Noticed over at Voodoo Extreme that Activision, presumably a publisher who would occasionally like to put games on store shelves, has agreed to publish upcoming games for Valve Software.  Valve, which is apparently still considered a developer, brings to this deal Half-Life and the multitude of ways you can publish and republish the same game to a saturated market.  Presumably, we should anxiously await the impending release of Half-Life Game Of The Year Counter-Strike Activision Enhanced Edition, which would contain the original Half-Life, a completely new installer program, and perhaps a keychain of some kind. 

Valve, with a proven track record of one game, looks to release, through Activision, the Day of Defeat mod at retail.  The ever savvy Activision certainly recognized this as a fantastic opportunity to publish as many as three new versions of Half-Life with dramatic differences between each edition including the use of different colored inks on the packaging.  Here's some of the nonsense from the press release:

"Valve has a proven track record of creating ground-breaking games with worldwide appeal," said Larry Goldberg, executive vice president of Activision Worldwide Studios.

Yeah, I think he's serious.  I can only assume that his misuse of the plural form was inadvertent and he actually meant 'game' in a singular sense. 

"We share with Valve the common goal of delivering the best games possible and with the upcoming launch of Day of Defeat we look forward to kicking-off a strong and successful partnership."

Well, I admit, Valve has an interesting strategy in delivering the best games possible by not delivering any games at all.  I suppose I could say that I have a strong commitment to providing the best automotive care possible, and I do this best by not actually messing with cars in any significant way.   While Day of Defeat is a fantastic mod, and one certainly worthy of retail, I fail to see how Valve is in any productive way related.  It's like giving a Best Actress Oscar to Nicole Kidman's agent. 

Now, I'm not being naive about the business side of things here, and I certainly don't fault Valve for being successful despite any kind of recent productivity or indication of skill.  In fact, I kind of cheer them on in that sense.  It gives hope to all of us who'd like to make money by continuing our long standing tradition of doing very little.

- Elysium