I think it speak mlre aboub Gabe's ethics than whatever model of technical causality we want to impose on this.

And let's be realistic, this is going to sell an absolute crapload of HL2 to a whole new generation of gamers.

I don't think so. HL2 is an old game by now, way older than HL1 was when HL2 came out (6 years from HL1 to Hl2, 19 years from HL2 to now) and I just don't see it appealing to players unless they're going back to view older games.

They make 30% on almost every PC video game sale in the west. Even if they sell 10 million copies of HL2 tomorrow, it's only going to move their bottom-line marginally.

And that's ignoring the fact that HL2 is 90% off right now ($1) and they're giving away HL1 for free.

No. Valve just does whatever Valve wants.

> Gabe and company seem to have pretty decent values in line with their customers' interests

Sure just like lying about HL3 and making people die waiting for the end of story, LOL, LMAO even

Some people are to invested in fictional content.

That's hardly an excuse for leading on your fans and then ghosting them for decades.

I like Valve / Gabe / Steam, but let’s not be false and pretend that they weren’t coasting before the build-up to the Deck release. Steam had gone without significant updates for almost half a decade.

They released a massive overhaul a few months ago.

That's not true in the slightest. They too some risks* that didn't pay off but that's what happens when you do whatever you feel like.

* - big picture mode - steamlink - vr integration (somewhat successful)

They also did the Steam Controller (while the hardware was a failure, the software developed for it lives on in the Deck) and the Steam Link (the hardware there was more successful, but porting the software to smart TVs and streaming boxes and EoL’ing the hardware was the right move going forward).

Big picture mode was completely stagnant, until like stated, they started working on the Deck. The new Big Picture we have is nothing but a Steam Deck UI backport. Hell, for a while it would use Steam Deck’s screen ratio no matter what, meaning you’d get black bars on 16:9 screens.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great they’re finally pushing things again, but they were stagnant for a very long while. Ramming the downvote button in a blind panic doesn’t make that less true :)