UPDATED: Valve Reportedly Showing "Nice Things" At GDC 2013

[Omnomnick]

Update: Dave Oshry has since released his an official statement to Pixel Enemy regarding the supposed Valve meeting at GDC 2013.

Sorry to burst everyone’s proverbial bubbles, but my meeting with Valve was held to discuss pre-order bonuses and marketing opportunities for Rise of the Triad as well as future Interceptor Entertainment and Apogee titles. Getting face time with the people we’re lucky enough to be working with at Valve is invaluable to a small developer like Interceptor, so naturally I’m very excited to share the upcoming news with our fans. Unfortunately for the Pixel Nation, that news has absolutely nothing to do with Half Life 3 or Source 2. Quite frankly, if I knew anything and had said anything about that, I’d likely already be dead.

It would appear as if the media have massively jumped the gun regarding this particular rumour, and in turn have managed to blow the tweets from Goldfarb and Oshry way out of proportion. While gaming news organisations (including ourselves) are most likely largely to blame for the initial development of the situation, we feel partial blame should also lie with Oshry and Goldfarb, who willingly exploited their industry positions to spread and further develop fake rumours, which is extremely unnecessary, unprofessional and unwelcome. However, we are pleased to see Dave Oshry attempt to clean up the situation by releasing his full official explanation to Pixel Enemy and ValveTime in order to replace his initially released Twitter statement.

Original: Pixel Enemy and several other gaming news sites are reporting that Twitter is now a legitimate news source. Jokes aside - yesterday, David Goldfarb, lead designer on Battlefield 3, and Interceptor Entertainment's David Oshry both posted messages to Twitter explaining their positive reactions to something shown at a behind-closed-doors meeting with Valve at GDC 2013. Valve had apparently given various game developers an early sneak peek at something currently unannounced. Hopefully these "Nice Things" help explain why it has been such a super slow news week for Valve so far.

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[Lobster]

Hmm. Well if they invited existing developers, then one would assume it was something broader than just a game? Though I guess a game could come hand-in-hand with whatever -IT- was.

If I had to hazard one guess? Input Devices.

Though I would prefer something software orientated myself. Just because that would be more surprising right now.

 

[KKiONI]

Regardless of what it may be, I am looking forward to seeing what it is, be it a game, new engine, big update, or new tech.

hype.commence()

 

[Pikminiman]

I hate being in this state of mind. Precisely 50% of my brain is filled with elated anticipation. The other 50%, however, is filled with dark and heavy warnings against getting my hopes up.

Even if HL3 were announced, I seriously doubt it would be released this year. If, hypothetically, it were released this year, I wonder how it would fare against BioShock Infinite in GOTY awards. Personally, I don't care much for GOTY awards, but it's always fun seeing the passionate "debate" between fans of all the contenders.

 

[ChiliFan]

Anyone expecting anything vaguely Half-Life-related is going to be disappointed. As always.

Some sort of demonstration of a new controller seems plausible.

 

[trunk_slamchest]

I hate being in this state of mind. Precisely 50% of my brain is filled with elated anticipation. The other 50%, however, is filled with dark and heavy warnings against getting my hopes up.

haha well said. it is like being stuck in limbo...or "Valve Purgatory"

so...if we ignore the elephant in the room....im 95% certain its a source2 engine + Oculus Rift + Havok Engine Announcement/Release/Tech Demo.

if valve has a working demo of source2 using Havok's brand new physics engine...while being showcased using the Oculous Rift...that would surely turn heads and comply with both tweets being quoted here.

those 3 things (yes...3) are all "very nice things," and id think that being able to get a sneak peak at them would be "single handedly worth the trip out there," even if HL3 is absent

 

[Stigmata]

It's either Source 2, Oculus, that VR contact lens thing the name of which I should probably remember but don't, or a combination. Valve would never reveal a new title like this, especially not HL3.

 

[Omnomnick]

It's either Source 2, Oculus, that VR contact lens thing the name of which I should probably remember but don't, or a combination. Valve would never reveal a new title like this, especially not HL3.

If Valve actually showed anything at all. Dave Oshry was just some unrelated developer trolling to get personal attention towards his Twitter page.

 

[b3rnwa]

i think its that vortex VR lens thingy...If it's HL3, ill eat my mousemat :/

im not getting my hopes up either way tbh...i live by the phrase: 'hope for the best, but expect the worst...you'll never be disappointed...'

i fkn love the term 'valve purgatory', it is indeed excruciating. just hope some answers arise soon :/

 

[trunk_slamchest]

...It was later revealed that Dave Oshry was referring to a partnership between Valve and Interceptor Entertainment to put his upcoming game on Steam. David Goldfarb has also revealed he was also "in on the joke", showing that this whole situation was simply a small plan by a few select small time game developers to generate fake media hype for personal gain, attempting to generate false rumours based around products and companies unrelated to yourself just to gain attention to a Twitter account is extremely unprofessional. Hopefully we believe this whole situation will have actually backfired on the pair, showing the game industry that both individuals are extremely unreliable and childish in regards to gaming news.

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i cannot comment on this due to health concerns.

the word "aneurysm" comes to mind

 

[ChiliFan]

While making cryptic comments about secret Valve news is an incredibly cheap (and easy) way to generate page hits, people really should have learned by now that it's never going to be anything to do with a new installment of a Valve game unless Valve themselves say it.

And as for Half-Life, even Valve won't say anything about it so why would some random devs nobody's heard of be the ones to break the news?

 

[Omnomnick]

While making cryptic comments about secret Valve news is an incredibly cheap (and easy) way to generate page hits, people really should have learned by now that it's never going to be anything to do with a new installment of a Valve game unless Valve themselves say it.

Still doesn't make it any less unprofessional or childish.

 

[trunk_slamchest]

While making cryptic comments about secret Valve news is an incredibly cheap (and easy) way to generate page hits, people really should have learned by now that it's never going to be anything to do with a new installment of a Valve game unless Valve themselves say it.

And as for Half-Life, even Valve won't say anything about it so why would some random devs nobody's heard of be the ones to break the news?

i agree with you completely....but valve is the cause for all of this.

the PotatoARG (while being revolutionary and amazing) sent the entire HL community into a tailspin, where people like me started looking for ANY possible clue that could spark a HL3-ARG.

last christmas, valve's graphic artists put HL logos all over their Winter Sales banners and when the rumours started circulated, they claimed their artists were "just having some fun."

the HL3 shirt and everything circling around that didnt help. wheatley's appearance at the VGAs didnt help, either.

i can go on and on about how valve self inflicted this upon themselves...but yea....

</aneurysm>

 

[Vegeta897]

Still doesn't make it any less professional or childish.

Do you mean any less unprofessional?

I don't really get what's unprofessional or childish about the tweet he made. It's twitter, people in the industry use it as a humorous outlet all the time. The only thing stupid here is gaming sites like pixelenemy that make a big deal about it. I don't think Valvetime should have touched this until something was actually confirmed.

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

This reminds me of last year when that German gaming journalist played a joke by taking low res pictures of Valve's stairwell and saying "exclusive Gamecom footage #HL3"

I think it's a matter of the entire gaming industry trolling poor, gullible HL fans. It's going to continue until Valve put a stop to it.

 

[Omnomnick]

I don't really get what's unprofessional or childish about the tweet he made. It's twitter, people in the industry use it as a humorous outlet all the time.

Both David and Dave were in a position of what should be authority so trolling news organisations regarding products, services and companies totally unrelated to themselves for followers on their Twitter account is pretty sad and unprofessional, to be honest.

Also, stop following me being my own personal editor. :<

 

[-smash-]

It was obvious from the very beginning that these two tweets were not referring to some golden inside information, but the internet hivemind is a strong (and stupid) force.

 

[Stigmata]

I'm all for jokes and trolling, even in the professional industry sphere, but this isn't quite either of those because of Oshry's game. SpotEnemyBoats has an example of Valve-related trolling that's perfectly fine (and even believable for a split second). Tug on my HL heartstrings all you like, just don't do it to try to build hype for your own unrelated products. :arms:

 

[Krynn72]

Hard to say what is more unprofessional. A guy expressing excitement over getting Valve to work with their company to his followers on Twitter, or massive industry news sites interpreting his sentence to mean "HL3 CONFIRMED: NEWS ON IT IS IMMINENT" and getting all pissy when that's not what it mean.

Hrm, actually its not that hard to say which is more unprofessional.

If it hadn't been for the way this site put it, HL3 would never have crossed my mind if I read Oshry's tweet.

Same with the other guy's original tweet. It wasn't until people (included "legitimate" news sites) started going "OMG UR TALKIN BOUTS THE HL3 RIGHT?" that they started pulling people's leg. Seems fair enough to me. If you're stupid enough to jump to that conclusion, it'd take a saint not to mock you for it.

 

[Omnomnick]

If it hadn't been for the way this site put it, HL3 would never have crossed my mind if I read Oshry's tweet.

They were both deliberately ambiguous about what they meant to attract attention to themselves and their shit games.

The upcoming announcement of Half-Life 3 was one of the least likely things I saw coming out of this situation. However, it was very possible for Valve to have shown something related to the SteamBox or some other project they're working on, which is ultimately just as exciting.

The whole thing was clearly planned to troll people given the manner in which the pair initially posted and how they reacted afterwards.

 

[Krynn72]

One person said they liked what they saw from Valve, another person said going to a meeting with Valve was worth it, and said to his fans, and by extension fans of his company, that they were going to like what he accomplished by going to it.

How any of that could be misinterpreted so badly as to expect some huge announcement from Valve just shows how desperate people (and "news sources") are for Valve news. Its your own damn fault for thinking it was something big, any non-desperate person or organization would not read those posts and think they meant what you and these other places/people thought.

I mean this Oshry guy sounds annoying as hell but I don't think his post was originally intended to deceive people into giving him attention. He capitalized on it though, since people were so eager to give it to him. Does that make him a shitty person? A little bit. But to play like he deceived you guys, calling him names and slandering him when it was your own desperately hopeful misinterpretation that caused this affair is what I consider unprofessional.

 

[Omnomnick]

I mean this Oshry guy sounds annoying as hell but I don't think his post was originally intended to deceive people into giving him attention.

Like I said, you can tell by how they acted after the "statement" that it was all a massive planned troll at the beginning. And why would I be desperate for Valve news? I have a shit load of university work to be doing and more news simply means I have more work to do.

 

[Krynn72]

Like I said, you can tell by how they acted after the "statement" that it was all a massive planned troll at the beginning. And why would I be desperate for Valve news? I have a shit load of university work to be doing and more news simply means I have more work to do.

I have a shitload of shit to do as well, but I'm still desperate for Valve news. Not as desperate, mind.

And I read all of Oshry's and the other guy's tweets. I say with confidence that the trolling only happened after people started screaming "HL3?!" at them. If you have other sources, by all means. I'm not above putting my foot in my mouth.

 

[Omnomnick]

I have a shitload of shit to do as well, but I'm still desperate for Valve news. Not as desperate, mind.

I'm assuming you don't have to write about it multiple times or research it? That was the point I was hitting on - that it directly affects my workload. This past week has effectively acted as a week off from ValveTime for me since absolutely nothing happened, meaning I had little work to do.

And I read all of Oshry's and the other guy's tweets. I say with confidence that the trolling only happened after people started screaming "HL3?!" at them. If you have other sources, by all means. I'm not above putting my foot in my mouth.

For one, just check out a few of the other people Dave Oshry was in communication with that day and you can tell by the way the whole load of them talked about the matter that it was all planned shortly after the meeting as some kind of "hilarious" joke. Why would Oshry and Goldfarb deliberately talk about their relevant topics in such a deliberately ambiguous manner if not to attract attention to themselves? I'm not saying they set out to get people hyped about fake Half-Life 3 news, they just decided to exploit the general Valve news vacuum for their own gain (regardless of the intended product/service), purely because their own games didn't seem to be generating any media buzz at the time.

 

[Vegeta897]

I'm not above putting my foot in my mouth.

You've put worse parts of yourself in your mouth than your feet.

 

[Krynn72]

You've put worse parts of yourself in your mouth than your feet.

Like that time when my fingers fell off and I had no other way to hold them all? Or do you mean... the other time...

 

[trunk_slamchest]

How any of that could be misinterpreted so badly as to expect some huge announcement from Valve just shows how desperate people (and "news sources") are for Valve news.

yup. the internet is the internet. trolls gonna troll.

it goes back to my post about how valve is indirectly inflicting this upon it's community.

 

[-smash-]

They're ambiguous only because it was posted on Twitter, and as was already pointed out, that is not a good source for news. But the tweets are so vauge, it's crazy how PixelEnemy and everyone else pulled some conspiracy out of thin air.

 

[Omnomnick]

They're ambiguous only because it was posted on Twitter, and as was already pointed out, that is not a good source for news. But the tweets are so vauge, it's crazy how PixelEnemy and everyone else pulled some conspiracy out of thin air.

While it was definitely an overreaction by news outlets, it isn't their fault as that was the entire purpose of the tweets was to troll and get that kind of attention. Its a case of someone within the industry who SHOULD be respected and trusted breaking any kind of reliable connection news organisations should have with them. Imagine someone like Gabe Newell making a direct reference to the news regarding something massive then turning round a day later to go "jk lol".

 

[-smash-]

Their intentions were not to start rumors. It's pretty obvious given the context that this is all in. PixelEnemy and the internet hivemind are to blame for this one. Sorry nick.

 

[DaveOshry]

Hey guys, gonna have to agree with -smash- here. First of all, I do not know David Goldfarb. We have never met. Second of all, my original tweet in no way implied ANYTHING about Half Life 3, Source 2 or anything of the like. Rise of the Triad was announced as a Steamworks title last year and we've been working with them ever since. We met at GDC to discuss marketing ops, pre-order bonuses and future Steam integration for future IE and Apogee titles coming SOON (exciting stuff for a small developer)

However, when I woke up the next morning and had apparently, "confirmed" HL3 - I decided to **** with everyone, mainly to make the press look foolish in the end. Which they did.

If you want to be mad at me for messing with everyone for a few hours the day after my original innocuous tweet, that's perfectly understandable. But make no mistake that the reason this whole thing was blown out of proportion in the first place was due to sensationalist and bullshit reporting by the gaming "press."

The worst part is that I personally know the guys at PixelEnemy and they didn't ever once reach out to me for a comment. Instead they took their, "Ground breaking story" and put it on NeoGAF and Reddit and anywhere else they could think of and got the whole damn internet riled up.

I've since given them an 'actual' statement: http://www.pixelenemy.com/tweets-fire-up-rumours-something-is-coming-from-valve/ but quite frankly they deserved to get trolled as they did.

I am sorry that hardcore Valve fans like you got caught in the crossfire, but that was never my intent.

 

[tomemozok]

Ok first of all, ty mr. Dave for actually making an account here on valvetime and taking the time to post this. Secondly, good job with the troll, we were actually hoping it's something after so much silence from valve.
But the thing is, we do know that PE would do anything for a story (yellow press etc), but we do not know you.

I have actually googled you and it seemed something legit.I was hoping for something about the new Source 2,since i know Valve won't show HL to anyone without some kind of a "say anything and you're dead" agreement.
So next time,could you inform us if you are planning on doing a troll on the press, just so we can be trolling them more?

Oh,and Welcome to ValveTime!

 

[Shem]

Tomemozok, the forum's official spokesperson apparently

 

[Stylo]

I am not mad at you, Dave Oshry.