account to play bf3 on my xbox like e.a.'s origin trust me if origin didn't have exclusives like bf3 it would collapse.

As a long time Steam user (and avid Steam fan to boot), it's important to note that Steam became a required service for very popular Valve games like Counterstrike and Half-Life 2.

In fact, I find it interesting that many of the same complaints being levied against Origin now were the same complaints being levied against Steam in its heyday. It had the nickname "Steaming pile of crap" back in the day.

Heck, I remember having a nightmare of a time trying to validate Half-Life 2 on Day One because the servers were just getting absolutely smashed, and this was with the boxed copies.

In spite of all these things, though, I still love the Steam service and in general hold Valve in exceptionally high regard.

[Allan Schumacher]

@OnlyShallow: Word of mouth is a more powerful tool than you think. Once a bad reputation, always a bad reputation. Plus, looking at all the online passes bullsh*t and taking into account that EA's servers break down every five seconds (ME 3 multiplayer)... Nah, not for me, thanks. If EA wants to compete, let them pump some money into their DRM platform first and make it run more smoothly. A shoddy product from a shoddy company, that's what.

If "once a bad reputation always a bad reputation" were actually true, Steam would never have become popular, nor have the following it has now.