Game developer Valve Corporation has been having second thoughts about the development of its multiplayer zombie shooter game “Left 4 Dead 3” as well as its first-person shooter video game “Half Life 3.”
The reason is obvious. Valve Corporation and its owner Gabe Newell has made and continues to make a lot of money for its multiplayer video games like “Dota 2” “Countersrike” and other games on its Steam platform so rather than risk on a game which is not sure to bring in the money, they would rather stick to what they have at the moment.
However, it can be noted that “Left 4 Dead 3” just like “Dota 2” and “Counterstrike” and other games in the Steam platform are all multiplayer games. It is where the money in gaming these days, next to mobile gaming that is.
So the potential for the development of “Left 4 Dead 3” is actually higher than “Half Life 3” because the latter is only a single player game.
The richest man in gaming
According to a report by Latinos Post, Gabe Newell now has an estimated net worth of $1 billion and he is arguably the richest man in the video game industry.
He was able to achieve all those money with all the revenues of Valve’s Steam platform and of course its popular multiplayer games, particularly “Dota 2” which just had its international tournament over the weekend participated by many gamers from around the world.
The last two video games that Valve Corporation developed and released was “Portal 2” back in 2011 and “Dota 2” back in 2013. With the success of its Steam platform, reports have been going around as of late that the next step for the company is a Source 2 engine and virtual reality (VR) gaming.
There were reports previously that a development team of Valve has been working for a VR program for both “Left 4 Dead 3” and “Half Life 3.” If that is true, then Gabe Newell and Valve should not be worried at all whether the two games will bring money to them or not because with a technological breakthrough and a novel idea, those two games will surely be a hit among gamers.
That’s aside from the fact that both games already have a large fan base and the VR would surely add some more thousands or perhaps millions to the fold.
No more partner
The first two games of the “Left 4 Dead” franchise were developed through the collaboration of Valve Corporation and Turtle Rock Studios.
In February this year, Turtle Rock Studios decided to part ways with Valve, which caused some of the fan to think that the third installment of the “Left 4 Dead” franchise may have already been axed for good, notes the Vine Report.
But Valve has been very silent about the development of the game, although reports coming out states that the game would be using a Source 2 engine, which would make it faster and its graphics and visuals more detailed.
The “Left 4 Dead” franchise follows the story of sets of four survivors, who struggle to survive an outbreak of an unknown virus that causes mutations and violent behaviour among infected humans. “Left 4 Dead” was released in 2008 while the sequel was rolled out just one year later.
There have been reports previously Valve Corporation has been working on “Left 4 Dead 3” for quite some time now using the Source 2 engine.
Accordingly, because Source 2 is more powerful than its predecessor, it is expected that “Left 4 Dead 3” will be faster and will have more detailed graphics due to the presence of the Vulcan Graphics AP in the Source 2 engine.
As early as 2012, Valve has been working on the development of a Source 2 engine in an attempt to replace the outdated content authoring tools for Source. But it was only in August last year when Valve announced the release of the alpha of “Dota 2” Workshop Tools ported to a new engine.