maximaz
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
It seems to be the case that the successfull moslty PC game developers make some of the best games out there. It could be because fewer PC gamers want to pay for crap.
Valve on PC gaming
- Thread starter Brother None
- Start date
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
BloodyPuppy
Look, Ma! Two Heads!
Ah Valve, good to know in todays gaming market I can rely on you to crank out quality games for the PC and know you'll never leave me. I'm sorry I ever doubted L4D.
Valve and Blizzard are easily the best developers out there for the PC, and probably some of the best period. I like Pandemic a lot, because despite being console developers they always produce good titles. Even Mercs 2 which had a great deal of problems knew what kind of game it was, and it presented itself as such. I had an awesome time with that game, even when it ran into rough spots. Also, I like those video logs they had during production. They were entertaining.
Valve and Blizzard are easily the best developers out there for the PC, and probably some of the best period. I like Pandemic a lot, because despite being console developers they always produce good titles. Even Mercs 2 which had a great deal of problems knew what kind of game it was, and it presented itself as such. I had an awesome time with that game, even when it ran into rough spots. Also, I like those video logs they had during production. They were entertaining.
Valve just released lifetime retail sales (est), Gamasutra analyses. And this is just retail, excluding Steam sales
* Half-Life - 9.3 million
* Half-Life: Opposing Force - 1.1 million
* Half-Life: Blue Shift - 800,000
* Half-Life 2 - 6.5 million
* Half-Life 2: Episode One - 1.4 million
* The Orange Box - 3 million
* Counter-Strike - 4.2 million
* Counter-Strike: Condition Zero - 2.9 million
* Counter-Strike: Source - 2.1 million
* Counter-Strike (Xbox) - 1.5 million
* Left 4 Dead (projected) - 3.6 - 3.9 million
33 million games sold retail is not bad for 10 years work. According to Gabe, digital sales now almost exceed retail sales for new titles, so who knows how many millions more one should stack on this.
* Half-Life - 9.3 million
* Half-Life: Opposing Force - 1.1 million
* Half-Life: Blue Shift - 800,000
* Half-Life 2 - 6.5 million
* Half-Life 2: Episode One - 1.4 million
* The Orange Box - 3 million
* Counter-Strike - 4.2 million
* Counter-Strike: Condition Zero - 2.9 million
* Counter-Strike: Source - 2.1 million
* Counter-Strike (Xbox) - 1.5 million
* Left 4 Dead (projected) - 3.6 - 3.9 million
33 million games sold retail is not bad for 10 years work. According to Gabe, digital sales now almost exceed retail sales for new titles, so who knows how many millions more one should stack on this.
Jebus said:
I'm all for that! Or make it a double Fallout/Valve fan forum?
I too enjoy the way Valve work, think and talk. I'll admit there were a lot of things in Half-Life 2 that bugged me a lot (why did it need not one but TWO fuckin driving sections? If I'm playing a First Person Shooter that means I want to shoot, not drive.) but I still support them.
And I am not sure about PC gaming, but I personally am not happy with games in general lately. Most of the stuff that gets released...just doesn't even seem interesting to me. Game developers should really go dig out their brains and put them back in their skulls and start thinking up clever and interesting games.
As for piracy killing PC gaming? Bullshit. There has been piracy probably as long as there has been games. Yet for some reason we still have game developers these days. So maybe instead of whining about something that has happened, is happening and WILL continue to happen, they should focus on the people who do buy their games and make sure that those people get what they are promised.
LogisticEarth
First time out of the vault
Brother None said:
A lot of people I know are using Steam now instead of buying retail. Especially for L4D.
Left 4 Dead really impressed me. I thought it was going to be a huge mindless twitchfest. But the Director AI, the assymetry of Versus mode (that actually WORKS!), and the surperb voice acting and auto-speech system really impressed me. I've gotten about 35 hours out of the game so far and it's just now starting to get repetative. Compare that to Fallout 3 which I pretty much burnt out on after about 20 hours.
Jenx said:
I completely agree with this. I've bought a few games in the past year, and most of them have been kind of underwhelming:
- Civ IV: Good, but just didn't consume me the same way that Civ II did back in the day. Because it kind of just seemed like a rehash.
- Hitman: Blood Money: Again, I loved Hitman 2, and Contracts, and this one was good also. But I burnt out on it early because it just didn't seem as fresh as the other ones.
- Fallout 3: 80% dissapointment and shelved it after 20 hours.
- The Ship: Interesting concept but the execution was kind of lackluster. Could have been a lot deeper.
- Neverwinter Nights 2: I just keep losing interest in the story after a while. Haven't finished it.
- Bioshock: Good, but again, a simplified dissapointment after System Shock 2. Also, the rehashing of SS2 was so blatant it left a bad taste in my mouth.
- Spore: Loved it for the first 3 hours, then realized it was completely soulless when I got to the space stage. I made it about halfway through the tribal stage with my second creature then shelved it.
The big games I've liked have been the Half-Life 2 episodes, Left 4 Dead, and Red Orchestra. There's also the Insurgency mod for Source. I also filter back to Hearts of Iron 2 and Rome: Total War (with the Total Realism mod) now and again. People need some new ideas (hell, even in setting) and interesting characters and storyline in RPGs, and interesting game mechanics or good mapmaking in FPS's.
Brother None said:
Wasn't Portal released seperately as well?
I could have sworn I saw it at Game Mania once. As a seperate game.
Portal is also from Valve, right, or am I being dumb again?
Half-Life is one of the very few 3D/FP games I've ever played and enjoyed. Good stuff. But since 3D/FP games have become more and more realistic, motion-sickness has prevented me to continue playing them.
alec said:
Yes. As was TF2 and HL2:E2. I guess they counted one Orange box sale for every 3 sales of one of those separate bits?
Rev. Layle
A Smooth-Skin
Brother None said:
Also, people who pirate are generally not lost customer/sales. they are usually people that would have never bought the game in the first place.
OpFor only sold 1.1 mil? that's a shame, it was nearly as good as HL1 was and featured cooler guns. :pBrother None said:
Blue Shit was shit though.
Makenshi
Ahoy, ye salty dogs!
This line is so made of win that it is almost biblical! Not that the Bible is made of win, but... you know what I mean.
Rev. Layle
A Smooth-Skin
Jenx said:
Of course, i know those people as well. There is always an exception to the rule (given that the rule is what I think it is, which it may certainly NOT be that)