Valve building a PS3 development team
Though Valve hasn't always been strong on the PS3, it's now looking to build a team of developers for that platform.
Valve might be about to turn that around though as Doug Lomardi has mentioned that Valve is now very "up on the idea of PS3 development" and is looking to hire a team of PS3 coders. That's a far cry from comments made by Gabe Newell last year, when he said that developing for the PS3 would be "a waste of everybody's time".
Speaking to Joystiq yesterday at a Left 4 Dead 2 press event in London, Lombardi said that Valve is now just waiting to hire a bunch of really talented PlayStation 3 coders before it starts developing for the console.
"If you look at The Orange Box -- PC: 96 on Metacritic, 360: 96 on Metacritic, PS3 like... 84 or something. That's not even close to where we are right now with the 360 and PC and the reason is people," said Lombardi.
"We have to get people under our roof who are dedicated, talented PS3 guys and then all bets are off. We can take the same sort of strides and get the quality out of the box and offer the same support post-launch on that platform, as well."
Joystiq then bluntly asked if Valve was explicitly looking to hire PS3 developers and Lombardi confirmed that, yes, Valve is always on the look out for talent. Let us know if you're going to send him a job application in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyWhat the hell is going on there? Is Gabe Newell being ousted in a mini coup by the others at Valve, I mean I am at a loss....
On another note, Episodic Content equal failure, when will Valve drop this stupid episode BS with HL? Wait almost 2 years for 4-5 hours of gameplay that leave you feeling the feeling "That was it"?
I'm gonna hate myself for this, but...
Bow to Leper Messiah! *grunt* And his logic. While episodic gameplay for Half-Life is great in terms of shorter games, at lower prices, we were promised them more flipping often!
In 2011 we will finally see HL, ep1 , ep2, ep3 (2013) on the PSN !
Some games just live forever... my point proven - Worms released again on the 360 xbox live service week (Armageddon version this time). Very sweet - but at Team 17, developing Worms is a job for life!
As for Valve on the PS3.... Its about the money. Simple as that. Even ports delivered 6 months late will still make them money.
This sums it up perfectly.
OK:
HL2, and the entire Source engine, took 6 years. Are you telling me, that although we're getting parts at a time, it should take another 6 years for a "full" new game?
Ep1 took the best part of 2 years.
Ep2 took 15-16 months.
Now, all we've had from Ep3 so far is some concept art. No release date, no details of the game, nothing. And it's nearly been 2 years.
Now, these 3 games go together to make one full game (in theory and in terms of length), yes? So, it takes as long to develop the Episodes as it does to develop Half-Life 2 AND the full, original Source engine, which was designed to make releasing games so much easier and faster?
Pull the other one, Gabey Baby, it's got "Cash Cow" written on it.
And don't get me wrong - those additions are great and all. But I played through Episode 2 again recently and I'm not convinced that it was worth the extra five or six month wait just so that Valve could have those four main sections with cinematic physics (the two collapsing bridges, the advisor encounter and the destructible houses at the end). I'd of rather had the same game with the standard physics and no destructible houses.
HAHA, Love that Album, Master of Puppets, doesn't get much better.
True, but Valve are demonstrating ably the falsehood to their supposition that Episodic Content works as a delivery medium... and purely because they're not good at sticking to their deadlines. In fact, the only example of episodic content I've seen that has actually worked as advertised was the new Sam & Max game - those episodes were fairly close together so the wait for the next bit wasn't too bad.
To each their own on the episodic content front... some are content to get bits in dribs and drabs... others would rather have a complete game arrive at once. :)
I disagree it, they and everyone hopped on that bandwagon, ate whatever it was that Microsoft was shoveling. And now in hindsight they are probably realizing it wasn't the most prudent thing to do.
I'm whit ya on that one, next up, Valve going public...I said it first..HA!