There are how many? 110 characters? So if you have a problem that involves wanting to work on the aspect of having lots and lots of strongly realized characteristics, then Dota 2 is the right place to do it. "So like Dota 2 is an incredibly character-rich. you just want to pick up the right tool at the right time," he said. "If you think of it as each one of our franchises represents a tool. Valve recently revisited Portal's Aperture Science to show off its new virtual reality tech: SteamVR, Vive and Lighthouse. Referring to Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead and Half-Life, Newell said, "You know, we love all those games, we love all those characters and universes and story lines and we have no shortage of opportunities." But Newell said the company wants to be strategic in how it develops technologies in tandem with its game properties. Keighley asked if Valve would ever go back to making games like it used to and revisit its older franchises. The whole episode is worth a listen if you want to learn more about Valve's strategy, but it was Newell's comments on how Valve is currently thinking about making games that stood out.Īt about 38 minutes into the podcast, Keighley asked Newell about previous comments he made regarding "single-player plus" games - features for single-player games that "recognize the socially connected gamer" - and making free-to-play games versus more traditional $60 boxed products, like Half-Life 2. In a podcast posted by Geoff Keighley (currently a one-off episode called GameSlice), Newell and Valve business development lead Erik Johnson talk about the company's ventures into virtual reality, Source 2, Steam Machines and more. Valve, Newell said, has evolved in the way it makes and ships games, and players should expect future games to reflect that evolution. Just don't expect the developer to necessarily make games like it used to 10 or 15 years ago. Valve co-founder Gabe Newell gets it he knows that fans of the company's games want to see another Half-Life or Left 4 Dead or Team Fortress game.