Kotaku - Gabe Newell has a problem.
The outspoken co-founder of Valve can't seem to get enough of one of his company's upcoming games. He's so into DOTA 2 that he temporarily moved his office to be closer to the team making it. In a recent interview with Kotaku he said that he's logged some serious, serious hours playing the action strategy game.
Valve gave a user Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for free as compensation for the long wait during their Steam Deck repair.
I had a similar experience when I initially pre-ordered my Deck. There was an issue during shipping and they offered me a customer service perk for the hassle and let me pick any game on Steam. It was super nice of them. I got a copy of Rime.
There have been plenty of comparisons online between the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch 2, but does Valve really need to compete?
Steamdeck plays Switch games better than the switch hardware.
I see no reason why this won't continue with the successors. Switch will sell more, sure. But those who game on PC always come out ahead both in enjoyment and value for their money.
you think a Steam Deck is going to emulate a Steam 2 when it's arguably more powerful than it?
Interesting..
We're going to have to wait and see. Currently, there's no technology that would allow a Steam Deck 2 to achieve a performance leap over the Steam Deck 1 similar to what the Switch 2 offers over the Switch 1, without sacrificing the device's portability.
We'll either need AMD to seriously improve the efficiency of their cores, so we can get something with the rasterization power of a Radeon 8060S but without the power consumption of an Xbox Series S, or Valve would have to invest heavily in a translation layer for ARM. Neither of these paths is easy to achieve, so we probably shouldn't expect a Steam Deck 2 for at least a 3 or 4 more years.
Considering that other companies have shat out multiple PC handhelds already while Valve hasn't even mentioned a successor tells me they aren't looking to compete with anyone. They went for a console experience and that includes holding off on new hardware til there's a generational leap.
None of those other companies can realistically compete with Valve either. Valve can sell the hardware for a minimal gain and still know they are for the most part, just having every user still use Steam.
Every other handheld has to make its profit entirely on the hardware, which is why most of them went for an even more PC enthusiast market/price point
That is the one point where Nintendo does compete with Valve, or Sony with their rumored handheld or even more so MS, if they release a first party handheld (with a decent version of handheld windows)
What many people don't get is that most of Steam Deck users have a high-end or at least a good enough PC alongside the Steam Deck. Yes, we like better graphics and higher refresh rates and we get them in our PC, we are not relying on the Steam Deck for them. We use the Deck for other reasons and in other eventualities, where we are willing to compromise on all these things, because we still get to enjoy them when we can/feel like it in the PC. Thus, a direct comparison with a sole device like the Switch is misplaced. Of course you need the Switch 2 to be strong if there is no stronger alternative to play your games in. By the way I got a Switch on day 1 and I loved it, it's just that I'm not really playing it anymore.
CS2 has brought new graphics, mechanics, and has become the new standard for esports competition. Learn about updates, pro strategies, and the future of Counter-Strike 2.
Steve "Guinsoo" Feak was from what i can gather the first person to mod Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne map and make Dota All Stars.
Steve left to go work for Riot Games and make League of Legends but upon leaving left all the Dota stuff to Icefrog
Icefrog became the owner/caretaker of Dota and then Icefrog got hired by Valve.
unlike Blizzard Valve went and Trademarked the rights to the Dota name. DoTa2 will not have anything in it trademarked by Blizzard or WarcraftIII but will have the old characters in it from Dota.
Eul was the first person to "create" Defense of the Ancient. He released the RoC(Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos) version of Defense of the Ancient in 2003.
Steve "Guinsoo" Feak took Defense of the Ancients to DotA Allstars after Eul stopped developing it and formed a version with more coding.
Icefrog took over when Guinsoo faded away from the DotA Allstars updating - Creating DotA, not DotA Allstars or Defense of the Ancents, but DotA.
Icefrog himself took DotA from a mediocre mod to a hugely successfull competitive scene. The reason for DotA becoming so huge and the release of Heroes of Newerth & League of Legends is due to Icefrogs capability of creating a competitive game with focus on balance and teamplay.
Yes, Valve is in every right to create a DotA sequel, as they have hired the man who was in charge of bringing DotA from the lurking depths of Battle.net to platforms outside the game, such as Garena & Dotalicious (amongst many) with million of players on each.
Valve has trademarked Dota2 & Dota3 to protect their games. Another known DotA kid called "Pendragon" who hosted the well known DotA site, dota-allstars, filed for trademark on DotA. Blizzard has the trademark "Blizzard DOTA" and that's how the cookie crumbles.
Valve with Icefrog has 100% right to create a sequel and the player who possesses the Icefrog card, has the winning hand.
Valve haven't made an original game since Half-Life. Every other game is a mod they've bought, along with the modding team to develop in house.
This is how Valve operate. Nothing new.
Obsidian make practically nothing but sequels to established franchises.
Didn't valve already make sequels for games they didn't make the originals for? CS Source and DoD Source come to mind.