Valve recently announced that Portal 2 was going to be delayed. However, instead of the mass anger and shock, or at least annoyance that would accompany a similar announcement from pretty much any other publisher (because, despite their humble origins as the developers of Half-Life and their continued first party releases, Valve is really more of a publisher  than a developer now), we almost felt a feeling of appreciation, of companionship with them. This is by no means a rational reaction, but regardless of this, it is espoused by pretty much all of the gaming industry.

When Activision or EA screw up, everyone is talking about it and criticizing it brutally. Even arguably beneficial moves such as EA's 'used tax' that forces people that buy a game 'used' to have to pay to play online are thrust under a spotlight of extreme scrutiny. And forget about getting away negative moves, such as Activision's almost indefensible move to fire Vince Zampella and Jason West to try to deny them their bonuses for making a succesful game. However, when Valve messes up, everyone, myself included, seems eager to say "it's okay", or laugh along; it barely takes any criticism at all for what is a negative move in all aspects of the word.

You don't blame them either

This behavior is puzzling to say the least. However, the weirdest thing is that even though Valve is notorious for never making timely releases (the concept of "Valve Time" is so universal, it even has its own heading on the Valve Wikipedia page!) we let Valve get away with it every single time. Even Valve realizes its reputation, even mentioning, nay, trumpeting that fact in their announcement of the games forthcoming lateness:

"...indicating the follow-up to the "ground-breaking title that earned over 30 Game of the Year awards despite missing its original ship date" would not be ready in time..."

In this quote, Valve even seems to be saying "we're so awesome we can do what we want with our release dates"! Its outrageous that instead of becoming offended, people feel compelled to be nice to Valve as a result and only get more excited for the game. Why do we put up with this?

Valve believes that this is a triumph

The reason, I believe, is that despite their horrid timeliness issues, Valve has still largely been good to the gaming populace. Pretty much every single game they have made has been excellent (unlike say, EA's [insert random sport franchise here]), they have been kind to modders by making their games infinitely moddable, which is arguably part of their allure (Unlike say Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2). Finally, Steam is a great, convenient system, and with it Valve goes beyond the call of duty (pun always intended). In fact, with the exception of the rampant delays, Valve has had only one failing in recent memory, that of releasing Left 4 Dead 2 only a year after the first Left 4 Dead and not delivering on anywhere near the amount of downloadable content that they had promised.

As a whole, I guess you could say what saves Valve is the fact that they have character. When they deliver on what they do, it never fails to impress. And even when they do not deliver, they do it with style: if you have not read the official letter from Valve explaining the reason that Portal 2 is late, you should definitely check it out for a few laughs.

So, despite their failings now, I will definitely be lining up (in spirit only, thanks to Steam) to buy Portal 2  the day it comes out.