Valve trading Half-Life 3 for VR?

[Mr. Analog]

The gist of this podcast is Valve has been very hard at work not making Half-Life 3

https://soundcloud.com/gameslice/valve

It sounds like they're putting a lot of eggs in the VR basket

[Mr. Analog]

So there has been a lot of fan analysis of what Gabe was talking about, it really does sound like Half-Life 3 has been dropped, as well as any immediate-future plans for games releases in general (outside anything that isn't already evolved into a service, like DOTA or TF2)

Its strange to think that as trends seem to move toward single player games one of the best developers of single player experiences might be cutting themselves out in favour of pushing hardware.

[Tom]

It sounds strange that they would drop probably the most demanded/hyped sequel in history. They have more than enough money to have people on a game, and more people on vr hardware, ESPECIALLY since they aren't actually manufacturing the thing (They hired HTC to actually do a lot of the work).

[Mr. Analog]

According to GabeN they have fabrication labs in their studios and encourage devs to build new hardware to test out various ideas.

While full-on production manufacturing would go to a factory in-house dev is certainly focused on building VR, Steam machines and new interfaces. They feel with their power and influence they can see the next big shift in gaming and are aggressively pursuing it.

That's why this podcast was a bit of a bombshell for most of us DYING for a resolution to a 8 year old cliffhanger, even if they wanted to do it it sounds like they are preoccupied with building things and platform dev so it SOUNDS like it's a long way off if it ever actually happens

Of course nothing was said that confirms or denies anything but it sure sounds like they are "distracted" at the moment

[Tom]

Well at least they got the Source 2 engine out and done.

[Mr. Analog]

Well at least they got the Source 2 engine out and done.

Yup!

[Mr. Analog]

Another nail in the Half-Life 3 coffin (and possibly every other Valve game that could have a 3 next to it)

Valve loses its fourth writer in two years, as Jay Pinkerton leaves the company

We tease Valve for not making games any more, what with their not making games any more, but it?s really starting to look most peculiar as the company loses its fourth big-name writer in less than two years. According to a Facebook update on Jay Pinkerton?s timeline, he left the company last night.

Pinkerton, who came to fame as a writer for Cracked.com, joined Valve in 2008 at what was the heyday for their wider written output. In the wake of The Orange Box, the company found great legs in producing additional materials to dramatically increase the tails of their games, such as the completely splendid ?Meet The?? series for Team Fortress 2. Teaming up with Erik Wolpaw, Pinkerton co-wrote many of the incredibly funny bits and pieces that were a huge part of earning Valve their reputation for throwing out armfuls of wonderful free extras years after the sale of a game.

It's sad to see the last writer who was involved with so many series leave, but also telling about what Valve's priorities are, and as a fan its quite irritating. Here you had a team of excellent people who could tell a great story inside a solid game and they kind of rotted on the vine. I don't think I'd want to see Valve turn into one of those annual pump a sequel out type shops but at least give us closure (HALF-LIFE 3 for gods sake). Of course they'll never come out and SAY they're done but the writing has been on the wall for so long.

E3 is just around the corner, if they announce anything my guess is that it will be more VR compatibility and maybe a successor to some of the earlier hardware (Steam Machines, Link & butt-ass controller)

TBH they should just license out Half-Life 3 and make it a disaster to kill it for good, I mean it worked for Duke Nukem right?