Talking out of my ass here, but what if this new version of Hammer is released upon the OFFICIAL announcement of Source 2? Bare with me, but in theory, perhaps Valve’s new version of Hammer will not only be a suite of easy-to-handle Source gamemakery tools, but also contain a full licensed version of the Source Engine as a whole, but with a environment that’s also meant to be user friendly.
Basically what I’m getting at is that maybe with the introduction of Source 2, Valve will no longer see it fit to release games on the dated Source engine anymore, thus, they open the floodgates to the masses to let them have at the original Source engine for as long as they want, no charge.
Again, ass-talking.