Quoting: SkyGuyWhyValve should just do some jams. You don't need 75 people to make a game, get five, make some gameplay. It's the artsy stuff that takes time - graphics, sound, that stuff. And then all the programmer time spent messing with the engine to support the artsy things.

Gameplay though? Gameplay goes crazy fast when you cut the turnaround times of asking for animations and stuff to go with your experiments out of the picture. Mess with some gameplay, design some levels, go all untextured and programmer art and recycled assets from previous games and you're golden, five guys who know what they're doing can make a whole huge game like that in a couple months.

Get your five guys to make the whole game start to finish like that. It'll look like crap but that's not important, it just has to play good. Then, when it's already fun, and the levels are basically designed, and the story is written, then you bring in the big team for the final stretch on the expensive bits. Replace your boxy CSG test levels with real art. Animate new models. Bring in the voice actors and get the sound guys doing their thing. Screw with the engine to push boundaries, like you do. But the key here is that the game part of the game is already made, there's a very clear picture of what work needs to be done.

Heck, you're making Portal 3, right? Portal is 90% puzzles. And Valve made that whole slick fancy level editor for fans to use, right? The one that's so ridiculously easy to use that a braindead monkey can make Portal test chambers in a few minutes a pop?

Build the first version of Portal 3 in the Portal 2 test chamber editor. Do you even need five guys? You could have a comprehensive prototype in a snap and bring in the big guns to go from there. Bro if you really wanted to make Portal 3 you absolutely *could* solo it, forget all the polish, make the scaffolding. Save the set dressing for later, that's where the time is spent.

Or say you don't solo it. Say that you get all 300 people at the company... for one, single day. Everyone, business people included. Sit everyone in front of the portal 2 test chamber editor, even the accountants, remember, brain dead monkeys can do it. Have everyone shoot for 5 levels, tell them to go wild, make anything they want. See what they come up with. Make it a party, get everyone in a room together bouncing ideas off each other with the level editor right there to realize them as fast as you can think it up. Then have everyone play each other's levels, try to sort out the best stuff. Boom. Just like that, you've got a huge amount of content to jump off with. 300 x 5, we're talking 1,500 levels here, no way you can't find two dozen or so ideas worth exploring further.

And if it's a party? A party with 300 of the most creative people on the planet hanging out together to just make something? No risk, no strings attached? You're gonna get a lot more than just levels. You're going to get jokes out the wazoo. Story ideas. New mechanics, people going "wouldn't it be cool if...?"

You don't have to commit to a 3 year development cycle with all hands on deck, you can start something good just having a little bit of fun.

Are you working in project management?

(I hope not :grin:)

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Quoting: 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.

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I like that pushing from Erik.

Yet, that also means Portal 3 is not in development. :cry:
Unless, they're playing with our little hearts.

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First time I've heard of that company.

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Quoting: Termy

Quoting: subDoes Steam allows to activate multiple keys at once?
Instead of clicking through several pages every time?

just go to https://store.steampowered.com/account/registerkey [External Link] and click "activate multiple products", then you can just paste one key per line.
Remember that you can only activate 50 Keys per hour

Thanks for all the helpful input!

Very appreciated. :)

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Does Steam allows to activate multiple keys at once?
Instead of clicking through several pages every time?

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Quoting: TermyMan, this reminds me again how upset i still am that prodeus dropped the perfectly working linux version - i want to play that game so bad (the demo was truly awesome), but i can't justify supporting such asshole-moves -.-

Yeah, that feels bad. But then again, many games that NEVER HAD a native version are recently promoted on Linux sites if they run on Proton. :D
So let's be fair.

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!From @rokups (Twitter) [External Link]

From @rokups (Twitter)

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Quoting: robredzIon Fury is a blast, works perfectly under Proton
Amid Evil already had it, RT works fine under Proton, but not DLSS
aall in all and awesome bundle.

Why Proton? IIRC Ion Fury has a great native Linux release.

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Had so much fun with Ion Fury.

Looking forward to the Aftershock DLC!

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