Microsoft Redemption and Valve Downfall - ushering new decade/era

Hello friends,

So this decade is almost ended no just year and things get very unpredictable. there was a time when microsoft were most hated company by PC gamers and valve were most beloved. they are still because of steam but only as digital distributor. microsoft were so bad that they never even acknowledge PC gaming back then. and now they are making games as PC first.

like for example back in days PC gamers hated Halo so much but now Halo games are on steam they are top seller and loved by PC gamers. now Halo infinite is build on new engine which is design for PC and age of empire the classic PC franchise returning next year.

what is valve doing? releasing VR Half life instead they could make both. traditional HL3 and VR spin off but they decide not to and abandon thier fans for decades just so they can earn billion dollars from steam instead of putting effort by making HL3 or portal 3.

Valve were choosen ones, any traditional game they create revolutionized gaming industry but then they turn away and finally using HL name to sell thier VR set is very anti consumer in my view.

How things have change in this decade i couldnot believe as Microosft did thier redemption by returning to PC and valve turn away from their fans.

what do you think? lets discuss

People are buying VR headsets in droves and it looks like it could be the best game on the platform, potentially revolutionizing it, they've already done it twice.

VR's price point, high requirements and (to be frank) shitty tech-demo software has been a problem. Including lazy conversions like Skyrim and Doom.

Dumbasses like Oculus/Facebook haven't helped either, arguably a straight up determinant in their immediate attempts to gate-keep and punish people for not buying their hardware, eating their own tail.

Be very interesting to see how this goes. Valve themselves are pretty far from perfect, they failed at Episodic gaming, they failed with Artifact and seem to be in some alternate reality from other companies where they randomly throw shit at the wall to see if it sticks rather than chase after trends with sequel after sequel.

best game on VR doesnot mean much. its like saying best game on mobile or handheld.

the PC and console gaming is traditional game. any other mean just carter towards nichie or more casuals like mobile gaming audience is.

Sometimes, people have bad opinions. This is one of those cases.

but this is reality i have seen.

Didn't uninspiredcop already tell you the office title for Alyx was Half-Life 3?

The game entered full production in 2016, with designer Robin Walker stating that a proper Half-Life 3 was a "terrifyingly daunting prospect", with him and the team viewing VR as a way to return to the series.

in other words.

screw making traditional Half life 3. just do low effort in making "proper" VR game. name it Half life to sell VR index. and call it full fledge so we dont have to make proper Half life.

its like imagine if Doom and Doom eternal would not exist and all we got was Doom VR.

I don't disagree with Ghost here.

at least from a PC gamers perspective, MS have been getting better and better while Valve have been fading.

I'm actually interested in Alyx but there is no denying that the way these companies have been trending feels like opposite directions the last while.

at least Valve seem to have woken up a bit and are making games again. we'll see how that goes

I disagree that MS has gotten better. They have been supporting PC more, which is nice, but their games are still mostly mediocre.

And Valve, while not delivering a traditional HL3, are not in any sort of downfall. Sure, they haven't made any games, but they are thriving as a company, and people still love them.

@DragonfireXZ95: Forza 7, Forza Horizon 3&4: those aren't mediocre games.

Age of Empires IV doesn't look mediocre either.

Halo MCC may be a bunch of Xbox games ported over, but it sure beats playing them on console.

Ms has been getting better and better at supporting the PC platform. Thanks to their growing list of talented developers, this will undoubtedly continue.

After all these years with Valve, I find it hard to believe some of you old PC gamers still vouch for them and even though they stop making games, it amazes me some are still waiting for a proper HL3. Me, I move on after Episode 2 and I was never a hardcore Valve fan despite HL series happens to be my favorite. But I do want to say this. At the time with this whole HL3 situation, Gabe explain it in an interview years ago and the reason why HL3 never reach it's development was because Motion Capture Technology wasn't on par what they wanted to represent HL3...that is, until now. Granted, it's nice to see Valve making another HL game, but at the same time, they found their motion capture tech through VR itself, which will represent HL3 in their own ways. That said, it's nice Valve is pursuing with VR cause VR is really great for immersion gaming, that says alot what Valve is doing with this kind of technology. I'm not interest in Alyx but seeing Valve using VR for the HL series speaks what they are trying to do, so cut them some slack Ghost and wait until they release the damn game before running your opinion.

As for MS, they been doing good with supporting PC and there games are still a take it or leave it. Gears 5 was alot of fun but got old real fast for me that is lol.

Halo infinite can be Crysis of next gen as they are both sci fi semi sandbox and pushing hardware to limit.

I said mostly. :P 3 games out of like 15 isn't exactly the greatest track record.

I see you're still mad that you can't play HL:Alyx.

And the bold part is LOL worthy. They didn't revolutionize gaming by making a traditional game. They broke traditions by making HL just like they are doing now with Alyx.

Valve can't even shoot lamps.

Valve doesn't have to make games at all at this point. If they want to do VR then that's what they do. Alternatively we could have no new Half-Life games at all.

MS has been doing great things for customer convenience and Game Pass is value. I hate the menus on Xbox tho.

They used to make games on PC. traditional real games. VR games are equivalent to mobile games.

VR are very nichie and have mostly casual games.

@DragonfireXZ95: Steam releases 1.000 games each day and only 1 of those is good.

So yeah 3 games in 15 is still a better track record for MS :D

IMHO MS is doing a lot more to support and improve the PC platform than Valve is.

Remember how MS dropped PC and supported only their Xbox platform? Well Valve is doing the exact same thing now. Got a PC? Tough luck, you must buy a new platform (VR) to be able to play their new Half Life game.

Black Mesa Xen is a chore to play after playing Boneworks. Going from an FPS in non VR to an FPS in VR is like going from Duke Nukem 2 to Duke Nukem 3D

For someone whining about the new Streets Of Rage being 2D instead of 3D, I don't understand why you want Half Life Alyx to be a non VR game.

I'd love to sit Ghost down infront of my PC and make him play Boneworks, then watch his face as he removes the headset.

And if Alyx has the gunplay of Boneworks but the level design of Half Life 2, it's going to be the greatest FPS ever made.

He was speaking as a GAMER, and you totally defeated yourself with the first part in bold, and as a GAMER why would you love a company that doesn't make games? that's beyond stupid.

I don't know about Valve's downfall only that Steam is a free for all mess of a gaming platform.

They always made non-traditional games. It's just that before you can play them because you had a PC and now you're jealous you can't because it's VR exclusive.

PC gaming was niche. Devs like Id, Valve etc made it mainstream. PC gaming was in a decline, Valve made it the biggest system with Steam and now they are trying to do the same with VR. Remain jelly and keep lying to your self.

No they are not! How did Valve drop PC when Alyx is a PC exclusive?

You are such a tool ghost...

Stop being bitter about being to poor to buy a vr device and get a job instead...

VR is getting big. Regardless of these stupid threads, it will continue to do so.

Yep, VR is most likely going to be the future whether people like it or not but it's going to take decades to get to player one territory as long as tech keeps advancing. But even now VR is making amazing progress hell we already have hand tracking and we are only on first gen headsets the future looks good for virtual reality.

This thread basically amounts to "Wah, a game company is trying to take risks and do something new instead of making the same game from 10 years ago but with a few more pixels."

@ghosts4ever: Dude, you've been making the same post over and over again for like three weeks and have been making the same three posts over and over again for like 5 years. Do something else. Have you tried, like, enjoying something? It's pretty great.

I dont hate or even dislike MS, but they have a long way to go before they can even get in the same realm as Valve in terms of gaming.

Game Pass is a good start, but as a service it is sub-par.

Valve has had issues, but making the next Half-Life a VR game is not one of them.

computers back in days were also used for work purposes and other stuff. and it slowly get common.

consoles were becoming common among gamers too. non of them were nichie.

you have to buy a VR set to play thier game is very anti consumer. you didnot have to buy a steam. just installed it free as launcher. some people cant criticize valve even if they gone full anti consumer.

I rather buy a next gen console than VR because former still worth more while latter is just lame gimmick

lol PRS, you still have not change in 10 years since GT days. it wont be best FPS ever. not with hand floating in airs.

its like calling mobile FPS the best ever.

no i dont want it to be non VR. i want it to be just spin off and make real HL3 for PC.

Thank goodness for ID software releasing Doom Eternal. just wait how it will blow this Half life out of water.

Yes, as a gamer, their games haven't gotten any better. In fact, they have less good games made now than they did when they were console exclusive. I say this even as a PC gamer. They support PC more, but less good games overall, so as a gamer, how am I wrong about this?

Strictly as a PC gamer, things have gotten better, but only the support side, and their console side has gotten worse. You're the one getting the sharp end of the stick considering you're an xbox fanboy, so I don't know why you are even butting in. They are taking away all of your exclusives, which you seem to care so deeply about, so shouldn't you be hating them more?

I agree. Xbox series X is basically PC. just a pre build PC. not even a console. a plug and play PC since it will have all PC/microsoft games and microsoft in next gen will make games PC in mind first.

they are just combining the audience of PC and xbox into one. its not even a console.

Microsoft's first party is still ass, though. I'll gladly take VR games over their offerings.

I will take Halo infinite over Half life alyx.

@freedomfreak: I know you aren't the biggest RTS fan: but Age of Empires IV for me is bigger than basically anything that Sony or Nintendo have announced.

Yes, bigger than TLOU2 or BOTW2

VR also had other purposes than gaming. It has vast applications in industrial design, medicine, engineering, architecture, you name it.

LOL no. Consoles weren't common back when they were starting. Hell they even had an industry wide crash at one point. So were the PC's, they started out costing in $5000 range unill they become mainstream.

If anything Valve's move is consumer friendly because they are pushing the industry forward and taking risks rather than churning out sequels like your new lover MS. They are also providing high quality content to the people who bought VR unlike other companies that are too afraid to put their money right now.

Keep lying to yourself that you hate Alyx or is it low quality. You're not even hiding your jealousy.

Isn't that terrible? Imagine the absurd notion of being force to buy hardware to play games. The craziness.

That's absolutely bizarre. What's sub-par about Game Pass? You can pick it up for a dollar and have a shit ton of brilliant games to play.

How are they not 'in the same realm as Valve in terms of gaming'? Oh you mean they don't charge an extortionate greed-fuelled amount of money to devs for the privilege of putting their games on their store which costs them nothing?

Don't get me wrong, MS first party offerings largely suck ass but that's not what Game Pass is all about. There's a shit ton of very high quality third party games on there from my perspective if you own a PC or an Xbox One and you don't have Game Pass you're a friggin idiot.

Not at all. They're both making interesting moves lately.

Yeah, they surely don't charge the same as Valve! Oh wait, they do just like Sony, Nintendo, Google, Apple and actually more because Valve reduce the royalty to as low as 20% based on the number of sales.

And surely it costs Valve nothing because Steam runs on hot air and all the resources that work at Valve to maintain it works are slaves. Not to mention none of the payment providers charge Valve anything at all.

No, that's fair.

As a store they're pretty decent, and a great deal. There's a lot of games on there and for 10 bucks per month you can't really go wrong.

But as a service, they could use some improvement. For starters, they're still in beta, and there's some bugs to work out. They also don't have a lot of player tools, like forums, mod support, guides, and community tools.

You need to understand that [in my opinion], as of right now, Steam is the gold standard, and therefore any company that makes an entry into the digital marketplace is judged against Steam.

Yep fair enough it costs Valve money to run the servers and provide staff but it's a piss in the ocean compared to what they rake in from products just sitting on their store front. This is how Epic nabbed a ton of devs from them, simply by offering a fairer deal. Epic are as far from perfect as you can get but it was Valve's greed that gave them an opening in the first place.

I don't know what you're talking about comparing Steam to Game Pass. Do you even know what Game Pass is? I thought you owned a PC? Oh wait it's old Fakey sorry I forgot who I was talking to.

You can pay a dollar to pick up a month of Ultimate Game Pass (that's the one you want for PC) and then you pay nothing at all and have access to every single game on there. It's a completely different service to what Steam offers. Steam sells games, Game Pass lets you rent them for an incredibly low price or you can buy them for reasonable rates if you feel you must own them.

Personally I use it to play games I'm not sure about buying up front. Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Vampyr, Blair Witch, the first Hellblade, all games I was waiting for a price drop on that I ended up playing free on Game Pass. Shadow and Vampyr I loved, the other two not so much but that's fine it cost me nothing to find that out. Also I got Outer Worlds free day one, an excellent game.

Obviously Steam has a ton of games you'll never see on Game Pass but If you own a PC and you don't have Game Pass I have to assume you just don't play games or for some weird reason you prefer to pay for everything rather than pay a piffling amount a month and get a ton of great content for free.

I honestly don't think you can compare the two. Game Pass is just a store window you click on the game and you download it for free. Steam is an online shop they sell games they don't rent them out as a service. Mods, guides and everything else aren't what I would expect to find on Game Pass it's not what it's for. If it has a problem it's that you won't find most of the big titles on there day one if at all.

That's where you turn to Steam to fill in the gaps. Both have their place but Game Pass is a much better deal if you just want to play some very high quality games for next to nothing.

@ghosts4ever: you don’t need an index to play half life Alyx. A 400 dollar Rift S or Quest with link will work just fine.

Honestly, I don't see the argument. 1) VR will never survive without games built around the platform. It's ridiculous to scoff that VR has no AAA and then throw a fit when it gets a AAA game. 2) they don't owe anyone a new halflife, period, thus they don't owe it to us on a particular platform. 3) buying a VR headset to play VR games is like buying a console to play console games. It sucks that you have to do it, but if you want the game then you need the hardware it is exclusive to. Unless you're a Stadia fan, buying games requires buying the gaming hardware

I won't go into all the specifics about Valve vs Epic specially on cut as I have already gone over it multiple times. Just to cut it short it's not possible for Valve to have a 12% cut like Epic with all they are offering. For one they also support Payment providers that charge them 15% or more, physical Steam cards and supporting more countries. Even Tim Sweeney at one point said if they can't put all these features due to their 12% cut. Epic didn't get the devs because of 12% cut or Discord would have the same devs with their 10% cut. Epic got them because they pay the devs to put their game on EGS. Nevertheless it's irrelevant to what I said.

Let me put your quote again:

Oh you mean they don't charge an extortionate greed-fuelled amount of money to devs for the privilege of putting their games on their store which costs them nothing?

You're attacking valve's cut for game sales here, not cost to consumers and Game Pass and Steam operate on different business models. Let's assume you meant GP vs Steam, do tell me how much MS pays for each dev to have their game on GP because otherwise your argument is even more dumb.

The rest of the post is irrelevant to what I said.

Your quote 'yeah they surely don't charge the same as Valve'. I'm not sure even you have a clue what you're talking about here. MS don't charge devs anything to put their games on Game Pass, they subsidise them. You still don't know what Game Pass is. The games are free so the devs earn nothing directly from GP outside of whatever initial payment and subsequent cut MS gives them and there's no way they would put their games on there if it wasn't worth it.

You've somehow managed to completely confuse yourself. Whatever Epic offer devs for exclusivity and what cut they give them on top of that is infinitely better than just handing over 30% to Valve and hoping their game sells enough to make it worth it. According to you Valve are using their own terrible business model as an excuse for what they take from devs.

I have no axe to grind with Steam I get most of my games from there but it should be clear even to you why some devs have jumped ship. If Epic's cynical approach forces Valve to re-evaluate how they treat devs and maybe even revise their business model to compete I don't see how that's a bad thing unless you're just a Steam cheerleader who will defend them at all costs.

I fully expect you to do exactly what you did last time we had a conversation i.e. completely ignore everything I said and just repeat your points over and over oh and possibly throw the obligatory 'cow' comment in there somewhere. Just a word of advice, if that happens I'm out. This is your second chance to have a rational conversation or we may as well just avoid each other.

Don't really understand how releasing a slower than slugs console FPS on PC = redemption, other than for casuals with a reaction time of 2 seconds to gobble up......... oh yea. Its a ghosts post. The "I'm so badass and musclebound that i can beat up braindead AI but will talk shit about MP being boring and repetitive cause I can't handle losing" guy.

sound like you need to play more SP games.

raise the diffuclty and you wont get brain dead AI. you will get story, characters, level design, exploration etc.

all you need in MP game is same map over and over again killing same people. no progress. nothing.

I stopped playing SP games because they are too easy. Its pretty obv why AI has been much dumber since the FEAR days, because then it becomes too difficult for the LCD. Most "difficulty sliders" these days are fucking lazy and just does things like up damage numbers and reduce health numbers or something of the sort. Lazy fkin development is what that is. Stories have been lackluster as well as levels. When your primary goal is to max sales/profits, everything has to be dumbed down. Like I said before, SP is a one and done. MP provides many variables cause you are always playing against diff ppl. Sorry you cant handle it. Winning = progress.