Tag Archives: Valve

Train2Game News: Steam Greenlights concepts

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Valve has introduced a new area to Greenlight where developers can upload concepts and get feedback from the public.

Concepts are free to post for feedback but won’t be distributed. The idea is to get opinions from the community. Examples of concepts already uploaded are Portal expansion Afterword, Elevator Engineer, Savegame Explorer, first/third-person logic shooter B.R.I.S.k, Vertex Wars and more.

This is a good place to see how a game idea would do out on the market which can be invaluable information. It can stop you working on a part of a game that might not be so popular with the paying public, giving you more time to concentrate on another part that is popular.

In addition Steam now allows software to be submitted to Greenlight. It follows the same rules as games do on Greenlight. That is, there’s a submission fee ($100) and the community votes whether they want to see the app/software released on Steam.

Steam Greenlight has been generally updated to show friends’ favourites and recent news on the home page, plus some other minor extras.

To date, thirty games have been ‘greenlit’ by Steam including the Half-Life mod Black Mesa and Project Zomboid. The only game to have been released from the service so far is McPixel.

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up

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Five months since its release, Minecraft on the Xbox 360 is still selling 27,000 units daily. That’s an estimated 4 million copies sold, further solidifying the games legacy.

Valve’s Steam distribution service now sells software as well as games. The software is for games development. The products currently available on the store are ArtRage Studio Pro, CameraBag 2, GameMaker: Studio, 3D-Coat, 3DMark Vantage, 3DMark 11 and of course, Source Film-maker.

Halo 4 won’t be getting Kinect controls, says 343 Industries’ Frank O’Connor. His opinion is that while the motion sensor has its uses when it comes to the UI, controlling a core game is not what it’s for. Kinect will be used for Halo Waypoint however, which can be launched from in the game.

Reportedly, Arkane studios’ Dishonored will take over twenty hours to complete playing stealthily with killing no one. A brutal play through, killing anyone in your path, will take between 12 to 14 hours but that’s without exploring every nook and cranny, and knowing the solution to everything beforehand. It should take more thorough or inexperienced players longer than that.

PlayStation Europe is offering a month long internship to who ever can make the best game on LittleBigPlanet for the PS Vita. The best submission, as voted by a PlayStation judging panel, will be rewarded with a month-long internship at Swedish studio Tarsier. Games will be judged on gameplay, originality, and commercial appeal. The winner will eventually help work on official DLC for the game. To register an interest, go here.

A new mod has been developed for Crysis. The mod, StarCry, sees many different hit sci-fi shows making their way into the new user made campaign for the game. Franchises such as Stargate SG1 and Star Wars are featured in the mod.

Chasing Aurora developer, Martin Pichlmair, says that Nintendo is working hard to make the Wii U eShop friendly and open for independent developers. This opens up a whole new market with a new innovative console to work with.

World of Tanks official site, Wargaming.net, say that registration numbers have passed the 40 million mark. Players have been pouring into servers to check out the big 8.0 update, which overhauled WoT’s visuals and added proper physics. World of Tanks is one of the biggest free to play games in the world.

Cliff Bleszinski has announced he is leaving Epic. After two decades with the company he is moving on to expand his career. Whilst with the company he was responsible for games such as Jazzy Jackrabbit and the highly acclaimed Gears Of War series.

Bad Piggies, the Angry Birds spin-off from Rovio, shot to the top spot on the US iTunes App Store within three hours of launch. The firm said the game was the fastest chart-topper in the company’s history. The game is the third from the Finnish studio this year to hit the top spot within it’s first day of release. The other titles were Amazing Alex and of course, Angry Birds Space.

Train2Game News: Mid-week Round up of game news

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This will be a mid-week round up of all the biggest news in the gaming industry. Depending on the reaction it gets this may become a weekly post.

Gearbox’s Borderlands 2 comes out next week and in the lead up to that they have released the skill trees for the different classes available in the game. This is a good chance to see how the characters are going to play out through the game.

Valve has released a list of the first ten games being released through Steams Greenlight initiative. Some of the games on the list are Black Mesa the Half-Life mod and Project Zomboid. A full list of the Greenlight approved games can be found here.

The Wii U is having its release date and recommended retail price announced tomorrow. At 8am Nintendo will announce in a special webcast on the official Nintendo Direct Page. The release date is rumoured for UK release date early December with a possible price of £190.

Double Fine studios have accidentally released there first mobile title ahead of schedule. Thanks to some quick thinking from lead designer Kee Chi and the team behind the studios first mobile exclusive, the release turned into an unplanned beta.

Sony is ready to display a new virtual reality headset at the Tokyo Game Show. This follows the news of the Occulus Rift kickstarter and Valves augmented reality headset plans being released. The Sony headset will have a full 360 degree experience with head tracking and a live camera.

The last and possibly biggest bit of news is that this Friday the Train2Game world record attempt sponsored by Microsoft begins. The 48 hour event will see students creating games in the time they have using Windows 8. It is always fun and is always a great learning experience.

Train2Game News: Valve looking to create virtual reality glasses

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A New York Times interview reveals the hardware Valve has been working on is not a console but virtual reality glasses.

Last week it came to light that Valve were working on hardware for the games industry. Some speculated that they were heading into the console market with a device similar to that of OnLive. Valve addressed the rumours by saying they were more interested in computer input devices instead.

In an interview this morning with Nick Wingfield at The New York Times, Valve revealed its plans for the virtual reality glasses. They were quick to point out that the glasses, or games using the hardware, wouldn’t be hitting the market any time soon.

Valve’s Michael Abrash said “credible augmented-reality games could be three to five years away, though… virtual reality glasses would arrive sooner.”

Valve also expressed an interest in sharing what they have learned with other manufacturers whilst working toward the VR glasses. Valve may not be the one to release them but they certainly want to help move things forward.

The fact that they want to help other companies to develop the glasses shows that they just want to see the games industry move forward to bigger and better things.

It is still not confirmed whether the glasses will work on their own or need a computer to run.

This is a very exciting prospect and will open up games developers to a whole new world of ideas and possibilities.

Train2Game News: Games distributor Steam blows away Greenlight clutter

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Valve is introducing a cost to post games on to its new Greenlight initiative. Valve will donate all money made this way to the charity Child’s Play.

Greenlight is a service for indie developers to upload there games and the Steam community chooses which game they want to see released on the digital distribution service. Child’s Play is a children’s charity created to help young people in hospital, by providing them with games and toys.

Valve has had to implement this fee to dissuade pranksters uploading fake and unapproved games. There have been phoney write ups uploaded to Greenlight and there was controversy yesterday when Steam had to take down a sex game submitted by an amateur developer.

Greenlight went live a few days ago and already 700 titles have been uploaded, making it very difficult to find any hidden gems amongst the fake titles.

Valve said “There is unfortunately a significant amount of noise and clutter being submitted, either as a joke or by fans not fully understanding the purpose of Greenlight,”

“The proceeds will be donated to Child’s Play. We have no interest in making money from this, but we do need to cut down the noise in the system.”

There are mixed feelings to charging for this service. Some believe it defeats the idea of Greenlight but others believe it’s a necessary charge to clean up the service making it easier to find games submitted by serious developers and students.

With the implementation of the fee, which is under £65, it has deterred many of the pranksters.

Train2game News: Valve opens up to hardware in boost for games industry

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Valve LogoVALVE is looking for more staff to work on something which could confirm rumours about them moving into computer hardware.

It emerged today that speculation about Valve starting to create hardware appears to be true following adverts for staff on there site. Valve, which makes games such as Half-Life, certainly are no strangers to experimenting with new ventures.

This attitude has led to them creating highly inventive games such as Portal, the versatile Source Engine and the online game platform Steam.

Valve has always been about making things better in the gaming world, whether it’s for gamers or games developers, veteran and student alike. They have always encouraged modding for budding games developers and often employ talented, promising students. Now it seems they want to take it further with creating new hardware for PC, opening up more ideas for games developers.

Valve said: “Open platforms like the PC and Mac are important to us, as they enable us and our partners to have a robust and direct relationship with customers.

“We’re frustrated by the lack of innovation in the computer hardware space though”

“Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven’t really changed in any meaningful way over the years. There’s a real void in the marketplace, and opportunities to create compelling user experiences are being overlooked.”

What is being created still remains to be seen but there are rumours of a “Steam Box” which could be some sort of console. However, from what Valve says about input methods it sounds like they are looking in to peripherals for PCs.

This is one to watch to see how it develops.

Train2Game News: Valve on free-to-play – “It’s making a new, different thing for talented folks to explore”

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Free-to-play is as good thing for game developers and consumers, because it allows both to try out a wider variety of things. That’s the view of Valve Director of Business Development Jason Holtman

“The neat thing about our industry now is you’re going to have all of those things happen and customers will have, not choices among them as if, like, I’m a free-to-play player and therefore I don’t play games like Counter-Strike and Skyrim and Minecraft. That’s not true.” he told Eurogamer in an interview at Develop Conference 2012.

“Everybody plays all of those. People play their RPGs. They play social games. They play F2P games. That’s what’s exciting about it. They don’t have to replace each other. It’s making a new, different thing for talented folks to explore.” Holtman added.

The huge interview is definitely worth reading, giving readers a massive insight into the business behind Steam and life at Valve.  Read it over on Eurogamer.

There’s more on the growing trend of free-to-play here on The Train2Game Blog, while be sure to keep reading for the latest news from Valve.

What are your thoughts on free-to-play? Do you agree with Valve in it offers more avenues for exploration?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Valve releases Source Filmmaker

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Valve has introduced Source Filmmaker, the video creation tool they’ve used to make over 50 animated shorts including the nine Team Fortress 2 ‘Meet the’ class films.

It could be a fun way for those on the Train2Game Art & Animation or QA Tester course to practice their animation or editing skills. Those interested in a free beta invite can sign up via the Source Filmmaker website.

“The Source Filmmaker is the movie-making tool built and used by Valve to make movies inside the Source game engine.” reads the Source Filmmaker FAQ.

“It is how we have been making all of our animated short movies. Because the Source Filmmaker uses the same assets as a Source-engine game, what goes into the game can be used in the movie, and vice versa.”

“By using the hardware rendering of a modern PC gaming machine, the SFM allows storytellers to work in a “what you see is what you get” environment so that they can iterate in the context of what it will feel like for the final audience.”

Valve has released a series of tutorial videos for the Source Filmmaker, the first of which you can see below, right here on The Train2Game Blog.

Source filmmaker arrives on the third day of Team Fortress 2’s Pyromania event, which has also seen six community created weapons added to the popular free-to-play shooter.

Be sure to keep reading The Train2Game Blog for the latest news from Valve and Team Fortress 2.

Will you be trying out Source Filmmaker?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Team Fortress 2 Pyromania update adds 6 community created weapons to the game

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Team Fortress 2’s Pyromania update is into its second day and introduces six new weapons, all of which have been created by members of the TF2 community.

The update for Valve’s free-to-play shooter includes user-created weapons for the Sniper, Solider and Scout classes, in addition to The Scorch Shot for the Pyro.  It was the Scorch Shot which featured in a ‘How a gun gets made’ video you can see here on The Train2Game Blog.

As of August last year, Team Fortress 2 players had earned $2 million through their custom weapons being added to the game then sold in the game’s virtual store.

Valve has a reputation for supporting modders, with Chet Faliszek, a game designer at the Bellevue, Washington studio, previously telling the Train2Game Blog that modding is a great way to get noticed in the games industry.

There’s more about community created items and modding – both excellent ways for Train2Game students to practice and showcases their skills – here on The Train2Game Blog.

Meanwhile, be sure to keep reading for the latest news from Valve and Team Fortress 2.

What are your thoughts on community created weapons forming the bulk of the latest Team Fortress 2 update? Are you inspired to make items for the game?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: How to create and share a weapon for Team Fortress 2

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Ever wanted to create weapons for Team Fortress 2, but you’re unsure how to do it? Well, Valve has posted a piece on the TF2 blog titled ‘How a gun gets made’ and it does exactly what’s said on the tin.

The blog is by Team Fortress 2 workshop contributor Jalcober, who takes us through the development of the Scorch Shot, a weapon for the Pyro. It goes all the way from original concept art, through designing it in 3D to painting, texturing and publishing.  Read the blog here, or watch How a Gun Gets Made in the video below.

Jalcober’s community created weapon is going to feature in a future update for Team Fortress 2. As of August last year, Team Fortress 2 players had earned $2 million through their custom weapons being sold in the game’s virtual store.

Valve’s Steam Workshop now features in a variety of games including The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Portal 2 and DOTA 2, allowing players to create and share their own in-game creations .

There’s more about community created items and modding – both excellent ways for Train2Game students to practice and showcases their skills – here on The Train2Game Blog.

Meanwhile, be sure to keep reading for the latest news from Valve and Team Fortress 2.

Does ‘how a gun gets made’ provide you with useful information? Have you submitted items to the Team Fortress 2 Steam Workshop?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.