Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead Writer Leaves Valve

Megalith

Megalith

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This follows Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw’s departure last year in January. Gee, I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Valve isn’t much of a game company anymore? Just sitting there and watching Gabe light up cigars with $100 bills gets old quick, I guess.

Erik Wolpaw, best known as one of the more prominent writers at Half-Life and Steam house Valve Software, is leaving the company, according to a tip received by Gamasutra that matches up with a Facebook post from Wolpaw and a Twitter post from fellow Valve expat Marc Laidlaw. It’s a notable departure for Valve. Wolpaw, who joined Valve in 2004, has credits including Half-Life 2: Episode One, Episode Two, Portal, both Left 4 Dead games and other highly-notable titles. Wolpaw’s resignation comes a little over a year after Laidlaw, also an influential Valve writer, revealed that he’d left the company. Laidlaw’s credits include many of the same games on Wolpaw’s resume.
 
Meh I use steam for my games obviously, digital distribution lol but I have not cared about an actual valve game since HL2 and L4D. Good riddance to them.
 
Episode 1/2 had stories, but they were fairly vague and simple. Portal and L4D didn't even have stories. Portal 2 had a bit of commentary but nothing special either. So it probably isn't much of a loss, but I can see you getting bored if you want to write. Especially since Valve is mainly about MP games as of late.
 
Flogger23m said:
Episode 1/2 had stories, but they were fairly vague and simple. Portal and L4D didn't even have stories. Portal 2 had a bit of commentary but nothing special either. So it probably isn't much of a loss, but I can see you getting bored if you want to write. Especially since Valve is mainly about MP games as of late.
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Portal 2 is easily in my top 10 games of all time.
 
Seriously, I can imagine this guy sitting at his desk all day writing item descriptions or something.

Can't be a particularly fulfilling job.
 
NeoNemesis said:
Seriously, I can imagine this guy sitting at his desk all day writing item descriptions or something.

Can't be a particularly fulfilling job.
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Epic item descriptions! Like in Lord of the rings shadows of mordoor. Every item has a voice...these are their stories :p
 
like everyone else said. I am not surprised as I don't know what anyone that is still employed by them is still working on.
 
deton8 said:
The questions is, what were guys like Wolpaw doing at Valve all this time?
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Well Laidlaw has a history of letting folks pay him to be bored and write stuff at work. So I'm guessing he did that. He appears to have spent the last year sorting out the rights to his original writing and republishing them via Amazon. Which is cool, as it meanss I could pick up a copy of dad's nuke via ebook.

His website says that he was writing for DOTA2 before he left. i could see how that would get awfully boring.
 
They have a cash generating machine. They could easily just start making games that don't profit, just for the hell of it. I probably would, but not tie them into any of their old series. Make new cheap games, just to see what sticks. Take what they learned to use on their old series. I don't see that happening though.
 
Nothing wrong with wanting to leave to write more and nothing wrong with wanting to make money.

Hopefully down the line valve gives the rights to the writer to continue the story. I want to know who the man in the suit is!
 
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