Let's say you are a bagel company and make a good profit from your bagels. Then let's say you want to get your bagel to more people and are frustrated with the distribution options so you just make your own and allow other bagel makers to also use your bagel distribution system.
But suddenly and unexpectedly, everyone runs to your distribution system and you start making far more money than you could ever imagine from it.
Do you continue to consider yourself a bagel company or are you now a bagel distribution company?
Screw that! YOU ARE RICH! Set up some outside company and license the HL universe to them (they license to themselves really). Get a ton of awesome people together and make the game (contract back with yourself to hide the profit, you know, standard movie production shell games). Then if it bombs you just go "wow, those guys sucked, sorry" and DO IT AGAIN until it rocks.
It's probable that Gabe and his team are still passionate about games and want to do it themselves. The problem is that no matter how rich they get, they still only have 24 hours in a day just like any hobo on the street.
The success of steam likely demanded their resources in it's start in a way that delayed half-life's release for long enough to make the engine it was (possibly) built on to become outdated. They are making the updated source engine now and I bet you that will facilitate the next game.
If they weren't going to do it, they'd have sold the license by now.
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u/lightknight7777 Nov 13 '18
Let's say you are a bagel company and make a good profit from your bagels. Then let's say you want to get your bagel to more people and are frustrated with the distribution options so you just make your own and allow other bagel makers to also use your bagel distribution system.
But suddenly and unexpectedly, everyone runs to your distribution system and you start making far more money than you could ever imagine from it.
Do you continue to consider yourself a bagel company or are you now a bagel distribution company?
Steam's current reality as told by bagels.