Talk:Unreleased Half-Life games

Verifiability of Hostile Takeover section

While several people with knowledge of the project, such as Marc Laidlaw and Benson Russell, have since gone on record to confirm its existence, almost all of the information has been collected on fan sites, wikis, and forums, which are not accepted as valid sources on Wikipedia. Writing the Hostile Takeover section has been challenging due to how little the subject has been reported on in what Wikipedia considers reliable sources, but I think I've managed to present sufficient proof of its existence using only three of them: Gamespot, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and The Adrenaline Vault (AVault). However, although Wikipedia agrees that the first two have always been reliable sources, there has been enough debate about the third one to the point where it is now considered an unreliable source - at least partially. WP:VG/RL lists material published by The Adrenaline Vault from 1996-1998 as reliable despite the fact that the publication is listed as an unreliable source on WP:VG/RS. Upon further investigation into AVault's reliability (which was discussed here, here, and most recently here), I discovered that AVault was once considered a reliable source of gaming news, owed to the fact that many of its staff worked in the games industry, until internal conflict in the mid-2000s tore the site apart and caused its staff to be replaced by volunteers who tended to report less reliable news, tarnishing its reputation.

Despite the fact that I believe AVault's report on Hostile Takeover to be legitimate due to the fact that it was published back when they were still considered reliable, I would have used an even more reliable source with this information to avoid potential conflicts with Wikipedia policy, but in this case, there is no more reliable source. The information presented by AVault in their two reports is key to understanding Hostile Takeover's nature and development in this article; without it we only have the the report from Gamespot that a then-unnamed expansion was being developed by 2015, and the trademark listing of a game named "Hostile Takeover" from Valve appearing in the USPTO database almost two years later. Also, the fact that the name "Hostile Takeover" was reported by AVault long before Valve filed the trademark listing is another piece of evidence that points towards their reports being legitimate.

Please consider these points before removing the citations from AVault from the article. Perhaps it would be worth petitioning to amend their current reliability status on Wikipedia... -JFWillson (talk) 03:52, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

JFWillson, thanks for doing the legwork to find better sources. I'll leave it up to editors if anyone has any problems with Adrenaline Vault. You could start a conversation about that source on WP:VG/RS if you wanted another evaluation. Popcornfud (talk) 15:56, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Title

It's possible this article should be titled Canceled Half-Life games, as this seems to be what other similar pages are called. I don't have a preference, but just bringing it up in case someone does. Popcornfud (talk) 16:01, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Laidlaw

Marc Laidlaw is referenced only as Laidlaw without his full name or much explanation of who he is and his role, and there doesn't seem to be a link to his wikipedia page. I don't know if his "Epistle 3" piece is close enough to the cancelled Half Life: Episode 3 to be referenced here. Rmd1023 (talk) 01:13, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that was an oversight that I've fixed now. Popcornfud (talk) 01:39, 12 September 2024 (UTC)