Half-Life is not an influential or legendary title.

[Tighty-Whitey]

There is a growing myth, a misconception that Half-Life, a classical title with a loud name in Steam community, despite it’s popularity and an interest among it’s members and followers, had a significant impact on videogames in general. A franchise that sold millions of copies, won many awards and essentially shaped Valve’s future as a corporation, had not actually been as popular in the recent years. It is no secret that the following Half-Life series possesses, fades on the background of more popular titles pushed by modern generations such as Minecraft, Roblox, as well as numerous Battle Royale titles such as Fortnite, Apex Legends and PUBG. The only echo of Half-Life that still remains to this day is ultimately only prevalent in Garry’s Mod and is mixed up with silly animation videos such as Skibidi Toilet saga, distorting Half-Life’s aestheticism beyond recognition. There is little meaning left in the specific and direct concepts Half-Life was known for. Half-Life series is a shell of it’s former legacy and nowadays does not compete with the industry giants and falls flat on many aspects compared to modern titles.

As far as "influence" of Half-Life itself goes and how it affected the gaming industry, the reality behind statements of the franchise’s obsessed fanbase, contrary to the volatile market convoluted by tens of thousands of other products, differs substantially despite uneducated claims that the Half-Life still remains prevalent or has any sort of severe impact on games themselves. It is easily proven by the statistics, player numbers, ever changing culture and trends that suppress the minority that is the Half-Life community. By looking at the actual situation behind the popularity of the game, it is easy to develop a conclusion that the only reason why Half-Life seems popular is because people who have never played that game never even talk about it. That is more than 99% of humanity. That leaves the Half-Life community in an echochamber where they lie to themselves about the game’s popularity attached by Valve’s desperate attempts to dwell on the past, figuring that they, as workers of said company, have nothing better to do or develop than documentaries about Half-Life, as well as maps no one asked for. Unsurprising, considering Valve’s games’ titles being micro-level in scope and quality compared to bigger games such as modern takes on Grand Theft Auto. The size of Valve’s development teams is fairly small compared to that of makers of GTA.

That leads us to the next point. Where exactly is the influence everyone in that community talks about and where does it fall in the gaming industry? It is known that tens of thousands modern titles draw inspirations from entirely different games, have completely different genres and do not actually draw any inspiration from Half-Life game design. Most games that even remotely have stylistic similarities do not actually have much in common with Half-Life, as even the developers themselves who claim to be inspired by Half-Life don’t actually understand what Half-Life itself is about. All games are essentially just individual takes of different people on many different concepts and despite what interests the developers of other games have, their results will always be significantly different to their initial believed inspirations. That means that the end-product itself will likely never resemble or follow it’s initial suggested inspirations. That leaves Half-Life at an uncertain spot, meaning that other titles that mostly only stylistically and remotely resemble certain Half-Life elements had never been real derivatives of Half-Life as an inspiration, despite the claims otherwise. It is nothing but a result of chaotic choices natural to a human being.

Games that share remote similarities with Half-Life do not iterate, improve or advance Half-Life’s concepts in any meaningful way and ironically don’t share as much popularity as other games. Speaking about other games, most of market’s industry products have nearly nothing in common with Half-Life, stylistically, design-wise, gameplay-wise, story structure wise, there isn’t anything that follows an exact or even remotely same concept in it’s full form. Games that in theory supposed to replicate Half-Life’s formula, never end up replicating it in any way, not to say, that many naive supposed Half-Life "inspirations" tend to fail. This is the result of not Half-Life’s outdated design, but the inability of such games to follow the same design foundations Half-Life was supposed to establish. Those games that supposed to take a new spin on a classical Half-Life-esque concept turn out to have no direct influence by Half-Life and even if they do, those games aren’t very popular and do not influence the industry’s trends.

Trends of a current industry differ to those the gaming community came to know decades ago. It is now about completely different genres, especially styles and approaches to any selected set of elements Half-Life series used to have. Half-Life series had not impacted the industry in any serious way and the success of Counter-Strike has no relation to a success of Half-Life. Half-Life itself having no serious alternatives to make a modification for, would have a Counter-Strike mod created and ultimately acquired even if Half-Life’s success wouldn’t have been as massive. Modern videogames focus on aspects that contradict Half-Life’s linearity, pacing, combat and nowadays have an online only focus. Times change and your "legendary" title will simply be forgotten and if mentioned, shrugged off.

In case someone still thinks Half-Life is anywhere near popular and is in denial, it is important to take a look at how modern titles perform compared to Half-Life games. Let’s take a look at how many sales have the most popular and influential titles made:

Title                        Sales                           

Minecraft                    300,000,000                      

Grand Theft Auto V           190,000,000

Tetris (EA)                  100,000,000

Wii Sports                   82,900,000

PUBG: Battlegrounds          75,000,000

Mario Kart 8 / Deluxe        65,470,000

Super Mario Bros.            58,000,000

Red Dead Redemption 2        57,000,000

Overwatch                    50,000,000

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt     50,000,000

Tetris (1989)                48,000,000

As we can see, Half-Life is nowhere to be seen. Other games had a much bigger impact on the gaming industry than Half-Life. Here’s how Half-Life series compares:

Half-Life Title                  Sales

Half-Life 1                      9,300,000

Half-Life 2                      9,500,000

Opposing Force                   1,100,000

Blue Shift                       800,000

Episode One                      4,400,000

Episode 2                        3,000,000

Half-Life is clearly not as influential as people claim it to be. Not many people care about this franchise nowadays and it’s "legendary" status is simply nothing more but a fairytale from the old days. Realities of the industry are fundamentally different.

[PsyWarVeteran]

ChatGPT point farmer, report and move on.

[ChiefMendez]

Originally posted by <|MLG|> Tighty-Whitey_pro90:

Originally posted by PsyWarVeteran:

ChatGPT point farmer, report and move on.

It is nothing but mere outcry of someone who loves the game beyond any reasonable limit. I suggest you think, rather than letting those emotions of yours speak.

Outcry for what, exactly?

A nonsensical corridor shooter is now a nonsensical corridor shooter with better graphics.

This is your Black Mesa review. Says it all. "Love the the game" by the way.

[MemeMachine]

Originally posted by <|MLG|> Tighty-Whitey_pro90:

Originally posted by PsyWarVeteran:

ChatGPT point farmer, report and move on.

It is nothing but mere outcry of someone who loves the game beyond any reasonable limit. I suggest you think, rather than letting those emotions of yours speak. Those egoistic attempts at derailing a topic will be ignored.

Chat GPT farmer, report him and move on.

[Tighty-Whitey]

Exactly what was to be shown, fanbase angered by a rather controversial opinion is getting angry at pure factual analysis.

[ChiefMendez]

Originally posted by <|MLG|> Tighty-Whitey_pro90:

Exactly what was to be shown, fanbase angered by a rather controversial opinion is getting angry at pure factual analysis.

This is your Black Mesa review. Says it all. "Love the the game" by the way.

Originally posted by <|MLG|> Tighty-Whitey_pro90:

A nonsensical corridor shooter is now a nonsensical corridor shooter with better graphics.

[Doktor Mandrake]

What does sale numbers have to do with being influential?

First person shooters were not known for having things like a story.. that's what half life specifically influenced

The only thing selling more influences in money.. your argument makes no sense lol

[Doktor Mandrake]

What makes me laugh even more is your mention of overwatch

You can't even play overwatch, didn't they shut the servers down? Where as games like this live-forever.. your precious live-service games get consumed, forgotten about and replaced with the next "big" thing

[Baleful]

OP, you need to find anything better to do with your life.
Like, immediately.

[Tighty-Whitey]

Originally posted by Doktor Mandrake:

What makes me laugh even more is your mention of overwatch

You can't even play overwatch, didn't they shut the servers down? Where as games like this live-forever.. your precious live-service games get consumed, forgotten about and replaced with the next "big" thing

That's the biggest irony. A game that isn't even playable anymore, a game despised by it's playerbase such as Overwatch was still more influential and generated more revenue, as well as similar games trying to copy Overwatch's legacy.

[Doktor Mandrake]

Originally posted by <|MLG|> Tighty-Whitey_pro90:

Originally posted by Doktor Mandrake:

What makes me laugh even more is your mention of overwatch

You can't even play overwatch, didn't they shut the servers down? Where as games like this live-forever.. your precious live-service games get consumed, forgotten about and replaced with the next "big" thing

That's the biggest irony. A game that isn't even playable anymore, a game despised by it's playerbase such as Overwatch was still more influential and generated more revenue, as well as similar games trying to copy Overwatch's legacy.

Refer to my other post

Half-lifes influence was story telling in fps

It's an objective fact

[Morbidly Majestic]

Power Metal without double bass is just minor key disco

[Tighty-Whitey]

Originally posted by Doktor Mandrake:

Originally posted by <|MLG|> Tighty-Whitey_pro90:

That's the biggest irony. A game that isn't even playable anymore, a game despised by it's playerbase such as Overwatch was still more influential and generated more revenue, as well as similar games trying to copy Overwatch's legacy.

Refer to my other post

Half-lifes influence was story telling in fps

It's an objective fact

It is completely and entirely wrong. Half-Life was not a story-telling fps, it was narratively-focused in singleplayer mode. There was no influence from Half-Life's story specifically. I suggest you read the topic's contents itself.

[Turambar]

That while I agree just tell me one thing. industries does what makes money, not the case of VALVe and that's why I like them so much, other conclusion, people prefer ♥♥♥♥ over quality.

[Doktor Mandrake]

Originally posted by <|MLG|> Tighty-Whitey_pro90:

Originally posted by Doktor Mandrake:

Refer to my other post

Half-lifes influence was story telling in fps

It's an objective fact

It is completely and entirely wrong. Half-Life was not a story-telling fps, it was narratively-focused in singleplayer mode. There was no influence from Half-Life's story specifically.

The only thing overwatch is an influence to is live-service model with micro-transaction and hero based classes.. and even then class based mp was nothing new

And yes, half-life did influence story in fps. Its an objective fact. Cope.

[LemonySnow]

Originally posted by Doktor Mandrake:

Originally posted by <|MLG|> Tighty-Whitey_pro90:

It is completely and entirely wrong. Half-Life was not a story-telling fps, it was narratively-focused in singleplayer mode. There was no influence from Half-Life's story specifically.

The only thing overwatch is an influence to is live-service model with micro-transaction

And yes, half-life did influence story in fps. Its an objective fact. Cope.

so unless you're fully aware that this is bait, and are deliberately using your replies to coax more people into adding onto this sh*tshow (which i'm fully aware i'm doing too), like, i'd just stop if i were you? it's not worth actually getting annoyed over