Portal writer Erik Wolpaw wants to start on Portal 3 before he's too old
Wolpaw wants to avoid reaching a point where they're too old to work on Portal 3.
In an interview with the Kiwi Talkz podcast, and as reported by outlets like VGC, Portal writer Erik Wolpaw expresses an interest in working on a third installment in the series sooner, rather than later. Specifically, Wolpaw notes that he’s not getting any younger and that it’s getting to a point where he’s concerned about being too old to work on Portal 3.
As exciting as the idea of Portal 3 is in and of itself, the task of getting a new Portal game off the ground at Valve wouldn’t be the easiest task in the world, unfortunately, which is something that Wolpaw himself points out in the interview. Wolpaw also states that he doesn’t have the sort of leverage at Valve needed to get the ball rolling on the project either.
Even though it may seem as though Valve could start working on Portal 3 at any moment, Wolpaw explained that everyone at the company is currently hard at work on various projects, so pulling them over to the development of Portal 3 would be tricky, to say the least.
With all that in mind, it’s interesting that Valve hasn’t dipped its toes into the waters of Portal 3 yet given it’d likely be a profitable title. Wolpaw agreed with the host when this was pointed out, though the issue then switches over to just how profitable Portal 3 would end up being, and how it’d compare to the sort of money made by games like Counter-Strike: GO.
Listening to the rest of the interview, it’s clear there’s an interest in developing Portal 3, at least from writers like Wolpaw. Not only this but there’s almost certainly a decent amount of fan interest as well given the last Portal game came out over a decade ago.
With this in mind, it’ll be interesting to see what comes of Wolpaw’s interest in working on a third Portal game, and with the mention of Valve working on a variety of projects at the moment, it’ll also be interesting to see what sort of games come out before we hear about anything pertaining to the development of Portal 3.
For more on Wolpaw’s thoughts on Portal 3 and other matters, including insight into the development of Portal 2, be sure to watch the full interview from Kiwi Talkz. And for more on what else Valve is up to, be sure to read about how Steam Deck drivers for Windows 10 were recently made available.
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Morgan Shaver posted a new article, Portal writer Erik Wolpaw wants to start on Portal 3 before he's too old
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Let's be honest, Valve is a video game platform company. Steam, VR and now Steamdeck. Even if they've randomly abandoned VR (which I suspect they have), they probably have their hands full with the other two.
I mean, they apparently have under 400 employees. Just maintaining steam must require a large chunk of that. -
My take is: you can make some interesting decisions when you're not concerned about running out of money.
Many game developers have to balance idealism with realism when it comes to delivering games. You'd like to take your time and get the code right but if you can't get the game out the door before the money runs out then you're out of business. Several developers have run into this, or in some cases ran out of money due to other reasons. So it's a legit thing to be concerned with.
And one of the things that bites developers in the ass is making a game with technology when the technology isn't ready/finished yet.
But Valve has a faucet of money constantly coming in so they don't have that issue and they can do what they want. So they spent like 2012-2016 working on getting Source 2 ready to go, then they spent 2016-2020 working on HL: Alyx. Right now they're probably working on new games, maybe even more entries in their tentpole franchises. They shit out a quickie game just the other day to show off the Steam Deck.
Of course, in the eight years or so they worked on S2/HLA, any clout they had as an engine developer, if they cared about that, was effectively gone - Unreal and Unity basically rule the roost there. Projects like Black Mesa that used Source found it was difficult to find anyone who knew Source any more. Companies like The Chinese Room got fucked by Valve's bizarre licensing and use of Havok.
And if the net result of all of that was Valve has an excellent in-house engine to work with that no one else cases about, that's not the worst thing or anything. id Tech 7 is incredible and only Zenimax-owned developers ever get to use it, and most of them don't want to (now that I type that out I'm curious what the Microsoft acquisition does there)
I'm willing to give Valve the chance to knock my socks off with games (other than Alyx since I can't play that) but the other issue is it's not like Valve was known for being prompt before.
So, whatever, the fucking closing credits of Aperture Desk Job made me miss Valve the game developer but maybe they'll get back on that.
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They can but they have to rally the staff to do so. There is also a stack ranking system as done by peer review, part of which is based in ROI. The outcome is that games have a very hard time getting made.
From the outside it feels like Artifact got out the door because starting work was by a very very small team working on a card game prototype which could then be built upon with art and programming, with the promise of bonuses through recurring income via card packs and secondary sales on the marketplace.
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