Like for many other people, Valve single player experiences were one of my favorite of all time growing up. I considered both Half-Life and Portal to be masterpieces. It’s true they’ve always been distracted with multiplayer games as well, things like Counter-Strike or Team Fortress and I did play them for sure, because I was a kid and I had all the time in the world.
These days I’m not a kid anymore and so when I game I tend to look more for memorable experiences instead of mindless grinding. Obviously I remember Valve as the experts in creating memorable experiences and I would like them to keep fully exploring those talents. They don’t have that many employees, but they do have all the money in the world, no external pressure, no publisher to shit on them, it’s just their developers and artists and a vision. But then they use all that and create this. An Overwatch looking moba shooter, really? I’m sure people will like and play it, but is this the results of the vision and ambition of a company like Valve?
It doesn’t have to be Half-Life. I remember them saying that they dont want to do another one in the series because they are looking to innovate and make something truly original. My body is ready, give me anything. I can’t imagine a moba shooter really fits with this description. I’m wondering how such a low hanging concept even becomes a real product at a company as ambitious as Valve.
I hear people are having fun with the new game and I’m happy for them. I am no longer the target audience and I wish them good luck with it. In the mean time let me hear your thoughts on it. Would you like to see another single player experience from Valve?
I’d love to get another singleplayer game as well, but I’ve accepted that Valve is just unpredictable. I’m sure they haven’t given up on Singleplayer and we’ll get another singleplayer game… at some point. Their previous game was the fantastic Half-life Alyx after all.
I mean, stuff has leaked about a possible new Half Life game, I guess we’ll see soon™
Stuff has been leaking about the next Half Life game since Episode 2 came out, and not much of it had anything to do with what we ended up getting with Alyx. Don’t get your hopes up newbie.
Valve is not a normal company. As far as I know they still have their fluid work structure in place where projects are dictated by what the devs themselves feel like doing and are inspired by.
Icefrog (who was the lead developer of Dota 2 - and Dota 1 for many years before that) is lead developing Deadlock as I understand it. It has his fingerprints all over it, at least. It seems enough other people at Valve liked his idea of a twist on the MOBA concept to turn it into a full project.
I feel your frustration but there isn’t really any opportunity cost lost here. It’s not that they decided to make “a game” and chose this one out of all available options. If they felt like they had enough ideas to make Half-Life 3 (or any other single player game) then they would have. It’s just that this is the game they want to make right now.
For what it’s worth, Robin Walker and his team are working on the next half life after Alyx. Will that ever come out? I have no idea and I’m not expecting anything. Deadlock however is a game designed by one of the grandfathers of the moba genre, and has had over 20k concurrent players at any given time, and it wasn’t even announced with it’s existence only known through word of mouth. That’s insanely impressive and shows how huge the moba genre really is and how those players are thirsty for a new game from a big company. It sucks and I wish we had more sp valve games but I’m content with the work they’ve done on proton, steamos, the steam deck, steam itself, and half life alyx. They haven’t been sitting on their hands not doing anything, they’ve been putting their focus on more technical areas versus making games and that’s ok.
For what it’s worth, Robin Walker and his team are working on the next half life after Alyx.
Got a source for that? I’m genuinely interested in reading more, but I don’t remember seeing anything about it in my usual places.
https://www.eurogamer.net/more-evidence-of-fully-fledged-half-life-game-revealed-by-valve-dataminer
It’s called HLX, and it’s apparently a traditional non-vr game. Robin Walker was leading the Alyx team, it’s a safe bet he’s leading this team or working with this team on the sequel.
Having HL:A Alyx be VR was super cool. The game was so immersive and for a while afterwards, I was convinced that any furure HL game had to be VR. Then the novelty wore off and the VR market basically is basically dead. Now I’m excited for another flat screen HL game.
we’re getting old dude
the kids who are the age we were in the half life glory days–they don’t want single player. they want league of apex legends fortnitewatchstrike
single player games won’t go away completely, but they’re definitely taking a backseat to whatever the rage is with the kids. currently mobas. just google “most played video games” if you’re not depressed enough already
“Single player games have taken a backseat”. Okay. We’re just going to state that as a truth? And also just stating kids as being the main video games audience still?
I mean if single player games have taken such a backseat, why are big companies pouring so much money into games such as Horizon, Dragon Age, Assassin’s Creed, Anno or Dark Souls? Why are indie games, thousands and tens of thousands of them, so overwhelmingly single player? Why is Zelda still not a MOBA? Just does not really hold water as an argument IMO. If anything it seems the opposite is happening and after the height of MOBAs in ˜2015, the market is slowly creeping back.
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Both of your points are only partially correct.
I think we can state as a truth that they have less potential profit.
Wrong, they just take less effort and have a more constant revenue stream.
Potential for profit means nothing, when so many attempts at milkable forever games end up like Suicide Squad or Concord.
Also you can come into them half baked and pull the plug if the game doesn’t sell (because it’s half baked) like they’re doing with SS and they did with the Avengers game.
They spend more money.
They don’t, you can’t spend money you don’t have, whales are working adults.
Kids spend money for less. Better ROI, not higher payoff.
You make the 18302nd skin and troves of kids will badger their parents for fortnite bucks so they can buy it but not everyone will. The upside is that making a skin costs you single digits percent points of the profits, so even if one or two are a dud, you’re fine, the good ones will make up for it.
It’s a business model you can throw money at once the game’s got an audience base, which is very attractive to companies, because it’s uncomplicated and reliable.
I think we can state as a truth that they have less potential profit.
That’s true but it’s not because people aren’t playing single player games. The reason single player games are less profitable is because the non-subscription, non-microtransaction single player market is extremely saturated with indie games. That makes it very hard to sell AAA single player games. The standards are extremely high and the opportunities for extra monetization are not there.
I have been a single player gamer for most of my life, yet I haven’t bought a AAA single player game in decades. I have more indie single player games to play than I know what to do with, and frankly they appeal to me more than AAA titles. Expensive graphics and voice acting don’t have much draw for me these days. I am much more interested in roguelikes and retro games now. I think there are thousands of others like me out there, among all those who don’t go in for multiplayer games and haven’t purchased a console.
There’s plenty of room to monetize single player games when it’s add-in content to games that you continually replay as opposed to add-on content for something that’s story driven. More systemic games like Civilization, roguelikes, simulators, etc.
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When your game isn’t live service multiplayer, your incentives change to putting out more sequels rather than iterating on the same game. So your revenue per game goes down, but there’s no reason it can’t necessarily be as lucrative overall.
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It’s not confusion. Your perspective is survivorship bias. For every Rocket League, there are 10 Concords. That’s why the entire industry is imploding right now. Everyone thinks their game will be Fortnite, but only so many games can be Fortnite, and a lot of that even comes down to luck, so you’ve got games like Avengers and Suicide Squad losing hundreds of millions of dollars each instead of making games for half or a quarter of their budgets that would have recouped their costs and then some.
Single player games are less and less profitable these days. What the original commenter could have said is, these days, there isn’t much money to be made telling a story when fortnight makes so much money by doing nothing but cosmetics.
It’s not a question of demand, it’s a question of profit. Multiplayer games stand to make a lot more money than singleplayer. Nobody will spend real world dollars on cosmetic items in a singleplayer game.
Skyrim has no multiplayer component, but plenty of people have paid cash money for cosmetic items.
Not even close to the same scale as what Valve and Blizzard get people to pay for skins and hats
profit is a function of demand
And it’s gonna continue until regulations recognize how these games are psychologically terrible for kids and have gambling mechanics.
“An overwatch looking moba shooter”
No, it plays like Battleborn and Monday Night Combat, a third person shooter with moba elements. It’s not overwatch, it’s not Dota.
Also calling Overwatch a “MOBA shooter” is like calling Mario Kart a “Rogue like racer” because you start each race fresh with everything reset. It’s just an FPS, nothing MOBA about it.
I think they’re calling deadlock a moba, not overwatch
I personally think MOBA should be used to broadly describe a style of game rather than what’s done while playing it. I know that when Riot coined the term, they were referring to games like DotA, LoL, etc.; to me the whole approach to a match’s flow is echoed similarly enough throughout multiple games, that applying the term MOBA to other games is a logical extension.
To me a game is a MOBA if:
- The way to interact with it is primarily designed around playing with other players online (the M and O of MOBA.)
- The goals of the players are against the goals of other players — ie. it’s competitive rather than cooperative (the B of MOBA.)
- Any player at the beginning of a match has access to all the same options as any other player. This one is a little more vague, but as the A in MOBA stands for arena, I imagine it like a group of gladiators standing before a communal weapon rack that they’ll all pick from; no one has any options that the others don’t have access to.
Following these criteria, something like Overwatch is a MOBA, as is DotA, and ironically LoL isn’t as you have to unlock options meaning you don’t satisfy the arena condition. To differentiate games like DotA, Smite, Awesomenauts, Deadlock, etc., I prefer the term lane-pusher as that’s a lot more specific and understandable.
Does it really matter what it’s called? Not really. I mostly just do it so I can feel superior to Riot for coming up with a vague term that is applied, how I deem, incorrectly, while also excluding their own game from the term that they made to describe it.
The point stands that it’s derivative. I’m convinced Valve can do better.
And isn’t everything derivative? What’s the issue with that? If feel like you’re really trying to gather negativity towards this game simply because it doesn’t pander to your tastes
Well, I guess your are right that everything is derivative. I also think some things are more alike than others and also some markets are more saturated than others. When Half-Life came out it was in a saturated market of FPSs but it also revolutionized the market. When Portal came out no one could compare it to anything other that a student project. Half-Life Alyx is still considered the no 1 most polished and complete game in the VR space. We’ll see the impact that Deadlock will have I guess.
Even if it is, it’s a derivation I’ve been sorely missing. Ever since Battleborn got shut down, there’s been a Battleborn shaped hole in my heart. Deadlock fits in that hole really well.
It’s possible that the whole impetus for creating Deadlock came from something like that. Someone at valve, like me, enjoyed the hell out this particular mix of mechanics.
There’s nothing like it. Dota doesn’t do the trick, neither does Overwatch. Of all things, the closest thing might be Titanfall 2’s titan combat.
Did you ever try Paladins? I somehow ended up playing Battleborn when it came out and really liked it, even though it got panned. Always thought Paladins was a close second.
No. Some also like Gigantic, but they never appealed to me enough to try em.
I was in the Battleborn beta, and had such a blast I absolutely had to keep playing, so I bought it day one.
I was really sad to see it be loved by those that played it, and hated as an “Overwatch clone” by everyone else.
Gigantic: Rampage Edition is free to claim on Epic Games this week, so if you might be interested in the future, it would be worth grabbing now.
Monday Night Combat
Well, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.
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I don’t get how everyone keeps comparing it to those games when Smite exists and it’s damn near identical?!
Because it’s not identical. SMITE plays like the top down mobas but in a third person perspective. Deadlock plays like a third person shooter with moba elements.
I think they’re comparing it visually to overwatch
I wish for more fun and casual multiplayer with strong competive side like TF, none of this matchmaking toxic shit no-fun allowed with elo
TF2 has matchmaking even in casual
Back in the golden days of community servers, it sure as heck didn’t.
I’m pretty sure you can still join servers like that. I haven’t played in years, but last time I did, the server browser was still there. A lot less lively because it was hidden compared to the matchmaking button, but it was still there.
It still exists, but a lot of communities shut down after official matchmaking was implemented.
It does now and for quite a while
And DOTA2 has the worst matchmaking I’ve ever seen in casual too. My third game I was placed with the sweatiest sweats and it completely turned me off the game.
Why does this billion dollar company not do exaxtly what I expect them to😡 They made great games because those are the ones I like and now they make shitty games because I dont like them.
I percieve them as different to your run of the mill EA or Ubisoft, so I expect more from them. That’s on me I guess. I’m not angry though, just disappointed.
Have they released bad games?
There’s been a bunch of Counter Strike releases that got very negative receptions
Is Artifact still active at all?
Can’t see bad reviews for any of those from critics.
Artifact has good scores from critics, as does CS2, nothing from Zombies. Not sure one game from 20 years ago says much when it’s just 1.6 with bots. The game isn’t bad, people just expected more than that.
And why is critics’ opinion more important than the opinion of the actual players?
Artifact yeah
https://www.metacritic.com/game/artifact/
Critic reviews aren’t bad at all. People review bombed it though.
+100, my feelings exactly.
I am now 45. I tried Deadlock, was overwhelmed, some other player told me to “fuck off” through the vocal chat because I was in the wrong lane, I uninstalled.
Generally, I don’t have time anymore to play online games that are about grind and skill. I don’t want to play only one sort of game. I want a game with an end so that I can move to another one.
MOBAs were cool at the time of warcraft 3. Let’s move on.
MOBAs were cool at the time of warcraft 3. Let’s move on.
What kind of statement is this? MOBAs are still insanely popular. And “move on”? as if there’s no reason to iterate or improve on a genre?
I don’t even play MOBAs but I’ve heard this same sentiment on arena shooters and it makes as much sense there as it does here.
Yeah you’re right. This statement was intended for me.
Everyone can of course play what they want.
If youre looking for a game with an end then you might wanna stick to single player. Online multiplayer is designed to keep players coming back for more
Valve’s last two releases were Half Life Alyx and Aperture Desk Job. Both are single player games.
Aperture Desk Job even runs on Linux and Steam Deck.
Let’s move on.
I enjoy MOBAs a lot, but their communities tend to be so toxic… I’m playing other multiplayer games because I am tired of the toxicity (among other things).
All online games will have a certain amount of toxic players there. No exceptions.
I’d much rather have a game like deadlock developed out of love and passion than some suits dictating to the devs to make games they don’t want to. That’s how we get Avengers, Redfall, Gotham Knights, etc…
Especially considering a lot of the creative talent behind Valve’s acclaimed single player catalog are no longer at the company. Valve is a different company now and so their games will be different too.
On the flip side, they still have that Valve spice. Alyx was worthy of the Half Life badge, something I was skeptical was still possible after all that time.
but they do have all the money in the world, no external pressure, no publisher to shit on them, it’s just their developers and artists and a vision.
I think that’s part of the issue. Supposedly they do have multiple games in development and a large percentage of their employees are working on them. But they are content to let the creative and technical processes play out, without announcing too-ambitious release dates which inevitably get pushed back and still have a buggy game released. And sometimes they even cut their losses if a long term project just isn’t working out.
I’d like them to do an RPG, something completely off the wall, like the TF2 crew playing D&D.
I’m not saying everything in the world has been done, but “what, like Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands?”
Yeah, was thinking the same thing. Which, importantly, is already a game based upon a DLC for a previous Borderlands game!
I’m stoked about Deadlock. I used to play Super Monday Night Combat constantly, until it shut down.
I’ve been waiting like 10 years to get a decent game that fills that void, and Deadlock seems to finally be it! I personally couldn’t be happier with their choice hah.
Glad I’m not the only one who thought of that game when I heard of deadlock
I’m not a kid anymore, I don’t have time for a deep immersive single player campaign, I want a light casual game I can play a few rounds of to relax after work.
I grew up and decided that games have a place in my life to give experiences, you grew up and decided that they are a source of burst distractions. I guess age has nothing to do with it and it’s just about personal preference.
Your observation is wise
Some games give you a story that sticks with you and you love them for that (Half-Life, To The Moon, Bioshock Infinite). Some give you an experience that sticks with you but no story to speak of (like Doom and Doom II, which I still play).
What I dislike is having to deal with people in my games. I already do that in reality, thank you very much.
To me games are about escaping reality.
I’m not a kid anymore and I’m the opposite: give me a single player Half Life 3 so I can relax without getting stressed online after work.
I honestly cannot fathom how people find pvp games relaxing. They’re toxic as fuck and their competitive online nature makes them inherently stressful.
If you do anything enough times, most of your responses are automatic. You’re doing less thinking and more instinctively responding to the situation.
Nah, I just type gg at the end. They’re just games, like disc golf, volleyball, or airsoft. I lose sometimes, actually I lose a fuck-ton, but that’s just statistics if the matchmaking isn’t actually the worst. It’s those wild unscripted moments. Coordinating with your buddies. Learning your opponents. Learning yourself.
I get the appeal of single player games, but I’ll just share my opinion: to me the most stressful gaming moments are hard bosses in single-player campaigns. If I get my ass handed to me in a multiplayer match, nbd “gg This is Rocket League”. I’ll get them next time. In the single player you’re stuck though. I’ve gotten migraines because I couldn’t beat a boss and I was stressing over the wasted money I spent on the game that I might not ever finish. Beating a boss after <5 tries is satisfying. Beating it after 20+ feels like getting out of the hospital.
I find single player enemies to be mostly easy and usually it is just a pattern logic that you have to figure out. Online games are just engagements with people who clearly take the game and what happens way too seriously, evident when you don’t meet the required expectations (that goes for being bad and better than them alike). I also find pvp games way too repetitive. It’s always the same matches over and over again. The same map, the same weapons, the same tactics. The randomness of the matchmaking just adds to making it more of a pointless experience. But ultimately, nothing really changes.
After two young kids I’ve pretty much abandoned multiplayer. Singleplayer, even deep ones, can be be paused, saved, interrupted and come back to later. And I’m wanting to go back to more distinct experiences, whereas I find stuff like league or live service games overfills time. I’m trying to avoid sandbox games too currently as well. Crusader kings, Stellaris, civilization are great, but im trying to concentrate on the more story driven games backlog right now
I wasn’t a kid anymore when HL came out. Hope you are still having fun, whatever you’re doing.
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My immediate emotional reaction is to dunk on you. Boo hoo, a company won’t make a game you want. But you’re missing the valve you grew up with, and gaming is worse off now. Multiplayer games with subscription models and microtransactions have become the default, and we all feel it.
For me Deadlock has great characters, lore, new interesting mechanics, and only surface level similarities with DOTA. I’m not upset about it really. Just happy Valve is making anything again. Maybe I’m worn down, but so many big companies take but shits everyday I’m just happy to see one building good shit. (And it’s free!)
So you said “boo hoo” to people that don’t like how microstransactions, subscription models, and the like? You are not upset that the state of gaming in AAA landscape have degraded?
I say to you, “Waaa waaa” then.
Lol nope, Deadlock has nothing like that in it. It’s an excellent example of what we would ask for in our online multiplayer games.
I am not happy about it, but complaining about Deadlock is spitting on what we should be rewarding imo
