Valve on 13 Things At Which They Have Failed
Even the best don't always get it right on the first try.
Valve Software is among the elite in game development – and now in online PC game distribution through Steam. But no company is ever perfect, and in an interview with PC Gamer, Valve speaks of the 13 things at which it has failed.
One recent fault was the erroneous Modern Warfare 2 bans. Gabe Newell shared, "Speaking of screw-ups, banning people in Call of Duty. That was way, way bigger an issue for us than piracy… as a thing we needed to do something about. You know about that? We banned 12,000 people because there was a flaw in how we were – it was a series of events that could occur that occur far more likely in Modern Warfare 2."
While Valve has done a great job delivering value and service to its PC base, those playing on the Xbox 360 and PS3 haven't had the same level of attention. That's one thing that Valve is looking to change – especially on the PS3 side with Portal 2 next year.
Erik Johnson said, "the lack of updates on the 360 for TF2 is also a total failure."
Although Valve was aware of Microsoft's rules on how updates would work for the Xbox 360, it had hoped that things would open up to allow for a more direct way for the developer to reach gamers on Xbox Live.
Newell added, "We thought that there would be something that would emerge, because we figured it was a sort of untenable… 'Oh yeah, we understand that these are the rules now, but it’s such a train wreck that something will have to change.'
"That’s why we’re really happy with the current situation with the PS3… We’re solving it now in a way that is going to work for our customers, rather than assuming something is going to emerge later that will allow us to fix this."
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Read the full Q&A session with Valve on PC Gamer.
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joytech22 Stupid greedy Microsoft keeping it's users from experiencing freedom with their consoles.. they wont even let the damn thing have something as simple as a web browser, because sometimes turning on a console to check a web page is faster than turning on your entire computer.Reply
Their update policy is also dumb, only allowing games to update over XB live, and any dev's that don't like XB live just don't release updates.
Umm.. I think his is going to get thumbs downed so much
EDIT: Maybe not.. HAHAHA! :pt1cable: -
pangedit 1 valve timeReply
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zoemayne False_Dmitry_IIWhat rules?Reply
I'm guessing xbox does not let valve update its game directly at anytime they please.
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pakardbell486dx2 Valve failed at not making a sequel to half life:opposing forces. I would very much liked to have seen that.Reply -
efeat It came from putting a colon next to a capital OReply
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but without the space. It gets parsed as an emoticon, even if you weren't intending for it to be.
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processthis zoemayneI'm guessing xbox does not let valve update its game directly at anytime they please.Also, for non-DLC updates, meaning actual update updates, you only get 4MB for the entire life of the game. That's 4 MB worth of updating forever and then no more. It seems Borderlands is already having a problem with this and the limit might make the next update their last. I'm sure there's a reason for the limit, but I doubt it's good enough to be exception-free. If it's really needed, there should be an exception.Reply
I hope MS straightens up and works closely with Valve. The Xbox 360 is so much easier to develop for, I'm sure Gabe Newell would love to work with MS on making things better. Valve even made an Xbox 360 pipeline for the Source engine for crying out loud. They can just click "recompile for Xbox 360" (as far as I know) and it'll output code for 360. Everything seems to be in line for Xbox owners to get a much closer experience to the PC version. Heck, as far as I know, the 360 version of HL2 (that comes in the Orange Box), is an updated version that PC doesn't even have.
Microsoft, it is in everyone's best interest for you to be friends with Valve. Break some of your own rules if you have to; this is VALVE we're talking about. These are the partners you want!