Valve Fandom

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Fandom
Name(s): Valve Fandom
Abbreviation(s):
Scope/Focus: Valve Corporation/Valve Software and associated products, including Steam.
Date(s): 1996-present
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Many individual games made by Valve Corporation have their own fandoms, such as Portal and Half-Life, but like many video game companies there are also fans who would consider themselves to be fans of the company itself, rather than just a specific game. Valve's fandom is unique among video game companies in that it also produces hardware like the Steam Deck and 3D animation software, as well as running the popular distribution platform Steam, so it encompasses more than just the video games made by the company.

Valve is also one of the most welcoming media companies regarding fanac for their works. Their PC gaming distribution platform Steam hosts fanac for all games distributed on it, such as custom 3D models, fanart, fan guides, video game forums, screenshots, player reviews, fan events, fan videos and more. Steam is important for fans of any PC games distributed on it regarding fanworks and general fanac. Most games have a Community Hub, where fanworkers can share their content along Steam guidelines. These guidelines largely prohibit shipping content, whether Het, Slash or Femslash[citation needed]. Their Workshop in particular is filled with fan engagement for Valve games, and some fanworks hosted there may be chosen to be added officially. Their game engines and in-house software, such as Source, Source 2 and Source Filmmaker, have been released to the public for both non-profit and profit use.

Their game engines being publicly available have led to Valve's character models, particularly from Half-Life and Team Fortress 2, to be used in various forms of downright experimental media by 3D animators. This was as much the case in 2006, when Garry's Mod was first released, to 2023 with the popularity of Skibidi Toilet, and likely for many years to come. These game engines have also been used by other studios to create video games, such as Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and The Stanley Parable.

Fans of Valve's video games in recent years have felt left behind after Valve's shift in focus to computer hardware and virtual reality equipment around 2015. Artifact in particular had a troubled release announcement due to fan disapproval and overall disappointment.

Notable Fandoms

Valve's fandom can be split into fans of Valve's own video games and fans of the software Valve produces.

Video Games

  • 1998: Half-Life
    • Half-Life, Valve's first franchise, is one of the company's most critically acclaimed properties. It has many notable fan video series' (such as HLVRAI), fangames and fanfic. It's also notable for having an official fanwork released by the company in Black Mesa, which is a remake of the original Half-Life game created by Crowbar Collective as a free mod in 2012 and released commercially in 2020.
  • 2000: Counter-Strike
    • Counter-Strike lacks a transformative fandom, mostly due to the lack of distinct characters as the series is a more typical FPS game without much in the way of story or character. It does, however, have a number of notable memes, including Rush B and DOOR STUCK.
  • 2003: Day of Defeat
    • Day of Defeat has little transformative fandom fanac, likely due to the lack of distinct characters. Day of Defeat is also the least played game in Valve's catalogue, leading it to having the smallest fandom in Valve's catalogue overall.
  • 2007: Portal
    • Portal is another of Valve's most critically acclaimed properties, which is popular among fans for the femslash pairing ChellDOS. It also has many notable fanseries, fangames and fanfic, such as Blue Sky.
  • 2007: Team Fortress 2
    • TF2 is notable for having the Valve fandom's largest slash community, due to the strong characters and many complex relationships between them. The fandom has many notable fanwork and an active modding scene.
  • 2008: Left 4 Dead
  • 2010: Alien Swarm
    • Originally a mod for Unreal Tournament, Alien Swarm's fandom is understandably based in modding. This is helped by the fact that its source code is free to Steam users, allowing for total conversion mods.
  • 2013: DOTA 2

Memes

Portal, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead and DOTA notably do not have third games in their series. Original comic by Illustratedtextposts on Tumblr.

Valve Can't Count To Three

A popular meme about Valve, even among people who might not consider themself in the Valve fandom, is that Valve (or Gabe Newell, Valve's president) can't count to three because the company rarely makes a third mainline game in a series. It has been a meme since Half-Life 2: Episode 3 became vaporware that never materialized, which is why the related phrase "Half-Life 3" is also a meme. This meme's popularity was helped by the Half-Life franchise going dead from 2007 until the release of Half-Life: Alyx in 2020. It is, despite being the third game in the franchise (not counting expansions or the HL2 episodes as separate games), notably not named "Half-Life 3."

The meme is so pervasive that The Chalkeaters released a song with The Stupendium called "Count to Three" about it in 2021[1] that featured the voice of GLaDOS and Gabe Newell himself.

Valve Time

From the very beginning of the company, Valve has had a reputation for announcing a release date for a game and then pushing back the release. This is not uncommon in the game industry, but in the late 90s and early 2000s Valve was unusual in that their pushbacks were sometimes quite long. For example, Team Fortress 2 was announced to be coming "soon" in 1998 and "before 2005" in 2000. The game released 10 October 2007.

While the term originated within the Valve fandom, it is now an accepted industry term within game development. The official definition, per Valve's own developer website, is "the difference between the 'promised' date for released content stated by Valve and to the 'actual' release date."[2] Outside of Valve and the Valve fandom, however, "Valve Time" can be any large difference of time between an announced release date and the actual release date of a game. For example, Duke Nukem Forever being announced in 1997 and not being released until 2011 is an example of non-Valve "Valve Time."

Example/Notable Fanac

Avvie for the DeviantArt club VALVe-community. Not included in this GIF is DOTA 2.

Communities and Events


Videos

Games

  • Black Mesa, a modern fan remake of the original Half-Life game

Fanfic

References/Further Reading

  1. ^ Valve Song: COUNT TO THREE ■ feat. Ellen McLain (official GLaDOS), The Stupendium & Gabe Newell. Posted 29 Mar 2021. Accessed 19 Nov 2023.
  2. ^ Valve Time on Valve Developer Community. Accessed 19 Nov 2023.
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