Chet Faliszek leaves Valve - Sensationalist Headlines

[url]http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-05-02-chet-faliszek-leaves-valve[/url] [QUOTE]Chet Faliszek, writer, VR ambassador and for many developers the public face of Valve, has confirmed exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz that he has left the company after 12 years. A regular attendee at several conferences and industry events worldwide, Faliszek's approachability and passion for progressing the medium has made him many friends amongst the development community, particularly in his most recent role as the de facto developer relations liaison for VR developers looking to publish on Valve's Vive VR platform. Always happy to offer the benefit of his experience at one of the industry's most prestigious organisations, Faliszek has been a strong advocate of VR technology and the possibilities it offers for his first love: storytelling. Faliszek is undoubtedly one of the industry's most talented writers, with a CV which includes two Half Life episodes, two Portal games and both Left 4 Deads. Working with his long time friend Eric Wolpaw, with whom he ran hugely influential gaming site Old Man Murray, and author Mark Laidlaw, (and later Jay Pinkerton and Ted Kosmatka) Faliszek and his contemporaries defined Valve's incredible story writing for its formative years. Between them, they have answered more questions about Half Life 3 than there are grains of sand on a beach.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]"[It was]Nothing exciting or drama filled," he wrote of his departure. "I worked there 12 years, shipped a bunch of great games and some amazing hardware and wanted to change things up. There's no news on what's next etc, I will let you know when that happens."[/QUOTE]

Certainly a lot of developers leaving valve, Wonder why?

Eyup. Valve has effectively lost a majority of the old guard. Laidlaw, Chet, and Wolpaw are all gone. Just fuck man. That is one of the best generations of writers out the window.

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;52175784]Certainly a lot of developers leaving valve, Wonder why?[/QUOTE] The only people that come to mind leaving Valve are writers Erik Wolpaw and Marc Laidlaw. I can't think of any others in recent memory. Nonetheless, it's honestly not a surprise that writers are leaving given that Valve hasn't released a story driven game since Portal 2 which was released 6 years ago.

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;52175784]Certainly a lot of developers leaving valve, Wonder why?[/QUOTE] They probably want to make games.

valve is dead just left us high and dry after that cliff hanger. biggest fuck you in gaming history

Great loss to Valve, hope he stays in the VR space.

They've all also been with valve for [I]a really[/I] [B]really[/B] long time. The games industry, and tech industry in general, as far as I've understood from people's accounts and people I know, is usually pretty fluid and encourages moving between companies to a degree. That this particular cabal of high-profile figures stayed together at Valve for so long should itself be somewhat surprising. All things end, after all.

[QUOTE=Sheer Visor;52175801]They probably want to make games.[/QUOTE] Didn't Gabe confirm a full fledged singler player game being in development?

[QUOTE=Amaurus;52175793]The only people that come to mind leaving Valve are writers Erik Wolpaw and Marc Laidlaw. I can't think of any others in recent memory. Nonetheless, it's honestly not a surprise that writers are leaving given that Valve hasn't released a story driven game since Portal 2 which was released 6 years ago.[/QUOTE] Moby Francke is gone too.

[QUOTE=Antimuffin;52175818]Didn't Gabe confirm a full fledged singler player game being in development?[/QUOTE] Yeah but the developers in Valve have probably changed their minds about it already and want to go back to square one and do easier things, like getting paid for doing nothing, or making TF2 hats.

[QUOTE=Antimuffin;52175818]Didn't Gabe confirm a full fledged singler player game being in development?[/QUOTE] How long has a certain "full fledged single player game" been "in development" for now?

[QUOTE=BF;52175828]Yeah but the developers in Valve have probably changed their minds about it already and want to go back to square one and do easier things, like getting paid for doing nothing, or making TF2 hats.[/QUOTE] Depends if they greenlit it, once Valve commits to a project they usually devote actual time to shipping it.

[QUOTE=ZombieDawgs;52175835]Depends if they greenlit it, once Valve commits to a project they usually devote actual time to shipping it.[/QUOTE] Ah well that's the thing. They must not be able to commit to anything these days.

[QUOTE=BF;52175837]Ah well that's the thing. They must not be able to commit to anything these days.[/QUOTE] They are a bit ADD in their development for sure. Their commitment to quality seems to be their biggest downfall, they're scared of making mistakes.

[QUOTE=Sheer Visor;52175829]How long has a certain "full fledged single player game" been "in development" for now?[/QUOTE] No one knows if HL3 is in actual development but Gabe definitely confirmed on his Reddit AMA that a singleplayer game (among 3 other VR games) was in development.

Man, all these people leaving. Since this is inevitably going towards that topic, say whatever you want about "Waiting till the time is right", or "They need something new and exciting to drive the project, like VR", you still need to strike while the iron is hot. And Half Life's iron is getting fucking cold. Inevitably the same with Portal's and Left 4 Dead too. It only gets harder to do something the more you wait. People are getting older, moving on. People are [I]dying.[/I] Breen's voice actor is fucking dead. And while this guy didn't join until episode 1, that's still another half life writer gone.

Chet's always been one of the few Valve employees who I've grown to recognize immediately. I watched countless Left 4 Dead interviews with him back in those glory days. Shame he left, but it's probably for the best because Valve is a shell of its former self.

[QUOTE=Crazy Ivan;52175817]They've all also been with valve for [I]a really[/I] [B]really[/B] long time. The games industry, and tech industry in general, as far as I've understood from people's accounts and people I know, is usually pretty fluid and encourages moving between companies to a degree. That this particular cabal of high-profile figures stayed together at Valve for so long should itself be somewhat surprising. All things end, after all.[/QUOTE] None of what you say is going to matter, since as far as the popular narrative is concerned they're leaving because Valve is a creatively bankrupt place that cares for nothing but fast profit and breaking the hearts of its fans. I mean, it's completely out of the question that since they aren't bound by the conventional development times of the industry, what with the [url=https://www.polygon.com/features/2017/4/12/15257842/jeri-ellsworth-profile-castar-valve]piles of money they're sitting on[/url], and their well-known attitude of testing and experimenting, that they just like to take their time. But no, Gabe just doesn't know how to run a company that produces anything and is basically being cheated out of his money by his layabout employees that cannot commit to anything.

I don't want to wear a screen, I don't want to waggle a stick... I just wanna play a game, Valve.

[QUOTE=Keychain;52175854]Chet's always been one of the few Valve employees who I've grown to recognize immediately. I watched countless Left 4 Dead interviews with him back in those glory days. Shame he left, but it's probably for the best because Valve is a shell of its former self.[/QUOTE] i remember watching his interviews for l4d2 get less and less enthusiastic as time went on.

To be quite honest it isn't that strange writers are leaving, Valve has become a weird VR company more so than a Video Game company with Steam being their wallet for whatever fancy experiment the different groups of people work on. It doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon and to be honest story-based games just aren't worth the investment from Valve anymore.

All I want is more games from Valve, not VR stuff :s:

Optimistic post: when Valve releases CSGO on the Source 2 engine this summer, this'll kickstart a new wave of game releases on the same engine.

[QUOTE=Antimuffin;52175818]Didn't Gabe confirm a full fledged singler player game being in development?[/QUOTE] Yeah and it's probably a VR tech demo.

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;52175784]Certainly a lot of developers leaving valve, Wonder why?[/QUOTE] Their flat compartmental organisational structure probably sucks.

[QUOTE=BF;52175828]like getting paid for doing nothing, or making TF2 hats.[/QUOTE] Isn't peddling useless knife skins for CS:GO Valve's thing these days? I'm pretty sure TF2 is only months away from being sent to the glue factory.

[QUOTE=DogGunn;52175944]Their flat compartmental organisational structure probably sucks.[/QUOTE] This whole "Work on whatever you want, group up with those who want to work on something" sounds like such a horrendous work system. Dropout of projects are going to be frequent since there's no need to finish anything from any corporate leadership or shareholders like in a normal stock exchanged company. Sounds awful if you aren't a incredibly talented person who loves working all alone. Otherwise I'd probably lose my mind. [editline]2nd May 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Aphtonites;52175956]Isn't peddling useless knife skins for CS:GO Valve's thing these days?[/QUOTE] Dude, it's all about them glove skins these days. Get in on the trends, man!

[QUOTE=FezianEmperor;52175959]This whole "Work on whatever you want, group up with those who want to work on something" sounds like such a horrendous work system. Dropout of projects are going to be frequent since there's no need to finish anything from any corporate leadership or shareholders like in a normal stock exchanged company.[/QUOTE] Working in a game company that's in the same case, I can tell you it's definitely a money issue first. If your company is absolutely rolling in money bags like Valve, people feel that their talent won't matter that much since the company is already successful. Thus eventually it's about the workers' esteem, I think. They'll think hard work is not needed or rewarded if the company gets 90% of its revenues from something else.

baww, the 'Chet is the only member of the L4D2 team' joke is now dead well, in any case, good on him for moving on with his career