Portal 2, believe it or not, is now 12 years old, and we still don't have a third game – this is despite series co-writer Erik Wolpaw constantly goading his employer into starting work on Portal 3.
Wolpaw is the focus of the latest episode of Simon Parkin's excellent My Perfect Console podcast, and the host wastes no time in asking his guest precisely why the third game hasn't happened yet – and if he's being totally serious when he makes these public demands on Valve.
"It is a joke," replies Wolpaw, before adding:
"The real reason is, in a flat structure like Valve, there is an 'opportunity cost' to doing anything. Whatever is going on at Valve right now requires the dedication and participation of the people working on it, and it's voluntary. So, to some extent, I would like to make a Portal 3, but I understand that – other than the fact that I'm largely joking when I say it just to give Valve, the people I work with, some crap – to really go out and advocate for something like that could be destructive in the sense that you don't want to cause internal strife – which I guess I am doing, but I think the people who could be disturbed by it internally understand that it's just me joking around."
Valve is, of course, primarily concerned with maintaining its Steam digital marketplace these days – a storefront which has massively changed the way we buy games on computers and has enabled countless small-scale developers to turn their games into commercially-viable prospects. It is also investing its time in hardware, with projects such as the Steam Deck handheld.
The original Portal was released in 2007 and was co-written by Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek, who both worked on the satirical website Old Man Murray before joining Valve.