This probably won’t receive a lot of attention, because Valve has already received more than enough over the past two years. But, there is an important question raised in the wake of the somewhat disappointing announcement.

The question isn’t "Well, what did you expect?" Valve has a reputation to live up to, sure.

At stake here is the idea of episodic content for Source that Valve proposed shortly after the launch of Half-Life 2. The notion was that an episode would take perhaps three or four months to produce, and would be followed by another in a short time span. This isn’t going to happen. We might be seeing the first SiN episode pop up by Christmastime, but Valve is holding on to Aftermath very tightly.

On the other hand, this is Valve we’re talking about. Come next spring, we will have an incredibly polished first episode to look forward to. Valve understands the value of impression, and Valve certainly has never let us down there. After all, we are all witness to what an extra year contributed to HL2.

I hope we don’t see a lot of fuss made over this minor delay. Yes, Valve will do what it feels is best for its product. We cannot do anything to influence this. The least we can do is not attack them; Valve has never known a commercial failure, but they may be the most loved and hated game developer operating today.