Counter-Strike creator explains why he left Valve, says he partly regrets it now
Counter-Strike creator explains why he left Valve, says he partly regrets it now
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1.6 dust
In a way…. I never left.
>Looking back, **my decision to leave Valve was, financially, kind of a poor decision**. If I had stayed with Valve, I would have been able to retire by now. But I took a harder route. I went off on my own, made some poor business decisions, worked with some bad companies and bad actors.
I would have wholly regretted it (in purely financially terms).
Edit : added article quote.
That’s a tough spot in life, but you can’t let the what-if’s haunt you like that. There were so many mods for Half-Life back then and Counter-Strike, despite being as popular as it was, it was just one of many. It very well could have peaked and somebody else would create the next big mod, not like it hasn’t happened before. Its just that Counter-Strike continued to dominate in a way that you couldn’t plot against market trends and predict: infinite growth. So being young and ambitious the creator seeks to expand on their desire to create and there was nothing wrong with that. Counter-Strike in another timeline could have just plateaued right there in the gold source engine days and fizzled in the move to Source 1, which I remember vividly how it was debatable if Source was even worthwhile as many stayed at 1.6. You can’t live life on regrets, at least they can be proud they made something that still continues to define fps trends over 20 years later. Extremely few people can say that.
“It was an amicable decision,” Le says. “They didn’t force me out or anything. But a part of me kind of regrets it. Looking back, my decision to leave Valve was, financially, kind of a poor decision. If I had stayed with Valve, I would have been able to retire by now. But I took a harder route. I went off on my own, made some poor business decisions, worked with some bad companies and bad actors. But I learned a lot and I was able to grow as a game developer.
It’s a neat read. More curious if he’d make a game in a different genre some day.
I’m still in alpha playing de_desert
He said it himself he chose the “hard road” I applaud him for following his heart. even if it lead to him working with bad people and bad company’s. Through that experience he learned a lot he said. It’s the classic dev has a vision but higher ups say no.
“Le began work on a Counter-Strike sequel – a would-be ‘Counter-Strike 2.0’. He wanted to make something that he could shape from the ground up, and that would allow him to implement new ideas and mechanics. But Counter-Strike was doing incredibly well. Valve didn’t want to upset the balance.
“I was speaking to Gabe and some of the higher ups and we came to the decision that I wasn’t able to work on a game that I could mold in the way I molded Counter-Strike,” Le explains. “We both realized that Counter-Strike had reached its apex. It was impossible for us to change it in any way, because the community was so used to it. I was very much wanting to come up with different features.” “
So he left to follow his dream/heart do what he wanted to do. But had he stayed he would have been good financially and able to retire by now apparently. Also has a game coming up. “Alpha response”
The memories. God the memories. Does anyone remember the mods where you had to climb very difficult levels and be the first to the end? I’d always find a way to activate noclip and float to the top.
Is this guy a developer of Alpha Response?