It interests me that it needs to be an "or".

A HL3 team could essentially function as an independent studio using the Steam platform, with some funding thrown from Valve. Assuming the ROI is positive what exactly is holding them back?

▲

wiseowise 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Assuming the ROI is positive what exactly is holding them back?

Absurd expectations.

▲

ekianjo 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Assuming the ROI is positive what exactly is holding them back?

The Google problem where every project that is not Search has a much worse ROI.

▲

jsheard 4 days ago | parent [-]

Yep, and that applies to Valve at two levels because Steam dwarfs the ROI of their games, and their forever-games like Counter Strike dwarf the ROI of any singleplayer game they'd ever be able to make. It's a miracle they even got Alyx out of the door, that was a special case since it was part of their larger VR initiative.

	▲	ekianjo 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		And Alyx was probably a huge failure, ROI wise, because nobody buys VR headsets. I know, not "nobody", but by far and large it has remained a super niche market.

▲

davidbanham 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That’s what they did for CS:GO, developed by Hidden Path.

▲

account42 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They did try that, Episode 4 was being developed by Arkane. Unfortunately 4 comes after 3 which never happened.

▲

Lanolderen 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

They want it to be good? Throwing it at a third party sounds like a good way to get a meh game and then have to release it since you've already spent X$ on it.