games
November 19, 2023, 2:10 p.m
Gabe Newell, in a documentary devoted to the background of the creation of the first Half-Life, cleverly paraphrased Valve’s philosophy that accompanied the company during its game debut.
Photo source: Valve Corporation.
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Industry legend has it that the famous Nintendo game designer, Shigeru Miyamotoonce said: “A delayed game will ultimately be good, but a rushed game will always be bad.”
The long-time boss and “face” of Valve agrees with this motto, Gabe Newellwho was guided by these words years ago – while working on the first one Half-Life.
The popular “Gaben” in video released the day before yesterday a documentary about the behind-the-scenes creation of this iconic Valve work (below), paraphrasing Miyamoto, he said, “The delay only lasts a moment. “Sucking is forever.”.
He thus referred to the turbulent situation of 1997, when Half-Life was scheduled to make his debut. The premiere and shipment of the games – as previously agreed – was to take place in November, which was related to the obligations of the then studio Valve agreed with the publisher or company Sierra.
However, Gaben’s team knew that a few months before its planned debut, the game was not yet ready to achieve success.
Three months before the scheduled premiere in 1997, we realized that everything wasn’t coming together. This [Half-Life – przyp. red.] it really wasn’t good – developer Ken Birdwell admitted in the anniversary documentary.
On the other hand Valve’s management knew that by failing to honor the agreement, it would risk losing financial support from the publisher. However, the creators decided to take a riskbecause they did not want to provide players with an unprepared product that would only be a shell of the game.
We could do it [Half-Life’a – przyp. red.] spend by force. However, this was not the company we wanted to be. We didn’t want to be such people, and above all, we didn’t want such relationships with our recipients.
Valve’s concern for player comfort ultimately paid off. Although Half-Life was released only a year after the original release date, but thanks to the delay, the game almost immediately gained legendary statusrevolutionizing the entire gaming industry on many levels.
I would like to take this opportunity to watch the document above in its entirety. It is a real mine of curiosities, tidbits and reflections – straight from developers who have distinguished themselves in the industry.
And Gaben will release something hastily
Nevertheless, to avoid being too colorful and beautiful, Internet users pointed out to Gabe Newell that he was not always guided by the maxim in his career, the author of which – according to some wrongly – attributed to Shigeru Miyamoto.
It’s about a card game Artfiactwhich is undoubtedly the largest failure from the Valve stable, the release of which was probably not very well thought out – at least in terms of the business model.
Not only did you initially have to pay to play, but the gameplay promoted the hated pay-to-win approach, giving an advantage to players who were willing to pay extra for better cards.
The most important question, however, is whether the motto quoted in the text will be reflected in reality on this occasion Half-Life 3. After all, this premiere has to happen sometime… right?
