I can understand the desire. I have played HL2 through to completion more times than I have bothered to count and I never tire of writing about how much I love it. In the years I’ve worked in this industry, only Gabe Newell’s awesome presence has reduced me to gibbering mid-interview. Needless to say, like the fans who signed that open letter, I will certainly play whatever instalment Valve issues next, whenever it emerges. But I also recognise that my desire has no impact, nor should have, on Valve’s PR policy, much less its development schedule - and it would be naive to think that the two are unrelated, as the open letter does.
That demand, like the DDOS attack on Minecraft because its developers weren’t seen to be working hard enough, like the one-star ratings for a great app that asks you to pay a dollar for a massive expansion pack, like the complaints that an erroneously low sale price should be reinstated because a few lucky people snapped up a game for a pittance, like the death threats to Ninja Theory for changing a character model… Like these things, that demand is part of an unseemly wail of self-righteousness issuing from the feed-me-more generation, unabashed by its over-consumption and tutored by the media in narcissism.
I was going to write a bit about how this is wrong, particularly in this case but that piece was already written here. A small excerpt is below.
“Egregious entitlement now, according to Mr Davies on Eurogamer is people asking nicely for not really very much at all? For a single line on the development of a game that ended on a cliffhanger where a number of years later, the fans are unsure as to whether the series will reach a conclusion?
And to deliver this message, they played Half Life 2 together. Lots of them. 13,236 people playing a game they loved to ask for a note on whether the series will be concluded…”
