They wouldn’t operate this way if they didn’t have Steam. These days it’s just a bunch of people taking care of a money printing machine. They get bored and try other stuff sometimes. The problem is that this other stuff won’t make anywhere near what Steam does. The only real work at Valve these days is ensuring they have plan B for when Windows becomes less viable as a platform for them.
That’s not that long in the grand scheme of things. It’s been almost 20 years now since Steam was opened to third parties. Valve stopped most of the game development once Steam got into dominant position.
Valve never stopped game development. They just haven’t released any new games in a long time unless you counter Counter-Strike 2 as a “new” game or don’t consider any maintenance, changes, additions, or other continued support as part of development.
They wouldn’t operate this way if they didn’t have Steam. These days it’s just a bunch of people taking care of a money printing machine. They get bored and try other stuff sometimes. The problem is that this other stuff won’t make anywhere near what Steam does. The only real work at Valve these days is ensuring they have plan B for when Windows becomes less viable as a platform for them.
They have been operating that way before they even made Steam.
That’s not that long in the grand scheme of things. It’s been almost 20 years now since Steam was opened to third parties. Valve stopped most of the game development once Steam got into dominant position.
Half-Life Alyx was fairly recent