Recently, writer Erik Wolpaw made headlines with comments about wanting to make Portal 3 while noting that it would be quite challenging to do so given the nature of Valve as a company. Accordingly, these comments have, once again, brought up questions as to why Valve doesn't develop more games, especially in the context of beloved franchises that could be expanded.
So, in this, article we'll talk about why Valve doesn't develop more games.
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Valve’s Unique Status as a Company
Valve. A legendary video game company. Creator of Half-Life, Portal, Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, Dota, and so much more. Plus, the company is also the creator of Steam, video games' biggest distribution platform on PC. Put simply, Valve is a titan in the gaming industry.
But Valve is also a small fish.
With a company like Epic Games, for example, that also heads up famous gaming franchises, like Fortnite, and owns a popular distribution platform, like the Epic Games launcher, there are over 2,200 people working at Epic. With Valve, though? Valve has just over 300 employees. Considering how influential the company is, Valve is remarkably tiny.
But Valve isn't just a small company. It's a wholly untraditional company, too. See, Valve has a flat structure, meaning that there aren't really bosses or managers. There aren't really assignments or projects you have to work on. Quite famously, once you join Valve, you're given free rein to work on whatever you want, and more importantly, you're given free rein to convince others at the company to convince others to join your project.
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Put simply, Valve doesn't work on a project, as a studio, and then move on to another project. At any given time, many different projects are ongoing simultaneously, and projects only get completed if there's enough interest at the studio for enough people to band together and work on a particular thing. As you'd expect, this is an extremely unique setup for a major brand.
So, in summary, not only is Valve a relatively small company, but it has a flat structure, meaning that it's incredibly difficult to rally the studio behind a particular project, be that project Half-Life 3, Portal 3, Left 4 Dead 3, or anything else. It's a much more complicated company to work at than other studios.
Valve Isn't the Same Company as Before
When you've got a studio that's been around for decades, naturally, headcounts will change over time. Longtime employees will eventually leave, and new employees will eventually join. The folks who, for example, made the original Portal are largely not still at the company anymore.
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This is a similar situation to Blizzard. Many wonder why Blizzard games, today, aren't as excellent and influential as they were 20 years ago. Of course, there are many reasons that go into this, but a big part of the answer comes down to the fact that the people who made those games just aren't working at Blizzard anymore, so it's hard to repeat that past success.
It's also important to understand the effect that the success of Steam, Dota, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive have had on the company. Put simply, these products absolutely print money for Valve, and they will likely do so for the company until the end of time. This is pretty unusual for a studio of Valve's size. For most, the next project is inevitably going to be important, because if it languishes in development for too long, the studio's financial future may end up in question. Not for Valve, though.
In short, Valve isn't the same company it once was, and it doesn't have the same needs it once did. When you combine this with the fact that Valve is a private company that doesn't have shareholders and a publicly traded stock to answer to and for, you can start to see why the company does whatever it wants to, regardless of how profitable these choices may be.
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Valve Cares About Reputation
Some gaming companies print out games. They'll do spinoffs and sequels; they'll milk their IP for as much as they can get out of it and for as long as players are interested enough to keep buying. But Valve is pretty different in this regard; however, this isn't to say Valve only develops hugely successful games. The company certainly has its flops, like Artifact.
Nonetheless, Valve only develops games that the company believes could be hugely successful. Valve only develops games where there's an excellent, novel idea at the heart of the project. Valve wants to chase new frontiers and innovate, not make another Portal game that's largely the same as the second game. Valve wants to do new things.
This desire is what gave us Half-Life: Alyx, and this desire is why we don't have Half-Life 3. The folks at Valve don't want to work iteratively in the same way a lot of different game studios want to work. Accordingly, Valve doesn't really make many games, and the games the company does release are always, at least, interesting, novel, unique.
All of this is to say that we probably won't see a Portal 3 for quite some time, or at least until Valve can think up a good enough for it.
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