> When Valve puts their full muscle and creative energy behind something as a flagship, lead-off hitter, they've yet to disappoint.
Genuine question: when would you say is the last time they did that? I don't really think of Dota 2 or CS:GO or whatever to be "flagships." I'd have to go back to, Portal 2, I guess, but I'm not sure even that I would call a "flagship," just a really good game. Certainly the Orange Box as a whole... but that was 12 years ago. Even Portal 2 is 8 years ago.
A great deal of CS:GO (minus the Source engine) was developed by another studio with, admittedly, a lot of collaboration and investment from Valve, so in this case when I think "flagship" for a game studio it's referring to a game built by employees and developers of the studio as a first-party.
At least, in my initial comment, that's the intention I had in mind.
Genuine question: when would you say is the last time they did that? I don't really think of Dota 2 or CS:GO or whatever to be "flagships." I'd have to go back to, Portal 2, I guess, but I'm not sure even that I would call a "flagship," just a really good game. Certainly the Orange Box as a whole... but that was 12 years ago. Even Portal 2 is 8 years ago.