Xueleshan almost gave up "Half-Life" and changed his mind after being threatened by V Club executives

2025-03-23 21:14:14|Myriagame |source：minecraft skins

The first generation of Half Life is not only one of the best first-person shooters of all time, but also one of the most important games in the modern era.In the world we live in today, the game is released with a lot of marketing publicity, but in fact, publisher Xueleshan planned to "give up" it shortly after the game was released.

Although Half-Life eventually became one of the best-selling PC games of the day, it wasn't the case in the beginning.Sales in the early stages of the game were quite bleak and piracy was rampant. It was not until the game was released for the annual version that it achieved the success we are familiar with today.But Xueleshan didn't want to continue supporting the game after its first release.

According to reports, at the 2025 Game Developers Conference (GDC), former Valve Chief Marketing Officer Monica Harrington revealed that executives at Snow Mountain had planned to take a "letting it go" attitude towards the game.Harrington and Valve co-founder Gabe Newell were told that the publisher would cancel all marketing efforts in Half Life and focus on other games in Snow Mountain.

“Half-Life will go silently to failure,” Harrington explained. “I was stunned.”

Harrington made a move comparable to the exciting plot of the movie's biographies, and she threatened to expose Xueleshan's bad decisions to the entire gaming industry.If Xueleshan withdraws marketing funds for Half Life, developers and journalists will know the true situation of the company.Needless to say, Xueleshan finally surrendered.

“When Xueleshan told us they were going to give up Half Life, I felt like someone slapped me hard,” she explained. “I quickly told Xueleshan that not only would they not be able to withdraw their marketing funds for Half Life, but they would have to launch the annual boxed game. I also said, ‘If you don’t do that, we’ll tell those game development industries that are starting to fall in love with Valve, how messy it is in Xueleshan’.”

Valve was still in the dilemma of developing the original Half Life at that time, and Harrington said that the moment was "a life-and-death for the company."Although they didn't know what Xueleshan would respond, their threat played a role.

"Xueleshan has made concessions and has begun planning to launch a new annual version. Once the annual version was released, Half Life quickly returned to the best-selling list, and the annual version has achieved great success," said the former Valve executive.

Needless to say, Xueleshan Online no longer exists now.After experiencing countless scandals, controversies, mergers, etc., the publisher was acquired by Vivendi Games and then merged with Activision.Xueleshan Online was once one of the most chaotic companies in the gaming industry, but it has also released some of the best PC games of all time, including Half Life.What a legendary history.

Today, the Half-Life series still exists…but it’s just barely maintained.After the release of the absolutely stunning virtual reality spin-off, Half-Life: Alex, the second game in the series is also undergoing a gorgeous RTX remake, which really looks very cool.However, there is still no news for the third game.

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