How capitalism killed one of the best video game studios

Fifteen years ago, the game studio Valve released Half Life 2, a first-person shooter about a physicist fighting an alien occupation of Earth. The game was a smash hit, selling over 10 million copies and winning dozens of "game of the year" awards. Naturally, Valve planned a sequel, only this time broken into three parts. Episode 1 and Episode 2 duly followed in 2006 and 2007 respectively, which were both enormous successes as well.

But, to the bitter disappointment of eager fans, the third installment never came. Indeed, Valve — once one of the most artistically creative game studios in the world — has all but stopped producing games altogether. What happened? In a word: capitalism. Valve has mutated from a game developer into a ruthless financial middleman through its platform Steam, which has become the largest platform for digital game distribution — allowing them to make huge amounts of money while creating virtually nothing original themselves.