I guess the next step would be for a game designer to simply think about a game design, and not even share their thoughts with anybody. The design lives entirely in the minds of the audience trying to guess what the designer might be thinking of.

I'm ok with the market determining the value of someone's work, above a minimum wage. Hopefully this is a reasonable compromise?

Politicians vote on completely changing the law for ALL PEOPLE, I can accept the case that Federal Legislatures should be paid at least as much as Federal Judges.

Would the game have been as effective without the 3D setting

Yup, combat was a bit dull, and ammo extremely scarce.

It wouldn't be that complicated...

I don't know. Journey is one of the best interactive experiences I've had since, well, pretty much since videogames exist. Braid on the other hand seemed to me like a few clever time-based puzzles, some bad platforming, and a whole heap of trite emo bollocks.

Frustrated with the great many video games that used cutscenes rather than gameplay mechanics to tell their stories,

Absolutely, the way Valve works, any employee is free to keep pushing HL3 (at least until they get laid off), but if they don't get enough traction internally, the project isn't going to move forward. So I guess that if some guy is making concept art or drafting design documents, the project could be said to be "in…

Let's use common sense here, why would they not make a sequel?

Valve are generally pretty open about their stuff; if you know people there, it isn't difficult to get a tour of the place. If HL3 was being worked on, we would have heard something.

I don't know why anybody still expects HL3 to be in active development.

Shame. The ending is one of the best parts.

9/11: The best thing that ever happened to the law enforcement agencies.

Sounds like a worthy heir to the 959.

I'm not sold on the idea of those delicate-looking wires being on the outside.

Shadow Warrior is excellent fun (as was the original). I may do a katana-only playthrough some day.

God, I hate sticky covers with a venom. I'm all for cover you can crouch behind, but Gears-style gameplay (pixel-hunting for exposed body parts) just sucks for me. It does seem to be a lot of peoples' thing, though, if sales are to be believed.

The original God of War on PS2 looked better than most PS3 launch games, so there is precedent.