Random: Valve’s Gabe Newell On Game Delays: “Late Is Just For A Little While, Suck Is Forever”

In Valve’s new documentary celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Half-Life series, the company’s founder Gabe Newell has shared his own thoughts about the differences between a delayed game and a rushed release.

He summed it up as “late is just for a little while, suck is forever” when touching on the challenges Valve faced in the lead-up to the release of Half-Life, which ultimately led to the game’s release being pushed back a year.

“We could try to force this thing out the door, but that’s not the company we want to be, that’s not the people we want to be. That’s not the relationship we want to have with our customers.”

The quote has already been likened to “Miyamoto’s most famous quote” (which there’s admittedly not much evidence of) where he supposedly said “a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad”.

Interestingly, Gabe Newell has previously revealed how he’s a huge fan of Mario’s creator, and how Miyamoto’s games have made him become a “better” developer. Valve even released the Portal: Companion Collection on the Switch last year and recently mentioned how the OLED model paved the way for the Steam Deck OLED.

In Valve’s new documentary celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Half-Life series, the company’s founder Gabe Newell has shared his own thoughts about the differences between a delayed game and a rushed release.

He summed it up as “late is just for a little while, suck is forever” when touching on the challenges Valve faced in the lead-up to the release of Half-Life, which ultimately led to the game’s release being pushed back a year.

“We could try to force this thing out the door, but that’s not the company we want to be, that’s not the people we want to be. That’s not the relationship we want to have with our customers.”

The quote has already been likened to “Miyamoto’s most famous quote” (which there’s admittedly not much evidence of) where he supposedly said “a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad”.

Interestingly, Gabe Newell has previously revealed how he’s a huge fan of Mario’s creator, and how Miyamoto’s games have made him become a “better” developer. Valve even released the Portal: Companion Collection on the Switch last year and recently mentioned how the OLED model paved the way for the Steam Deck OLED.