Half-Life 3 and Left 4 Dead 3 were both scrapped because Source 2 was unfinished
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Steam itself seemed to be in maintenance mode with very little love until the last two years (when real competition emerged).
Valve seems like the kind of place with constant power struggles and office politics, even more so than a traditional org.
Separately, why are they still bothering with Source 2? Their competition is technically superior in pretty much every respect.
Alyx has 2,000ish concurrent players at this point, while Left 4 Dead 2, a 11 year old game, has over 17,000.
You're being incredibly dismissive of the tech in an unconvincing way. Being fortunate enough to own a rig and hmd to play VR with, it's clearly hit a turning point with Alyx.
Does that mean it's going to become the next iPhone tomorrow? No. The biggest hurdle in terms of adoption is lowering prices. Next is reducing motion sickness and researching what makes a VR game fun and immersive. We now have teleport locomotion systems and 144 Hz refresh rate that don't make us as motion sick. And Valve has now learned how to make these games incredibly fun, immersive and with an absolutely fantastic story.
It's an utterly unbelievable experience.
To your last point about player counts, yeah they're low. But it doesn't make any sense to compare a single player game which is played once or twice and it _definitely_ doesn't make sense to compare a 60$ game that minimally requires very cheap hardware to a 60$ game that requires about a 600$ PC and a 250$ - 1000$ VR headset.
VR isn't going to die again. It will take time, but it will definitely become mainstream in 10-15 years. And while for some reason you seem to see Alyx as a failure, I see it as the spark that ignites the VR revolution.
Source 2 engine has nothing to do with why they scrapped like 4-5 games, it's because why finish anything when you can just collect 30% on steam. It must've been like an adult daycare at valve for the last 7-8 years with no actual work needed to be finished.... Are they hiring?
I have no idea why people are so against the epic store. I have to start believing its steam marketing team at work.
Honestly, I really hope this is a Portal getting the Alyx treatment. That would be my dream VR game, even if I did have to take unhealthy amounts of dramamine.
There's also the issue that the appeal of portals being quite mind bending is satisfying on screen but it's probably rather jarring to go through a portal on a wall and instantly begin falling quickly to the floor. Alyx had issues with falling as well which is why you sort of float slowly when you fall off a ledge.
On the other hand, while I think it's impossible, Valve would be the company to pull it off.
Thus the dramamine :) .
That being said, I agree with everything you've stated. I don't really see it being doable, but it's Valve we're talking about so who knows. I just know what's wishful thinking.