Erik Wolpaw, a writer on the likes of Half-Life 2, Portal, Portal 2, Half-Life: Alyx and more thinks Valve really should just go ahead and make Portal 3 already.
Wolpaw recently spoke on the KIWI TALKZ podcast on various topics, and had some pretty firm words to give to Valve on getting moving making games again. Some of what Wolpaw said during it included: "I would love to work on Portal 3 in a second, but I can't do it unfortunately by myself. […] The problem is with 300 employees and I don't know exactly the breakdown, like how many of them are on the production side versus Steam business side versus legal versus whatever, there's a lot of opportunity cost taking 75 people and trying to get a game made.". The conversation goes on to point out employees are always doing something, so they would be pulled from something else of course.
In the end, Wolpaw mentions "We gotta start Portal 3, that's my message to whoever, anything you can do let's just do it, let's just make it happen. I am not getting any younger, we are reaching the point where it's crazy to think literally gonna be too old to work on Portal 3. So we should just do it and Desk Job is fun, if you liked Desk Job send mail to Gabe and tell him you want some Portal 3.".
See the full podcast below:
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Direct Link
Direct Link
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
Mountain Man Apr 19, 2022
Quoting: KristianQuoting: Mountain ManQuoting: kuhpunktQuoting: subQuoting: BeamboomImagine sitting on a *guaranteed* multi million seller game franchise and choose NOT to release a sequel.
And they even have several of those. They're livin' the good life over there at Valve.
Well, I guess we're easy to overlook the numbers.
While it seems to be big money, it's actually significantly less compared to Steam sales
and putting all your resources in there.
The estimates for Valve's annual revenue is like 7-10 billion USD.
Compare that to the total of sold Half Life copies (~ 9 million) over many, many years -
even if you assume they were all sold at max price (they weren't).
In particular, if you consider how much pressure it must be for Valve always trying to keep
or surpass their standards for their games (I can only imagine). So there is a risk for reputation loss.
Don't get me wrong. I'd love to see Valve getting back to their franchises.
And there IS room for hope. And I'd also claim there is way more value for Valve having those franchises alive
with recent high-class releases than "just" what they directly earn from them.
I just hope they see this.
Yes - but if they weren't developing games anymore, why employ them? They earn good money at Valve and they aren't doing nothing.
Positions are not as clearly defined at Valve as you might expect, and employees can freely move from one project and position to another depending on their interests. So just because someone might have the job title "level designer" doesn't necessarily mean he spends 40 hours a week designing levels for games.
Point is, you can't look at job titles at Valve and get any idea of what is happening inside the company.
Yes, but a level designer will not have the qualifications to work on say Steam.
Are you sure about that? Just because someone is skilled at one thing doesn't mean they can't also be skilled at other things.
3 Likes, Who?
For that to happen Gabe needs to learn to count to 3.
Not very likely to happen.
Jokes aside, there is so much which can go wrong in a sequel of great games that you do not want to destroy a legacy by risking another sequel.
Can go great, but pretty much ruin a franchise and reputation too. Better in great memory than failure.
Looking at Valves track record this may not happen, but it can.
Valve is on a point with their games that making a sequel better is hard to do.
Last edited by STiAT on 19 April 2022 at 8:52 pm UTC
Not very likely to happen.
Jokes aside, there is so much which can go wrong in a sequel of great games that you do not want to destroy a legacy by risking another sequel.
Can go great, but pretty much ruin a franchise and reputation too. Better in great memory than failure.
Looking at Valves track record this may not happen, but it can.
Valve is on a point with their games that making a sequel better is hard to do.
Last edited by STiAT on 19 April 2022 at 8:52 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: KristianQuoting: Mountain ManQuoting: EikeI can understand frustration there. Imagine you were a software developer working for a cool company with some of the coolest franchises out there - and you're not allowed to work on them, for years, for decades maybe...As I understand Valve's corporate structure, it's the employees who more or less decide the direction of the company. So it's not like there are a bunch of people champing at the bit to make new games but the bosses won't let them. If enough people got together and decided they wanted to make Half-Life 3, or Portal 3, or whatever, Gabe wouldn't stop them. The real question is why there's no momentum internally to get those projects rolling.
There is the infamous Valve employee handbook.
Infamous? It's a wonderful handbook. More organizations should adopt a Teal organizational structure like Valve has. It's the reason for their excellent innovation over the years. More details on Teal organizations.
1 Likes, Who?
ElectricPrism Apr 20, 2022
Quoting: STiATFor that to happen Gabe needs to learn to count to 3.
Not very likely to happen.
Cough cough... SteamOS v3.0
Reading these comments reinforces my perspective that people are not aware of how Valve is fundamentally different from your average wall-street company in that
[1] They are privately owned, no stock is traded, meaning they can make business decisions about their [a] reputation and [b] long-term goals not just [c] quarterly profits for wall-street (In other words... capitalism done right where income is balanced against long-term objectives)
[2] Their structure is a bee-hive as pointed out a decade ago in their employee handbook ( https://archive.org/details/ValveEmployeeHandbook/page/n29/mode/2up ).
If Erik Wolpaw wants to write Portal 3 (or should I say Portal 2 as 2 was really just a prequel) -- there's nothing stopping him. If he can get a handful of people to join his "committee" the work can be done and stored in internal ValveNET Wiki or whatever until it's time to bring in additional Human Resources to begin the construction phase.
The same place where the Half-Life 3 seed exists and has been planted but hasn't grown just yet.
Valve will always make good things because not only do the customers want Valve games, but because nothing gets done at Valve unless there is passion enough willpower from within.
For example, I knew once Valve Index committee wrapped up, all those hardware and software guys would have freetime to start a new project and Steam Machines v2 (or Steam Deck as it's called) would be inevitable.
Next up is the Valve Index 2 which will likely be a standalone device incorporating all they have learned in Steam Deck.
Will we see Half Life 3 and a new Portal? Likely at some point. Valve Time cooks slowly though, so don't hold your breath for 5 or 10 years.
Also, while Portal 2 dwarfs Portal 1 in popularity and review score, I am one of the few holding fast that Portal 1 was superior. If they do undertake a Portal 3 I would like for them to return to the calculated cold mechanical sociopathic GlaDOS inspired by System Shock's Shodan instead of the Portal 2 one which just "called you fat" and used other low-blow humor. Everything else about Portal 2 was phenomenal except they got the personality profile on GlaDOS slightly wrong. Wrong enough to hit a nerve.
Last edited by ElectricPrism on 20 April 2022 at 9:25 pm UTC
0 Likes
Quoting: subWhile it seems to be big money, it's actually significantly less compared to Steam sales
and putting all your resources in there.
Well, that was sort of my entire point. :)
For a lot of other developers a guaranteed sale in the millions is a nobrainer, especially for a relatively small game like this (technically speaking). But not for Valve, for the mentioned reasons.
Last edited by Beamboom on 21 April 2022 at 11:07 am UTC
1 Likes, Who?
Philadelphus Apr 21, 2022
Quoting: ElectricPrismAlso, while Portal 2 dwarfs Portal 1 in popularity and review score, I am one of the few holding fast that Portal 1 was superior. If they do undertake a Portal 3 I would like for them to return to the calculated cold mechanical sociopathic GlaDOS inspired by System Shock's Shodan instead of the Portal 2 one which just "called you fat" and used other low-blow humor. Everything else about Portal 2 was phenomenal except they got the personality profile on GlaDOS slightly wrong. Wrong enough to hit a nerve.Well, the last 30 seconds of the ending of Portal 2 offers a prime opportunity to recalibrate GLaDOS's personality a bit…
But, I mean, I get the difficulty Valve is in here. Portal had a final boss fight where you take personality cores off the boss. Portal 2 had a final boss fight where you put personality cores on the boss. Where could they possibly go from here??
0 Likes
Quoting: PhiladelphusHot-swap personality cores?Quoting: ElectricPrismAlso, while Portal 2 dwarfs Portal 1 in popularity and review score, I am one of the few holding fast that Portal 1 was superior. If they do undertake a Portal 3 I would like for them to return to the calculated cold mechanical sociopathic GlaDOS inspired by System Shock's Shodan instead of the Portal 2 one which just "called you fat" and used other low-blow humor. Everything else about Portal 2 was phenomenal except they got the personality profile on GlaDOS slightly wrong. Wrong enough to hit a nerve.Well, the last 30 seconds of the ending of Portal 2 offers a prime opportunity to recalibrate GLaDOS's personality a bit…
But, I mean, I get the difficulty Valve is in here. Portal had a final boss fight where you take personality cores off the boss. Portal 2 had a final boss fight where you put personality cores on the boss. Where could they possibly go from here??
0 Likes
Philadelphus Apr 22, 2022
Quoting: Purple Library GuyThat actually sounds interesting. In the first two games the order you take/put cores is linear; now imagine a game where you have, say, three cores (as per tradition), but the final battle goes very differently depending on the order you choose to swap them in. Six different permutations of a final boss battle!Quoting: PhiladelphusHot-swap personality cores?Quoting: ElectricPrismAlso, while Portal 2 dwarfs Portal 1 in popularity and review score, I am one of the few holding fast that Portal 1 was superior. If they do undertake a Portal 3 I would like for them to return to the calculated cold mechanical sociopathic GlaDOS inspired by System Shock's Shodan instead of the Portal 2 one which just "called you fat" and used other low-blow humor. Everything else about Portal 2 was phenomenal except they got the personality profile on GlaDOS slightly wrong. Wrong enough to hit a nerve.Well, the last 30 seconds of the ending of Portal 2 offers a prime opportunity to recalibrate GLaDOS's personality a bit…
But, I mean, I get the difficulty Valve is in here. Portal had a final boss fight where you take personality cores off the boss. Portal 2 had a final boss fight where you put personality cores on the boss. Where could they possibly go from here??
(How's that for replayability? )
0 Likes
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me