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In an interview with New Zealand's 1 News, Valve head honcho Gabe Newell said that his company is still very much in the business of developing games. Though he refused to talk specifically about Citadel or Half-Life 3, Newell did give some good news to fans that are interested in Valve's game offerings.
He says that Valve "definitely have games in development that we're going to be announcing." Continuing on he says that it's "fun to ship games."
"Alyx was great. To be back doing singleplayer games, that created a lot of momentum inside the company to do more of that."
"All I know is that there are a lot of very happy gamers in the PC space, which are the ones that are most visible to us. There are aspects of the game that are just brilliant, and it shows a tremendous amount of work. It's unfair to throw stones at any other developer, because just getting something as complex and ambitious as that out the door is pretty amazing. The PC version that I played, I had a lot of fun playing."
"You don't want to uproot a bunch of families, have them come here, and then the situation gets a bunch better and then they have to turn around and go back. So that's why getting a better handle on how long the epidemic is going to be affecting our operational decisions is important to that.
"But there's strong interest — after talking to these people who've literally been locked in their houses except to go out for groceries for the last nine months — and I'm like, 'Oh look, here I am at a motorsports race, or here I am at Starship, at the hospital talking to doctors or reviewing optic nerve damage from Covid-19 patients because of my interest in neuroscience,' and they're like, 'Yeah, I'm still at home — can we come to New Zealand now?'"
"But there's strong interest — after talking to these people who've literally been locked in their houses except to go out for groceries for the last nine months — and I'm like, 'Oh look, here I am at a motorsports race, or here I am at Starship, at the hospital talking to doctors or reviewing optic nerve damage from Covid-19 patients because of my interest in neuroscience,' and they're like, 'Yeah, I'm still at home — can we come to New Zealand now?'"
The International 2020 was due to take place in Stockholm, but was also cancelled — now Gabe says New Zealand could be a good venue for both.
"It's a realistic possibility and it gets more realistic all the time," Newell said.
"I literally could not, if I had to guess when it would be safe to do an in-person tournament anywhere [else] in the world, it would be very hard for me to say that — whereas I think, with a lot of confidence, we'd be able to plan for that in New Zealand.
"Hopefully the procedures can be put in place so that becomes feasible — like, you know, this is what the quarantine would look like.
"As long as Covid keeps mutating, it certainly is increasing the likelihood that we'll be having events here."
"It's a realistic possibility and it gets more realistic all the time," Newell said.
"I literally could not, if I had to guess when it would be safe to do an in-person tournament anywhere [else] in the world, it would be very hard for me to say that — whereas I think, with a lot of confidence, we'd be able to plan for that in New Zealand.
"Hopefully the procedures can be put in place so that becomes feasible — like, you know, this is what the quarantine would look like.
"As long as Covid keeps mutating, it certainly is increasing the likelihood that we'll be having events here."
