In an interview with PCGamer, various high-level Valve executives were asked what the company’s biggest mistakes have been. Thirteen different answers were given.
1. Gabe Newell: “Moss, in the original Half-Life 1.” – referring to the time when Valve claimed that moss would grow in real-time in Half-Life.
2. Erik Johnson: “The first few months of Steam.”
3. Doug Lombardi: “It’s hard to say now, but the first two days of Half-Life 2. That was a failure.”
4. Gabe Newell: “Prospero, the game that we never shipped.”
5. Doug Lombardi: “The Team Fortress 2 that was built up until 2000.” – referring to the early direction taken by the game.
6. Gabe Newell: “Our first stab at Blobulator was a failure.” – unclear what this is, may be referring to Steam’s .blob file problem.
7. Gabe Newell: “Invasion was a failure.”
8. Erik Johnson: “The second TF2.” – we assume this refers to the second build of Team Fortress 2, which was a far cry from the cel-shaded romp we know and love today.
9. Doug Lombardi: “There [were] a few failed starts to build Left 4 Dead, too. That took a while before it took shape.”
10. Gabe Newell: “The Riot Shield, but that was small on a failure scale.”
11. Gabe Newell: “Speaking of screw-ups, banning people in Call of Duty.” – referring to earlier this year when Valve wrongfully banned 12,000 Modern Warfare 2 players.
12. Erik Johnson: “PS3, so far. The way we’ve dealt with those customers so far.”
13. Erik Johnson: “The lack of updates on the 360 for TF2 is also a total failure.”
Discuss Valve’s failures on the MyGaming forum.
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