WEBVTT - The Story of Valve Part Three 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:13.240 Technology with tech Stuff from dot Com. Hey there, and 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:19.040 welcome to tex Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, Podcast extraordinaire, 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:22.880 even a podcaster. I am glad that you could join 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:27.320 me here for the part three of the Valve story. Hey, 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:29.960 if you haven't listened to parts one and two, you 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.960 should probably go do that, because otherwise this episode is 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.000 not going to make a whole lot of sense. We're 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:39.000 looking at the company Valve, the game developer company that 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:42.839 was launched by a couple of Microsoft millionaires. And as 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.280 I mentioned in part two of this series, we were 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.840 leaving off at two thousand three. That was when Steam launched. 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:53.520 That would be Valves online platform. It was much more 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.720 modest at that time than what it is today. So 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.680 when Steam launched, it was largely meant to do three things. 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.319 It was meant to roll out patches for Valve games 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:07.080 that already existed, so you could get them up to 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:11.280 the latest version and therefore make them compatible with other players. 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:14.400 A lot of Valves games are multiplayer games, and you 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:18.040 have to have everybody using the same basic game rules 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:20.880 in order to be able to play together. That's what 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.240 Steam was meant to do. For the first part I 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.160 would let players match up against each other without any conflicts. 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.720 The second purpose for Steam was to activate some digital 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:35.520 rights management strategies by requiring players to essentially check in 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.360 online when their games were active to verify that they 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.199 were in fact playing with legitimate copies of that game. 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.560 And the third purpose was to sell Valve Games as 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:50.880 an online store, with Half Life two becoming the title 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.280 that would lead that charge. This would mark the beginning 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:58.800 of a shift toward digital delivery rather than physical media 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.600 for games, though obviously that did not happen right away. 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.880 It wasn't an overnight success. For one thing, not everyone 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.560 had a fast enough Internet connection, so many folks didn't 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:13.639 really like the idea of spending a day or longer 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.200 just to download a single game when you could just 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:18.760 drive over to a video game store down the street 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:22.760 and pick up a physical copy right there. Valve also 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.959 moved to acquire another popular Half Life mod in that year. 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.720 That mod was called Day of Defeat and it featured 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.240 the Western Front of World War Two as the game setting, 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:39.679 So it was taking the basic game engine and graphics 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.640 of Half Life but modifying it for this World War 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.919 two setting, and it was a multiplayer only game in 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:50.160 which players could choose characters of various classes of various 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.640 sides of the conflict to complete objectives and compete against 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.000 each other in team based play. And that leads us 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.560 up to two thousand four, which was a huge year 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:04.960 for Valve. First things first, Early in the year, Valve 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:08.120 announced a new game engine. So it had been using 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.560 one called gold Source g O L D s r C, 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:15.840 which was a heavily modified Quake engine. It had been 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:20.360 relying upon that since the foundation of Valve. Now it 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.320 had a new game engine and they called it Source, 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:30.040 So so so you r ce. Source wasn't built from scratch exactly. 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:32.880 It was more of a fork off of the Quake 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:36.560 engine code that was the foundation for gold Source. So 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.600 on one branch of that fork you would find yourself 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.440 heading toward gold Source, the engine that powered Half Life 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.640 and the numerous mods like counter Strike and Day of Defeat. 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:51.040 Along the other branch you had Source, the more risky 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.119 game engine, stuff that needed work so that it could 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:58.080 become usable and stable. And with the Steam platform, Valve 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.840 could roll out updates to the Source gin across its 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:03.480 user base on a regular basis. And it also meant 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:07.800 the company could avoid backwards compatibility issues. Everyone would always 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:09.960 be on the same page as long as they were 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:14.840 maintaining their Steam account. The Source engine itself would branch 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.880 for different games in the future, so the version for 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.440 Left for Dead is significantly different than the one for 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.840 Half Life Too. But we'll get into more about those 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:26.960 games later on. The Source Engine actually got its debut 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:29.760 with the launch of Half Life two. It was the 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:33.520 first game to really push the Steam platform, as gamers 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.120 could buy the game in stores or they could purchase 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.800 it digitally through Steam. It also would become the second 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.799 title the company produced for the Xbox platform. The first 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:46.640 one was counter Strike, which came out the year before. 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:50.880 Both Counterstrike and the original Half Life would get Source 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:54.760 re releases in two thousand four. The counter Strike one 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.640 was called counter Strike Source. It also came out the 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.600 same year as counter Strike zero, so that's a little confusing, 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.440 especially since Counterstrike zero was still based off the old 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:10.040 Gold Source engine and counter Strike Source was obviously based 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:12.880 off the Source game engine and had a lot of 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:16.280 visual upgrades compared to the original game. As for Half 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.960 Life Too, it was eagerly received by the gaming public. 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.479 The game had taken six years to complete and forty 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:27.760 million dollars to develop. In the game, you are once 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:32.000 again playing as the character Gordon Freeman, the silent protagonist. 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.400 You are a physicist who's out of his elements, so 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.960 to speak, and you're awakened by the government agent the 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:42.000 g Man from the end of the first Half Life game. Now, 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:45.360 this sequel assumes that at the end of Half Life 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.760 you accepted the G Man's offer to work for his organization, 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:52.960 because obviously if you did not accept that job, you 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:55.800 got teleported into an area filled with an endless stream 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.760 of enemies and you would eventually die. So you start 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.160 off the game as an lay of the G Man, 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.080 and you learn that there is an extra dimensional alien 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.720 called the Combine, and it is pretty much wrecked shop 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.839 and taken over everything. It's your job to free humanity 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.640 from the oppressive alien force. And like its predecessor, it 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.279 received critical and popular acclaim, It pulled in tons of 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:23.359 awards in the process and sold millions of copies, and 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:26.760 it would set up an expectation among gamers that would 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:31.000 plague the company up to and including the present day. 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:35.080 I am talking about the expectation for a Half Life three. 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:39.480 Spoiler alert that's part of the Valve story that doesn't 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:43.040 really have a resolution even as we speak, so don't 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:45.880 get your hopes up. I do not have any insider 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:50.000 information about a magical release of Half Life three, So 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:56.000 if that's what you're listening for, uh, I'm sorry. But 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.279 in two thousand five, Steam took its first big step 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:03.480 into becoming the powerhouse that is today, because that's when 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:08.080 Valve began to carry third party games on the Steam platform. 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.640 So if you've never used Steam or you aren't into 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:12.760 games at all, here's kind of how it shakes out. 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.400 Imagine you have an online store similar to something like Amazon, 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:21.320 only in this particular online store you're primarily buying games 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:27.160 or expansion packs or downloadable content stuff like that. You're 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.920 doing it digitally, so once you make the purchase, you 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:34.120 can download that data to your computer. Games you've purchased 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:37.640 remain attached to your Steam account. Now that means even 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.400 if you delete the game off of your machine, there's 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.280 still a record of your purchase and that exists on 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:45.640 your Steam account, which means that you can download the 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.240 game again at some future point if you have the 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:51.000 desire to do so. It also means that you can 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.840 download that same game to different computers using your Steam account. 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:56.960 You log into your Steam account and then you can 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:01.040 download it to that machine. Typically, there are imitations as 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.000 to how many instances of the same game can be 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.000 active at one time. So in other words, you might 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.760 have the same game on three different computers, but you 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.440 may only be able to run it on one computer 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.880 at a time. You can't just download the game endlessly 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.960 on different machines and therefore distribute one title to say 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:25.080 all of your friends. They thought about that ahead of time, 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.200 so it's convenient for gamers, but it also tries to 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:33.760 avoid abuse of the system. And also you need to 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.320 typically have an Internet connection to play a lot of 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.880 these games because of that DRM segment. It's checking back 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.760 in with the home server to make sure that, in fact, 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:47.400 you are playing the one and only allowable instance of 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.640 that game. Now, Valve makes money from these sales of 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.720 third party games. The company didn't make those games. They're 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.400 just acting as a store, virtual shelf for those games 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.840 to exist upon the actual details of how much money 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.120 Valve makes and whether it's the same across all games 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:09.120 studios remains a secret. However, a general rule in the 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:13.000 industry is that a platform like Steam takes a thirty 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.080 percent cut of all sales, with the rest of it 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.600 going to the game's publisher. So if you spend sixty 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.480 dollars on a game on Steam, Valve would take an 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.120 eighteen dollar cut of that. The other forty two dollars 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.080 would go to the publisher. As Steam has grown to 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:32.880 carry games from various publishers, it has earned Valve a 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.400 truly enormous sum of money every year. And how much 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:41.720 are we talking about? Well, and and sixteen Valve took 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:45.880 in about three and a half billion dollars from Steam 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.719 sales alone. Now, games Industry Biz points out that that 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:54.840 really means that the growth was flat in Steam sales 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:56.360 across the two years. It was three and a half 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:58.400 billion and twenty fifteen, three and a half billion and 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.440 twenty sixteen. But one, that's three and a half billion 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:05.280 dollars largely made by selling other people's stuff. That's not 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:09.320 bad now for those of you who want to impress 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:13.760 or perhaps disturb people with your knowledge of Steam based trivia. 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.720 The first two non Valve games to hit the virtual 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:24.360 market were rag Doll Kung Fu and Darwinia. Rag Doll 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.520 Kung Fu was the brainchild of Mark Keeley, who at 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.600 the time was working at Lionhead Studios, and it requires 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.880 players to control fighters who move kind of like marionettes, 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.640 like stretchy marionettes. You can grab parts of their body 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:40.960 and move them around and then make them engage in 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.679 fierce kung fu battles. It looks absolutely ridiculous. You can 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:49.120 find game footage online. Darwinia, however, was a tactical real 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.679 time strategy game in which you could would control these 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:56.640 artificially intelligent polygonal constructs against a malicious computer virus. So 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.400 think of like an RTS game, something like war Raft 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.720 or something along those lines, where you're controlling different units 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:07.079 and you're positioning them and making them attack enemies. It's 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.400 kind of like that, except it was all very tron 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:15.679 esque and that you're working with virtual constructs, not representations 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:20.200 of units. In two thousand five, Valve also released Half 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:24.080 Life two, Lost Coast as a tech demo and the 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:28.120 source version of Day of Defeat. The company also decided 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:32.280 to hire on six students from Digipin Institute of Technology. 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:37.000 The students had created a game called Narbacular Drop. Now. 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.440 In that game, the player had to navigate puzzles inside 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:44.319 of a dungeon using the ability to create magical gateways 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.120 or portals from one point to another. Placing those portals 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:51.120 in particular ways would allow players to cross big gaps 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:53.719 or avoid enemies and traps. You would put one in 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.160 the portal near you the other end of the portals, 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:58.760 say on the other side of a big gap. You 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.800 walk through your side, and you come out the other side. 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.800 The game impressed Valve so much that the company began 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:10.480 development on its own spin, using that same basic gameplay mechanic. 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.840 Now that game would eventually become portal and would impress 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.200 gamers when it launched a few years later. But before 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.280 we get to that, we still have two thousand six 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.400 to talk about. And that's when Valve released Half Life two, 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:28.240 Episode one, and here's where we get into some tricky territory. 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:31.520 Valve made the decision to take an episodic approach to 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:35.800 releasing a sequel to Half Life Too. Originally, they released 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.520 the game and called it Half Life to Aftermath. Because 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.280 Valve had not yet revealed that they were looking at 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:44.720 this from an episodic point of view, they wanted to 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:48.120 kind of test the waters. It was a success, so 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:53.720 they retroactively renamed it Half Life two Episode one, and 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:55.880 this was to be the first in a trilogy of 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.720 episodes that would follow the events that happened in Half 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.160 Life to The second episode would come out in two 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:07.080 thousand seven, and the third episode, well, we're still waiting 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:11.079 on Half Life two episode three. Half Life two Episode 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:13.600 two came out in two thousand seven, and ten years later, 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.880 episode three is nowhere to be seen. Back when episodes 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:19.160 one and two came out, Valve announced that their intent 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.400 was to release episodes between six and eight months apart 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:25.920 from each other, and in fact, there was even talk 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:28.360 of an episode four that would be developed by a 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.959 different game studio but then published by Valve under the 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:35.360 half Life two brand. But the only thing we've seen 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:38.600 of episode three over the last decade are some examples 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:41.480 of concept art, and there was a synopsis of what 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:45.079 the story was supposed to be. Now, within the gaming community, 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.840 there's been a lot of discussion about this, and discussion 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.439 is a kind word for what has been going on 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:55.160 for the last ten years. Some people think Valve made 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:59.920 a decision to drop episode three entirely and instead develop 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.120 up an all new Half Life three, a fully formed 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:05.440 sequel to Half Life two that would take whatever the 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:09.319 elements of Episode three and incorporated into a larger game 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:13.360 with a new game engine, new graphics, something along those lines. 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:18.000 Maybe they said Episode three was just getting too complicated, 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.000 too big to be an episodic game. It had to 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.160 be something more than that, or maybe there were other 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:28.040 problems during the development process. Valve has been infamously quiet 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.760 about the whole thing, to the point that employees get 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.520 visibly irritated when asked about it. There's been no official 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:38.400 confirmation from Valve that the series is over, which leaves 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:40.720 fans somewhat in the lurch as they wonder if they'll 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.960 ever see another entry. In fact, Half Like three has 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:48.280 now supplanted Duke knewkeambe Forever as the poster child for vaporware, 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.040 since Duke Nukem Forever finally came out in two thousand 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.840 eleven after years of being in development. And if you 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.480 don't know what vapor ware is, vaporware is when a 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:01.480 company announces a product and the product never seems to 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:05.160 come out. There are tons of different examples, and in fact, 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.040 if you search through the Tech Stuff archives, you will 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.480 find that we've done full episodes about the concept of 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.400 vaporware and given lots of different examples of it throughout 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.680 the years. Now I'm gonna get back to the timeline 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:19.960 for Valve in a second, but figured this is as 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.120 good a place as any to wrap up the half 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.840 life part of the history, because there's no resolution to this. 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:30.360 It's still ongoing, it's still nebulous, and it's better to 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.840 go ahead and rip off the band aid here than 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.440 just prolonged it throughout the rest of the episode. In 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:39.800 Mark laid Law, who you'll remember, was an author who 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:43.560 joined Valve back in its earliest days and helped define 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:48.120 valves approach to gamemaking as being very story centric. He 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.720 left the company left the company in twenty six. Perhaps 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:53.680 at that point he had come to the conclusion that 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:57.400 Valve had no more need for storytellers, as maybe there 0:15:57.400 --> 0:15:59.720 were no plans to develop any games that were revolve 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:04.280 around the cohesive story. Well, whatever his reasons were, he left, 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.040 and he also wrote a piece called Epistle three in 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.040 the voice of Gordon Freeman himself, which is a bit 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.720 ironic since Gordon never actually spoke in the games, but 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:16.680 it was from his point of view, and in that 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.440 letter laid Law gave out information about what the plot 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.360 of Episode three was supposed to be. I'm not going 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.320 to go into detail about that here because some of 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:28.680 you might still want to read it for yourselves, or 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.520 maybe you're holding out hope that at some point, in 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.960 some form this game will finally emerge in those story 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.960 points will be incorporated into it. But it does exist 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.520 online if you want to find it. It's called Epistle 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.200 three and it's from Mark laid Law. Now, when we 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:46.040 come back, we'll jump in Devolves timeline and talk about 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.160 some of the other big events that have shaped the 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.880 company and how it found itself moving away from developing games, 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.280 or at least appeared to. But first, let's take a 0:16:55.360 --> 0:17:05.480 quick break and thank our sponsor. Back before I jumped 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:07.840 on the Half Life two and three, tangent I was 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:10.440 talking about the year two thousand and six. That year, 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.320 Valve began to add more content to Steam, so not 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:15.640 only could you purchase games and use it to get 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.600 the latest patches for your game library, you could also 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.400 visit Steam to get HD videos or you could get 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:25.080 demos of upcoming games. By the end of the year, 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:28.399 Steam carried about one games, and it wasn't enough to 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.080 make Brick and mortar stores nervous, but it was starting 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:36.040 to build some serious momentum. In two thousand seven, Valve 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.560 released a collection of games under the title The Orange Box. 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:42.840 The collection included Half Life two and Half Life two 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.080 Episode one, both of which had already been published, but 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.399 it also included Half Life two Episode two, Portal, and 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:53.400 the game Gabe Newell had announced after the first Half 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:57.280 Life went gold so many years before Team Fortress Too. 0:17:57.720 --> 0:17:59.880 We've already talked about Half Life two, so let's talk 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.119 a little bit about these other games. Portal, as I 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:05.720 mentioned earlier, was created by the team that built the 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.880 similar dungeon puzzle game called an Arbocular Drop, and as 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.119 I mentioned, in that game, you could create gateways that 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.520 linked to different points in space. Together, passed through one gateway, 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.080 you emerge out of the other. The same game mechanic 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:21.120 exists in Portal. One interesting aspect of this gameplay mechanic 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:24.199 is that the laws of motion remain in effect with 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.000 the portals. So if you were to open up one 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.919 portal on the ceiling and a second on the floor 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:34.520 directly underneath the first portal, dropping something into the floor 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.480 portal will cause it to fall through the top. One 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:40.240 all the way down into the bottom one, again through 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:42.800 the top one, and it will continue this until it 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:45.919 reaches terminal velocity, until it falls as fast as it 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:49.119 can possibly go. Then you can open up a portal 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.479 on a wall, closing the one that's on the ceiling, 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:55.720 and the falling object will shoot out of that at 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.199 the same velocity it was falling earlier, except now it's 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:00.840 going to go in a different direction. So if you 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:04.320 switch it to go from a vertical alignment to horizontal, 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:08.440 it will suddenly shoot out across the game area. Sometimes 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:11.720 this object might end up being the player character herself, 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.480 so you could use it to get across particularly tricky 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:19.320 areas of the game. In the game Portal, you're playing 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:22.880 as a test subject, a woman attempting to escape from 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:26.960 Aperture Science Labs. Now that's an organization that exists in 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.720 the same universe as Black Mesub, the fictional research facility 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:35.159 in the Half Life franchise, there's an artificially intelligent construct 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:39.760 called Gladows, and GLaDOS claims to be testing your ability 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.800 to navigate puzzles, but simultaneously is hurling lots of passive 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:48.280 aggressive insults your way. She's a jerk. The game received 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.119 critical acclaim for its novel approach to problem solving and 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:55.000 the versatility of the portal gimmick. The game also featured 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:58.439 one of the greatest songs in video game history, in 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:02.320 my opinion, it's a sa called Still Alive, and in 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:04.960 the game it's sung by Gladows. It was a song 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.520 that was written by Jonathan Colton, who made a name 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.480 for himself by releasing his music online independently and writing 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:14.240 lots of geeky, nerdy songs. So if you're not familiar 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.000 with him, go check him out. Jonathan Colton. He's really great. 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:19.479 His earlier stuff tends to be a little bit more nerdy, 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.480 and his later stuff a little bit more melancholic kind 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:28.719 of uh, exploring the existential crises of the average person 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:31.600 in there the middle of their lives, that sort of stuff. 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.119 But all of it's great now. The other game I 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.480 mentioned Team Fortress too. That one had been announced way 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:40.920 back in n game. Newell said that was the next 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:43.280 game they were gonna work on after Half Life went Gold, 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.480 but then it seemed to kind of disappear into vapor. 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.240 Around two thousand was the last time the company had 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.439 ever publicly acknowledged the fact that Team Fortress Too was 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.720 in development, they just stopped talking about it after two thousand. 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:58.760 At that time, the word was developers were working to 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.399 adapt it to the new Source engine and that that 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.359 was slowing things down. The game that came out was 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:09.560 dramatically different from the original Team Fortress, which in itself 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:13.040 was a mod of the game Quake. The original Team 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:17.560 Fortress was a serious team based, competitive multiplayer game that 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.560 had vehicles in it. It had realistic violence, and strategic 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:24.720 elements like air drops were part of the game. That 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:27.560 all changed with Team Fortress Too. Valves said that while 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:29.840 it was working on Team Fortress, who had actually developed 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:35.000 three or four different style games almost to completion, and 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:38.040 there was a chance that any one of them could 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:42.159 have become the actual Team Fortress Too. But eventually Valve 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.560 decided that, for some reason or another, each of those 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.600 didn't work, and the one that did come out was 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:54.359 again very different from its predecessor. So some of the 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:57.760 ideas that didn't make it into Team Fortress Too included 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:00.600 setting it in the same universe as Half Life, something 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:03.560 that val has done a lot of, or allowing for 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:07.920 non player characters to appear in multiplayer matches. However, the 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:10.080 Team Fortress two game that did come out would just 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:12.919 feature a lot more not just that's unfair, but it 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:17.440 would feature more cartoonish and comedic characters and art styles, 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:21.600 with players selecting from ultimately nine character classes to play 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.960 on a team, and they would play against other teams. 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.160 So you and your team made up of various players 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:31.639 playing different classes of characters, would be competing against a 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:36.560 similar team operated by different people, and game modes would 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:39.240 include stuff like a King of the Hill style control 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.240 point mode. There was Captured the Flag games, a very 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:46.879 classic kind of online game attack defend modes in which 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:49.280 one team would have to defend a position and the 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:51.520 other one has to try and take that position away. 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:56.440 The game became enormously popular and developed a peculiar reputation 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:01.560 involving hats. So the hats thing would come a little 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:03.320 bit later, but let's go ahead and cover it now 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:07.600 because I think it's an interesting part of what makes 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:11.439 Team Fortress Too special. It also is another example of 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:15.919 how Valve did something that today has become a widespread 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:21.000 tactic in games across multiple genres. So within Team Fortress 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:23.720 to players can customize the look of their characters to 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:27.639 some extent with various accessories such as hats. Now, some 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:30.200 of those accessories are just included in the basic form 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:34.040 of the game, but others are called unusuals, and you 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:39.720