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For Engadget\u2019s 20th anniversary, we put together a package of stories about the most pivotal pieces of technology from the past two decades, and mine was on Steam<\/a>. It\u2019s difficult to overstate how influential Steam is to PC gaming, or how rich the storefront has made Valve. As a private company with infinite piles of Steam cash, Valve has the freedom to ignore market pressure from consumers, creators and competitors. It famously has a flat hierarchy with no strict management structure, and developers are encouraged to follow their hearts.<\/p>\n This has all resulted in an incredibly rich studio that doesn\u2019t produce much. It may be a tired joke that Valve can\u2019t count to three in its games, but we\u2019re not talking about Half-Life today. We\u2019re talking about Valve\u2019s history of buying exciting franchises and talented developers, playing with them for a while, and then forgetting they exist. Real fuckboi behavior \u2014 but it\u2019s just how Valve does business.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a look at Valve\u2019s history of talent acquisition. One of its oldest franchises, Team Fortress, started as a Quake <\/em>mod built by a small team in Australia, and Valve bought its developers and the rights to the game in 1998. Team Fortress 2<\/em> came out in 2007 and it received a few good years of updates and support. Today, the game has a devoted player base, but it\u2019s riddled with bots and it\u2019s unclear whether anyone at Valve is consistently working on TF2<\/em>.<\/p>\n Portal began life as a student project called Narbacular Drop<\/em>, and Valve hired its developers after seeing their demo in 2005. Portal <\/em>officially came out in 2007, Portal 2<\/em> landed in 2011, and both were instant classics. There hasn\u2019t been a whiff of another Portal game since, even though one of the series writers, Erik Wolpaw, really, really wants<\/a> Valve to make Portal 3<\/em>.<\/p>\n Of all the Valve franchises that have been left to wither and die, I miss Left 4 Dead the most. Turtle Rock started building Left 4 Dead<\/em> in 2005, and by the time that came out in 2008, Valve had purchased the studio and its IP outright. Citing slow progress and poor communication, Turtle Rock left Valve before helping the company make Left 4 Dead 2<\/em> in 2009. Turtle Rock went on to release Evolve in 2015 <\/em>and Black 4 Blood <\/em>in 2021, and is now owned by Tencent. Meanwhile, I\u2019m here, dreaming of that third Left 4 Dead <\/em>game.<\/p>\n In 2010, Valve secured the rights to the Warcraft III<\/em> mod Defense of the Ancients<\/em>, and hired its lead developer. Dota 2 <\/em>came out in 2013 and became an incredibly successful esports title. Now, eleven years later, Dota 2<\/em> players are complaining<\/a> about a lack of support and communication from Valve, especially in comparison with games like League of Legends<\/em>.<\/p>\n Counter-Strike has received the most attention from Valve in recent memory, with the rollout of Counter-Strike 2<\/em> late last year. The original Counter-Strike<\/em> was a Half-Life<\/em> mod, and Valve acquired it and its developers in 2000. Counter-Strike 2<\/em> is the fifth installment in the series, released 11 years after its predecessor, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive<\/em>. After this recent attention, it\u2019s about time for Valve to start ignoring the Counter-Strike community again.<\/p>\n Valve has quietly continued to make acquisitions. In 2018, Valve hired<\/a> all 12 developers at Firewatch<\/em> studio Campo Santo, who were at the time working on a very-rad-looking new game, In the Valley of Gods<\/em>. This could turn out to be another spectacular, genre-defining franchise for Valve\u2019s resume of acquired IP, but there have been no updates from that team in nearly six years. In April 2018, Campo Santo said they were still building In the Valley of Gods<\/em> at Valve, and promised regular blog posts<\/a> and quarterly reviews<\/a>. And then, nothing.<\/p>\n Matt Wood worked at Valve for 17 years, where he helped build Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2, CS:GO<\/em> and both episodes of Half-Life 2<\/em>. He left in 2019 and is now preparing to release his first independent game, Little Kitty, Big City.<\/em> Wood told me in 2023<\/a> that Valve was \u201csitting on their laurels a little bit, and it\u2019s like they weren\u2019t really challenging themselves, taking risks or doing anything. Steam\u2019s making a lot of money so they don\u2019t really have to.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, Little Kitty, Big City<\/em> is coming to Steam<\/a>.<\/p>\n Steam\u2019s unwavering success has helped turn Valve into a senior resort community for computer science nerds, where game developers go to live out their final years surrounded by fantastic amenities, tinkering and unsupervised. It\u2019s a lovely scenario. At least developers there aren\u2019t getting laid off<\/a> \u2014 and I mean that sincerely. Steam is a great service, and Valve seems at least temporarily committed to the Steam Deck hardware, which is very cool. Still, I miss the games that Valve devoured. I have to wonder if the developers there do, too.<\/p>\n Valve\u2019s treatment of legendary franchises and developers raises questions about its commitment to\u2026 anything, including Steam. What happens if Valve decides to pivot, or sell, or Gabe Newell retires and blows everything up? What would happen if Steam shut down? As a service with native DRM, all of our games would instantly disappear. Just like all those game devs.<\/p>\n Playdate is one of my favorite gaming gadgets<\/a> of the past decade, not only because it has an incredibly cute crank, but also because its low-res screen belies a buffet of strange and beautiful experiences pushing the boundaries of traditional play. Panic held a showcase<\/a> for new Playdate games last week and the headliner was Lucas Pope\u2019s Mars After Midnight<\/em>, which is coming out on March 12. Pope is the developer of Papers, Please<\/em> and Return of the Obra Dinn<\/em>, two incredible games, and Mars After Midnight<\/em> is set in the doorway of a crowded alien colony. Pope\u2019s games were made for Playdate, this time literally.<\/p>\n A week after Nintendo threatened to sue the creators of Yuzu into oblivion, the popular Switch emulator has been pulled off the market as part of a $2.4 million settlement<\/a>. To make matters worse for the emulation community, the lead developer of Yuzu announced that they are also killing the 3DS emulator Citra<\/a>. Both emulators were open-source, so it\u2019s likely we\u2019ll see Citra at least maintained by the broader community. It\u2019s not clear whether anyone is willing to take on a fork of Yuzu and risk a lawsuit.<\/p>\n Ghost of Tsushima<\/em><\/a> will hit PC on May 16. It comes with all of its DLCs, and Sony says it\u2019ll run on anything from high-end PCs to portable PC gaming devices.<\/p>\n<\/li>\nThis week’s news<\/h2>\n
Playdate update<\/h3>\n
Yuzu and Citra are gone<\/h3>\n
Bonus Content<\/h3>\n
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