[Phoronix]Valve Releases Artifact As Its Cross-Platform, Vulkan-Powered Digital Card Game

Yeah. I think their target audience is shifting toward platforms where money is more easily made, and trash is tolerated widely.
Not to say the era of PC gaming is over, far from it. You can't expect these old names who made it big at the beginning would last forever, or be the only ones.
I must say 90% of the games I play these days can fall safely into the indie dev category. And it's great.
There is more cool games out there than I can even possibly handle.
I think people are programmed to look at the brand names and tie them heavily to product quality. I think that is in our biology.
I know some guys who will only play Blizzard, Bethesda, and Valve games. They sneer when I talk about indie games.
Pretty soon they will either have to stop playing PC games or see it my way lol.

Artifact is challenging and fun. As I want to go it hard it will cost me more money, a choice I make. If I didn't want to, I wouldn't.

I would also love some more Half Life... and if it comes, great. Valve doesn't owe me anything. But they will have my money if they bring a product I desire, and if not, then they won't. Brand loyalty is an error consumers make and business exploits (if they are clever).

Stay tuned for Left 4 Dead as a battle royale, Team Fortress as an MMORPG, and a pinball game titled Half Life 3.

Wait cross-platform? Vulkan? Ohhh MacOS, Linux, and Windows... thats not cross platform, but cross OS. They could all run the exact same hardware with the same architecture... just changing out the operating system. Such a terrible article.

No lol, They've never done a 3rd of anything, it stops at 2.

Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, Half Life 2, Half Life Episode 2, Left 4 Dead 2

To be fair, what possible explanation for the G-Man could exist that wouldn't be torn to shreds by at least half of the fanbase? It's kind of like the ending to LOST, I LOVED the last episode and how it ended, but then I had been a fan of Jack since episode 1. The loud people in all types of media ALL hated it.

So what would satisfy the hordes looking for answers about the G-Man? Is he an auditor/agent for an intergalactic holding company? Is he a shape shifting alien of a species that is an enemy to the Combine? Is he using an arcade game to recruit pilots out of trailer parks to fight against Zur and the Khodan Armada?

And that's just ONE question. How do you have Gordon and Alyx take down an entire alien army that's had a decade to dig in on Earth? SO yeah, I would have to say that it seems likely that Valve has trouble holding on to it's writing staff long enough to finish trilogies. Left4Dead and TeamFortress only get a new game with a new Half Life release, but then they are multiplayer only. Portal really needs to be combined with Half Life for HL3, if they ever do either game.

As for Artifact, I don't play card games. I am totally on board with the game being OS neutral, and using Vulkan especially. Thing is, the number of people that actually know what they are doing with Vulkan is still pretty small, although I have a feeling that it's going to go up once Sony finally releases the specs for the PS5. Little games like this build up experience at any studio.


Maybe a team based Battle Royale? Like with half a dozen different teams per match?

True, there is only one platform *cough*pcmasterrace*cough*...

You know... Steam is the only "developer" who I feel actually would believe that having it run on Linux, MacOS, and Windows would considered that cross-platform.

Flash in the pan. Pointlessly difficult learning curve, incredibly obtuse to the viewer for streaming, not necessarily improved competitive aspects. It'll come, and it'll go, and eventually someone will talk about it and Gwent as the saviors of the genre that never were.

Wait, the game is pay to win... so it's just like a real collectible card game then?