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DidYouKnowGaming? - Valve Developer Talks Portal 3
- Thread starter IbizaPocholo
- Start date
- Opinion Game Dev Hype
IbizaPocholo
NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
Portal writer Erik Wolpaw still wants to make Portal 3, but Valve's 'flat structure' makes it a challenge
More people at Valve need to get behind it.
www.pcgamer.com
In an interview with Simon Parkin on the My Perfect Console podcast(opens in new tab), Wolpaw explained the difficulties in getting the sequel off the ground. "In a flat structure like Valve, there is an opportunity cost to doing anything. Whatever is going on at Valve right now requires the dedication and participation of the people working on it—and it's voluntary."
So there needs to be enough people at Valve willing to work on Portal 3. But in the meantime, Wolpaw is going to keep pushing for it and—jokingly—giving Valve a hard time. "The people who could be disturbed by it internally understand that it's just me joking around," he added.
A source of frustration for fans is that there have been long periods of time where Valve hasn't seemingly been developing anything else, so why not Portal 3? Or Half-Life 3? But Wolpaw defends his employer.
"Valve is not a giant company. I think people sometimes think it is because of the outsized influence of Steam, but it's not really that many people. It takes manpower to keep Dota going, it takes manpower to keep CSGO going. And the freeform nature of Valve means that there are a lot of experiments that simply fail. So things are happening—if you were inside Valve, you would think that stuff was always going on, because it is."
And Valve has clearly been busy lately, what with the launch of the Steam Deck and development of Counter-Strike 2(opens in new tab). And there's Steam itself, which remains the most important piece of software Valve has ever designed or maintained.
"As much I enjoy the things I worked on at Valve and my time at Valve, and it's important to me, if I had to choose between Valve's games and Steam—which I feel is the most democratising technology that ever came out, to allow people to create games, game creators to actually make games and get them in front of people—I guess I would choose Steam," said Wolpaw.
So there will always be things competing for attention at Valve. "It's a manpower problem," said Wolpaw. "You have to pick what you're going to work on and time is limited."
donkey_oaty
Member
Hey dude, this looks awesome. I've been searching for new gaming podcasts. Thanks for sharing.
k_trout
Member
thanks again
IbizaPocholo
IbizaPocholo
kicker
Banned
Yeah, this was a good read.
This quote was why I made the thread asking what if steam never existed but valve made more games
This quote was why I made the thread asking what if steam never existed but valve made more games
k_trout
Member
portal2 is in my top 5 goat, it really is amazing
Thaedolus
Gold Member
The first one is only a couple hours long and worth playing too
RAIDEN1
Member
Is there much in the way of story though? Apparently you'd get more entertainment from the 2nd one
Thaedolus
Gold Member
Nothing you couldn’t read a summary of, it’s rather sparse and not the main reason to play it
RAIDEN1
Member
In that respect I wouldn't bother getting it for the sake of it...
kicker
Banned
2 builds upon what was established in 1. They're really similar in terms of quality, and it's really the co-op mode that separates them.
Put it this way, you won't appreciate the setting, charcaters or dialogue of 2 as much if you skip 1
donkey_oaty
Member
I think that Portal has the perfect video game story, and it's all done in just a few hours. It's not really explicit but subtly hinted at as you progress through the games puzzles, you'll find rooms you're not meant to be in with writing on the wall, notice strange behavior from Glados, it all perfectly leads up to the reveal in the final act. That was my experience at least, though when I first played Portal though I was expecting it to be a puzzle game with some cake memes. No other game has ever surprised me like Portal did.
Tams
Member
1. The first one is the foundation for the second one. You'll miss out on a lot of you skip it.
2. The first one isn't expensive and comes in at half price in a bundle with the second one.
Thaedolus
Gold Member
Hey I don’t disagree, but if he’s not playing for that then I don’t see much being missed out on by going straight to 2. I just replayed 1 when the RTX mod came out and it’s still fantastic
Magic Carpet
Member
At least watch the series with these kids playing it. The games should be bundled together IMHO.