Although I know gamers and fans want HL3, and I say this as a huge Half-Life fan, I can't imagine a scenario where releasing Half-Life 3 would be a good business decision for Valve.<p>Releasing Half-Life 3 or episode 3 in 2008-2010 could have been good for Valve, in the sense that it would tie up lose ends in the story for players and would have sold well enough to be profitable. At this point Half-Life 3 is the most hyped game that has never existed and it'd be very hard for them to live up to most people's expectations. Valve is a pretty data driven company, and they have a lot of data about what sells and what players are playing. I don't think it's coincidence that most of the top played and top grossing games on Steam are Valve games and that Valve has moved away from single player games in favor of multiplayer games as a service.<p>There haven't been many commercially successful single player only, or primarily single player AAA campaign based first person shooters in recent history. Half-Life 3 could probably follow the model of last year's Doom and be successful, but it wouldn't live up to a lot of people's expectations. Doing something weirder, niche, outside of the box or supporting Valve's new business models (making HL3 VR only or a online competitive multiplayer or sandbox game) would alienate people, even if the game is amazing and innovative, because its once again not what they want from a Half-Life game. I don't believe Valve can make a Half-Life game without angering a large segment of fan base and ending up in a No Man Sky type situation. The cost of AAA single player games has skyrocketed as well, so I'm not sure if Valve wants to hire and spend the money on Half-Life 3 in terms of production values and content. Maybe eventually there will be an HL3 once Valve creates a game making AI that can read your mind and perfectly tailor a game to your expectations :). Valve could also make "Half-Life 3" without calling it Half-Life 3, I guess.<p>That Valve has not released HL3 and probably never will shows a strength in their business and business model, not an inability to execute or a flaw. Current day Valve is not the same company that made Half-Life and Half-Life 2, but I think they foster innovation and high quality games in a more impactful way (Steam, hardware, VR, etc.)