By Nathan Grayson on February 27th, 2013.
Gabe Newell hasn’t been particularly sweet on Steam Greenlight as of late, but the fully open Steam of tomorrow hasn’t supplanted its “dictatorial” ways just yet. Instead, the mighty user-driven machine trundles on, streamlining the process where it can and rhythmically opening its jaw each month to crunch down whatever creative morsels we offer up. So then, what’s on the menu this time around? Well, semi-big-names certainly top the list, but it’s not without a couple enticing curiosities.
By Nathan Grayson on February 15th, 2013.
In recent years, Valve hasn’t proven too terribly consistent when it comes to, well, anything (cases in point: the recent ire-inducing layoffs, allegedly being a videogame company), but it can lay claim to one spotless record: Steam sales. If there’s an occasion, you can bet crazy Newell’s game, productivity software, wearable computing, and probably soon-to-be used car emporium will be on the spot to wheel and deal. Naturally, then, Steam Linux’s triumphant exit from beta is being heralded by a gigantic, Linux-centric sale. March past the break in a manner akin to that of a penguin for details.
By John Walker on February 14th, 2013.
Gabe Newell has told Engadget that, despite the speculation (including our own) that a hardware project may have been cancelled, that Valve haven’t cancelled any ongoing projects at all, and that’s the the reason behind their having let some staff go. He added, “We’re not going to discuss why anyone in particular is or isn’t working here.”
By John Walker on February 13th, 2013.
News flitted about this morning that Valve had “fired” tech guru Jeri Ellsworth, after she tweeted “Yup. Got fired today. Time for new exciting projects.” But it seems that this wasn’t one individual getting the chop, but rather a whole bunch of them. Gamasutra are reporting that the figure might be around 25, but this isn’t confirmed. It seems that those now without work were working on hardware and Android projects.
By Nathan Grayson on February 13th, 2013.
My absolute favorite thing in the world is when games existences somehow mirror their names. Seriously. I have very few other interests. I’m an incredibly boring person. But anyway, just as Duke Nukem Forever took forever to come out, Call of Duty is nothing if not dutiful in its adherence to a yearly release schedule, and Toilet Tycoon was awful, Left 4 Dead 2 has not, in fact, been left for dead. Sure, Valve hasn’t lavished it with quite as much attention as, say, Team Fortress 2, but it’s certainly attempted to empower the community’s efforts – first with Cold Stream, and then with full Workshop support. But those mods? They’re about to get seventy five point blue banana apple sauce percent modderier, because Valve’s put its Extended Mutation System into beta.
By Jim Rossignol on February 8th, 2013.
CS:GO‘s map workshop opened up this week, replete with the environmental tinkerings of its busy community. There are already eight pages of maps to flick through. Valve are keen to get more up there, too, as they explain: “Don’t hesitate to get your rough draft up on the Workshop. You can update your map as often as you’d like, and players and servers will stay current. The best way to test a map is to get players in there, so publish early and publish often!” As headlined, it’s now 50% off until the 11th, so you can get a taste of the militaristic bounty for cheap, if you want.
Anyone playing this regularly?
By Nathan Grayson on February 7th, 2013.
One day, children will gaze up at the sky and fully believe its cottony bounties were named after hyper-sophisticated streaming data networks. I plan on being dead by then, so that’s good. But, at least in the short term, Gabe Newell’s not so sure. Yes, there are some fairly functional examples already up and running, but Newell believes they’re far from optimal. Here’s the real kicker, though: this, he claims, isn’t a shortcoming that a little time and elbow grease will fix right up. Actually, those things may well make it worse.
First On The Internets
By John Walker on February 7th, 2013.
With yesterday’s news that Valve and J.J Abrams are working on a potential Portal movie, RPS immediately sent its spies into action. Infiltrating Valve HQ, we managed to steal three pages of script before the turrets woke up.
"It's all about this illusion of freewill"
By Nathan Grayson on February 6th, 2013.
Some people talk. You know, with tongues and barbaric throat gurgles. Like peasants. But those people haven’t conquered entire entertainment industries using titanic minds and the world’s supply of lens flare alone. So naturally, Gabe Newell and JJ Abrams’ verbal sparring match drew a bit more attention than the average bout of watercooler small talk. Also, it helps when the conversation involves the formation of a new creative superteam, a verbal fist-bump between two seismically powerful entities. But where exactly do they want to take their respective mediums? Where do they see eye-to-eye, and what are the biggest sticking points? Straight from DICE in Las Vegas, here’s what Newell and Abrams chatted about.
By Nathan Grayson on February 6th, 2013.
I’m off in the strange, far-away land of Las Vegas right now, and I just got done watching Gabe Newell and JJ “Warring Trek of the Stars” Abrams chat each other up on stage. I’ll have more from the talk for you soon, but here’s the big take-away: Valve and Abrams are officially collaborating. “What we’re actually doing here,” Newell said at the talk’s conclusion, “is recapitulating a series of conversations that have been going on [between Abrams and I]. This is what happens when game and movie people get together. And we sort of reached the point where we decided that we needed to do more than talk. So we’re gonna try and figure out if we can make a Portal movie or a Half-Life movie together.” Meanwhile, Abrams added: “And we have a game idea we’d like to work with Valve on.” Finally, Gabe wrapped it up: “It’s time for our industries to stop talking about potential and really execute on it.”
By Jim Rossignol on February 4th, 2013.
Hmm! The Klaxons of hype were blaring over the weekend, with Steam-database watchers claiming the appearance of Halo 3, Fez and Brutal Legend on the service’s list of forthcoming IDs. As far as I can see these have now been changed to “test” names, which suggests revealing their addition was a mistake, but nevertheless the information seems to point to Double Fine’s bizarre Jack Black-voiced rock RTS coming to PC, along with Master Chief’s third outing and Polytron’s dimension-rotating platformer. So that’s interesting. Oh and Quantum Conundrum 2.
Yeah. Anyway. What you been up to this weekend?
