Valve is hardly known for its urgency — just look at how long Half Life 2: Episode 3 has taken. It’s pretty safe to describe Valve’s development cycles as ‘glacial.’ That’s why when it announced it would be developing the stand-alone sequel to Warcraft III, Defence of the Ancients (DOTA), the majority of fans released a sigh of trepidation mixed with cautious excitement.
Valve is known for its quality, but you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking it’ll take half a life to see a stable release. How wrong you are.
Earlier today, Valve revealed it is changing their development schedule for DOTA 2. Instead of a full year of beta testing, they’ve begun to push for release. The reason behind the change of heart? Demand. Valve said:
“The feedback we’re seeing everywhere is that people just want to play it, even though there’s a ton of heroes yet to be implemented. We’ve also seen that the folks who are already in the beta are chomping at the bit to show everyone else some of the fun games they’ve had.”
This is a rare occurrence, but not surprising. Left 4 Dead saw its sequel a mere year after the original’s release and Portal 2 took half the time of Half Life 2. You might be wary of rushed releases from Valve, but with Steam bringing mountains of money in, it isn’t hard for the company to re-allocate development resources to ensure quality is guaranteed.
Via: Inside Mac Games
