BioShock banned at Valve offices

by Justin McElroy { Aug 28th 2007 at 11:45AM }

Do you think that the makers of one of the greatest first-person shooters ever are immune to the siren song of one of the other best first-person shooters ever? Valve head honcho Gabe Newell insists to CVG that they are not. "We had to ban BioShock from our offices," Newell said. "Nobody gets to play it until Orange Box is done - that's our reward to ourselves as a company; everyone gets a copy of BioShock."

Newell said he hasn't played it either, but he's "really looking forward to it". We're torn about this news. On one hand, we're sad for the Valve employees, but on the other hand, we really want to play Episode 2. And then, on our third hand, we think they probably should have thought of this game-banning policy before they announced they were making games episodically. Wasn't Episode 2 supposed to be out in the mid 80s? Did the team get addicted to WoW or something?

Tags: bioshock, halflife2, orangebox, valve

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

TRUTH @ Aug 28th 2007 11:52AM

LOL Get er Done!!!

the_kid @ Aug 28th 2007 11:52AM

lol that's a nice reward, finish up orange box already! :) :)

Buckshot @ Aug 28th 2007 11:58AM

pwn3d

EihBeir @ Aug 28th 2007 11:59AM

AFK - Buying a stack of BioShock and selling them to Valve employees. Look for the dude in the trench coat and funny hat.

Defying bans is fun.

GamerG @ Aug 28th 2007 12:01PM

And if they dont get done on time then they have to play Lair!

tpnmvz @ Aug 28th 2007 12:13PM

No, Valve shouldn't make them play Lair as punishment, they should make them play Resistance so they could see how mediocre a FPS can be. It would be both punishment and a lesson.

Nicholas @ Aug 28th 2007 12:47PM

lol. But I would've said Hour of Victory or Vampire Rain, two games that are sure to mark the history of videogames (not!)

Bloo @ Aug 28th 2007 12:53PM

@tpnmvz
Thank god someone said it. Resistance was such a huge letdown for me. The first five minutes, when you drive the tank, and the least 5 minutes were all that were good.

Einhanderkiller @ Aug 28th 2007 2:40PM

Resistance, to me, was surprisingly good. I kept hearing things like "OMG THIS GAME IS SO BAD," but when I actually played it, I was pleasantly surprised. It's not the best FPS I've ever played, but it's still a ton of fun.

Marty @ Aug 28th 2007 12:03PM

This news is awesome, it's good that Valve is humble enough to recognize other great games in their field. :)

webcool @ Aug 28th 2007 12:11PM

Well Bioshock is a nice game. Its cool that other companies recognize that. And even make it public. More PR for 2K Games :)

Mr. Picklesworth @ Aug 28th 2007 12:14PM

They get to play /any/ games while they're there?
I guess this explains the delays :b

LAboy @ Aug 28th 2007 12:17PM

LOL Bioshock is awesome! But finish the Orange Box already..

hvnlysoldr @ Aug 28th 2007 12:31PM

Duke, is that you?

copa @ Aug 28th 2007 12:43PM

I love Valve. I sure hope we're not foreshadowing a delay into 2008 for Orange Box, though. For such an incredible package, it really hasn't been getting much press recently.

dextro @ Aug 28th 2007 12:44PM

Get working you lazy bioshock valve workers fans. We'll let you play with your toys when you finished doing your homework!

velocitystrike @ Aug 28th 2007 12:50PM

I'm loving the third hand analogy :-)

WiNG @ Aug 28th 2007 12:53PM

yeah stop dragging your feet. I want to play Portal and TF2. Oh yeah and make the rest of the TF2 character movies already.

Captain Jody Anthony XVIII @ Aug 28th 2007 1:00PM

this is awesome

as an aside: i do not have a 360 or a pc that can run bioshock, but i played the demo for a little bit at a friends place over the weekend. my god. i was going to get a ps3, but im switching to 360 first just for that game.

Blazur @ Aug 28th 2007 1:15PM

I kind of see this as honorable. It's like they're paying homage to another excellent FPS, even tho it is in direct competition of HL2.

I haven't had the pleasure of playing Episode 1 yet...how is it?

Fiveseven @ Aug 28th 2007 2:23PM

Perhaps in direct competition, but Valve is probably taking a nice cut off of the earnings they make through the purchases of Bioshock made through Steam.

Nicolas @ Aug 28th 2007 2:30PM

@Blazur Episode 1 is short but awesome, easily worth the price.

Kibbles @ Aug 28th 2007 1:20PM

Would ya kindly not play BioShock in the office?

Shawn @ Aug 28th 2007 3:36PM

lol...

cybereality @ Aug 28th 2007 1:50PM

NEWS FLASH: Bioshock Hypnotizes Game Industry; Productivity Down 43%...

BPM @ Aug 28th 2007 2:00PM

Gotta love it when you have a company made of gamers, eh?

doogles @ Aug 28th 2007 2:07PM

This is an awesome story. Really, though, get Orange Box done because I want it.

Diskoboy @ Aug 28th 2007 2:36PM

I'd be telling the management at Steam to suck a fart out of my asshole.

The go eat a big, "Steaming" dog turd.

Diskoboy @ Aug 28th 2007 8:46PM

I get one heatr for saying I'd rather play Bioshock, and if my boss told me I couldn't, to go fuck off??

Whatever...

Jesus christ people, it's called a joke.

Word of the street. @ Aug 28th 2007 3:12PM

Thats one hell of a reward.After they finish orange box they could get some inspiration from Bioshock to upgrade the Half life formula for Half-life 3.

You got to love these guys :D

Otis Whitaker @ Aug 28th 2007 3:23PM

Easier way to do solve this: Don't make average games that take two years to make, that other companies would do in 6 months.

Leobebes @ Aug 28th 2007 3:35PM

Resistance is no where near bad. You guys are so fanboyish its not even funny. I own a 360 and nothing else I have over 10,000 points and to suggest Resistance is an outright bad game is equivalent to saying Gears of War is nothing more than an overrated, superficial, "not my style of game". It's silly, childish, and downright unapproachable.

Shawn @ Aug 28th 2007 3:41PM

I have Resistance. It's a good game but the enemies were a little to repetitive and I lost interest in the Story too often. Compared to the likes of the HL universe, it just doesn't have a leg to stand on. At the same time, we shouldn't be comparing a launch console FPS title with a long standing PC FPS Franchise. That's a bit silly. Still, I like Insomniac a lot and I'm looking forward to bigger and better games from them in the future.

Bloo @ Aug 28th 2007 4:43PM

I own a PS3, played all the way through RFOM, and because I didn't like that makes me a xbox fanboy? That makes no sense. Sorry if I'm not a fan of nearly undodgeable weapon-fire spray, horribly placed checkpoints, so-so graphics, so-so AI, etc...

Firewall @ Aug 28th 2007 8:17PM

@Bloo
Either you never played Resistance, or you just admitted to being the worst player of RFOM ever, in the history world.

Bloo @ Aug 29th 2007 2:30AM

I played it and am highly skilled. Highly. Sorry if my opinion differs from yours. Believe me, I wanted to like the game.

Anon @ Aug 28th 2007 6:23PM

According to Kim Swift (Portal), Gabe Newell does indeed play WoW. Fun fact for today.

stan @ Aug 28th 2007 8:06PM

Thats kinda funny...we play games at work too, when you make games playing other games is definately something that helps with the overall process, cuz then your like hey wouldn't it be cool if our game had something like a cross of whatever game it is your playing and making.
I think the biggest thing at my job right now is starcraft/wow/gears of war.
Gotta love how the programmers are doin that stuff and playing wow at the same time.