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Honestly, I think they could do HL3 at this point as the hype around 3 is basically dead.

This, though, is why you don't end things with cliff hangers.

The only sensible way to go about it would be to just drop it one day, no fan fair, no announcements, no additional hype.

They just happened to have the foresight to develop the most lucrative business model in gaming (owning the distribution platform) and Half Life 3 was the opportunity cost. They could have made a ton of money with that cliff hanger if they remained like every other game developer on the planet, instead of a metric buttload of money.

Opportunity cost? Steam was created shortly after half-life 1 and existed prior to half life 2's release. It was already a huge cash cow when they released games like CS go and TF2.

But further, the skills to write a game are different from the skills to manage a game distribution system. It's not like by having the HL2 devs valve was squeezed for cash or resources to expand steam.

I think it's pretty reasonable to assume if Valve never made Steam, they'd have made Half-life 3 do you disagree? Businesses tend to focus on what moves the bottom line most dramatically.

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