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    Half-Life

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    A celebrated series of award-winning FPS games which has consistently pushed the limits and expectations of the first-person shooter genre since its inception.

    Why is Valve cool with all the Greenlit fan Half-Life games?

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    BisonHero

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    Are none of them commercial products that will be sold for real money dollars? Are literally all of them free mods?

    And for that matter, why do mods have to go through Greenlight to be hosted on Steam? That seems weird.

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    sjupp

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    Just because it's using copyrighted material (or whatever, legal terms) doesn't mean it's punishable unless the company holding the rights are pursuing legal action. If they're fine with it, 's all dandy!

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    FengShuiGod

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    #3  Edited By FengShuiGod

    This could be part of Valves philosophy to make their games/engines more valuable by letting the community create content in a way not dissimilar from Steam Workshop stuff.

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    ModernAlkemie

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    Valve has various....extralegal measures...it prefers to pursue.

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    korwin

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    It's maintaining brand awareness and customer good will. It's not like Valve is loosing any money because of their existence, if anything they probably make more because the increased interest. Not all companies are complete dicks when it comes to fan works.

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    audioBusting

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    Plus more people are gonna be using Steam instead of Desura, so it is in their interest to host the mods.

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    crithon

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    I'm curious what mods are you referencing to?

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    49th

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    Steam is way into community stuff. It's free and they get good publicity and stuff. Community has made whole TF2 updates before, voted and steam greenlight ect

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    The_Ruiner

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    Because they've made a killing being the "cool uncle" of the game industry. And they're smart enough to recognize that.

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    Itwastuesday

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    I bet they were like "why not"

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    cornbredx

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    They are mods so Valve doesn't care.

    Interestingly, though, Black Mesa is going to now be a full fledged product apparently. That's what I hear anyway.

    So, I think it's down to how it benefits them. And it benefits them a lot so why not? It's for games that are old now anyway. Although they seem pretty cool with people making money through them in general.

    It's not hurting their business so why not?

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    super2j

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    Its because they are done with Half Life, I know its hard to accept but right now, HL is a dead series in the eyes of Valve.

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    e30bmw

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    #13 e30bmw  Online

    @super2j: I don't see what difference that makes.

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    FengShuiGod

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    @super2j said:

    Its because they are done with Half Life, I know its hard to accept but right now, HL is a dead series in the eyes of Valve.

    Why you do this to me

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    TheHumanDove

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    @super2j said:

    Its because they are done with Half Life, I know its hard to accept but right now, HL is a dead series in the eyes of Valve.

    And boom goes the dynamite.

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    MC_Hify

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    They are getting people used to other people making Half Life games so when they announce their plans to crowdsource Half Life 3 the idea will have already been introduced.

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    TobbRobb

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    They are never making another Half Life game of their own, so it's fine to let the community do their thing since it doesn't compete with anything in particular from valve.

    :D:D:D:D:D::D:D:D:D

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    TowerSixteen

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    #18  Edited By TowerSixteen

    Because if it's on Steam then Valve wins either way. It'd be like saying "Gee, weird that Burger King is okay with all these knock-off Whoppers they're selling, out of Burger Kings, with Burger King getting a cut of each one." And everyone continues to remember and think about Half-Life to boot.

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    PandaBear

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    #19  Edited By PandaBear

    Black Mesa is fan mod that will be sold on Steam. Win-win -- community love it, Valve get the money, the Half-Life brand stays relevant.

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    Kidavenger

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    Someone has to carry the torch, Valve certainly isn't.

    If someone wanted to build one of my brands and keep it relevant for me, I'd probably let them if they did a good job with it.

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    dancinginfernal

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    #21  Edited By dancinginfernal

    @crithon said:

    I'm curious what mods are you referencing to?

    I assume he's talking about the recent news of one of the first greenlit Half-Life 2 mods, Black Mesa, being given the opportunity by Valve to become a full retail product. The overwhelming majority seemed to think it is good news as the mod developers added that with the upgrade to retail game, they have switched to a new engine. Some have speculated this could be the long awaited Source 2, others think Valve has forced them to make their own engine with the leap to retail. This is all from a few vague words out of the developers mouth though, I don't believe Valve has said anything on the subject since the reveal, so at this point it's pure speculation.

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    lord_canti

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    i thought valve was fine with these things if they dont charge for it, but black masa announced that there charging money for the steam version of there game so i have no idea what there stance is.

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    Bollard

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    #23  Edited By Bollard

    Because they aren't going to make one so someone might as well. Also they make money off it anyway.

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    deactivated-5d056614f191a

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    @bisonhero said:

    Are none of them commercial products that will be sold for real money dollars? Are literally all of them free mods?

    And for that matter, why do mods have to go through Greenlight to be hosted on Steam? That seems weird.

    You cant charge for a mod that uses other peoples copyright.

    Valve love the modding scene. they used to have tons of mods on steam at some point but they changed up things to allow quality control.

    ----

    This has nothing to do with if Half Life is a dead series or not.

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    crithon

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    @dancinginfernal: huh, Black mesa been in development since 2005, just a super small team just doing the entire game on their own, and the mod is accessible there on Moddb.com. Well now with black mesa, there isn't really a proper press release of their own intentions, they probably should be compensated for their hard work getting this done for over 8 years of development. But greenlight ads another element of making this easier for mods to be as easy a press of a button, because putting anything onto Steam market place also is a difficult ordeal if your not involved with a publisher which is the same problem with Xbox live arcade.

    I guess we come to the basic problem when you become too big, even if they were founded by members who were modders.

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    GreggD

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    They're free. If they were charging for them, no way in hell.

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    Forcen

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    GreggD

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    @forcen said:
    @greggd said:

    They're free. If they were charging for them, no way in hell.

    Black mesa will be sold on Steam though, I'm sure Valve gets a cut.

    http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showthread.php?t=17088

    I know, but there seems to be a substantial difference between the kind of product each of these games are striving to be. Also, it probably helps the Black Mesa team that they're basically remaking the game that put Valve on the map.

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    LordAndrew

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    #29  Edited By LordAndrew

    Because Valve are not monsters like many other companies.

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    JoeyRavn

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    It's GabeN, man. Just accept his love and join us on the cool side of gaming!

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    GERALTITUDE

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    #31  Edited By GERALTITUDE

    Because Valve is cool.

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    Kung_Fu_Viking

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    #32  Edited By Kung_Fu_Viking

    Valve are not doing anything with it anyway.

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    TowerSixteen

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    Because Valve are not monsters like many other companies.

    Go on, try to sell a Half-Life game for money off of Steam and see how that works out for you. Not that that makes them monsters, but then again, I'm not of the school of thought that, if you take someone else's hard work, piggyback off it without their permission, and try to charge other people for it, than they're a monster if they stop you.

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