Poll: Am I the only one who thinks the way Valve is run is kind of stupid?

[Indecipherable]

So stupid they probably have the most goodwill of all the developers and are absolutely stinking rich.

 

[Dryk]

I doubt that nobody's working on Half-Life, there'd be a group there that are guilty/interested enough to be trying to figure it out. I think what they're doing is working great for them, and that to change it would be the stupid thing to do.

P.S. Can someone explain to me the appeal of Gordon Freeman?

I don't know about people that don't qualify for theoretical physics degrees but... ;P

 

[DudeistBelieve]

*If TL;DR skip to the bottom*

Now before you start, I actually like Valve. They do good work, make good games, and have developed a character I assume every PC gamer has been trying to push as the mascot of video games (Gordon Freeman) and replace Mario with him. They have a positive track record, the one place I look to when judging something is their past. They gave us Team Fortress 2, Half Life, DotA 2, the Source engine (possibly the easiest and friendliest level engine I've ever used), and the Portal series (within minutes of someone reading this their will be at least 3 references to the cake being a lie and the end song to Portal 2 on here). They have a good model, especially with Steam backing up their ventures the way they do. It's just with the release of this Valve employee handbook that has me thinking.

I'm one for the creative process and all and supporting an artist's right to create freely, but the whole lack of leadership thing kind of disturbs me. For those of you not familiar with it, Valve recently released their employee handbook which can be summed up to this:"Work on what you want, don't worry about deadlines, work freely, answer to no one, be creative, enjoy it." I know someone will correct me st some point, and I am open to it if you wish to correct me. Now while this sounds like a good method of making games, it sounds a bit counter-productive. There's no better way I can explain this than with an example.

Let's say you ran a game studio and had about 100 employees all trained in whatever is needed. Your publisher has given you the IP to make 4 games released pretty frequently to each other. What you would probably do is assign 25 people to each game; the way Valve runs means that those 100 people can freely choose which game to work on, that means while 37 guys work on game A only 13 go to work on Game B.

That's my problem, and it's most likely the reason why none of us have seen hide nor hair of Half Life 3 yet, it's because everyone is working on something else. Call me old-fashioned or close-minded, but working on a project you need someone to take charge so something is done. Valve is the only one who can pull of this because they have Steam to back them up financially, anyone else trying this would probably fail.

So my question is this: Does anyone else question the way Valve is run? Or find it kind of dumb?

P.S. Can someone explain to me the appeal of Gordon Freeman?

No. No you're not.

You are never the only one, ever.

You fucking clown.

#CriticalMiss

 

[BreakfastMan]

*If TL;DR skip to the bottom*

Now before you start, I actually like Valve. They do good work, make good games, and have developed a character I assume every PC gamer has been trying to push as the mascot of video games (Gordon Freeman) and replace Mario with him. They have a positive track record, the one place I look to when judging something is their past. They gave us Team Fortress 2, Half Life, DotA 2, the Source engine (possibly the easiest and friendliest level engine I've ever used), and the Portal series (within minutes of someone reading this their will be at least 3 references to the cake being a lie and the end song to Portal 2 on here). They have a good model, especially with Steam backing up their ventures the way they do. It's just with the release of this Valve employee handbook that has me thinking.

I'm one for the creative process and all and supporting an artist's right to create freely, but the whole lack of leadership thing kind of disturbs me. For those of you not familiar with it, Valve recently released their employee handbook which can be summed up to this:"Work on what you want, don't worry about deadlines, work freely, answer to no one, be creative, enjoy it." I know someone will correct me st some point, and I am open to it if you wish to correct me. Now while this sounds like a good method of making games, it sounds a bit counter-productive. There's no better way I can explain this than with an example.

Let's say you ran a game studio and had about 100 employees all trained in whatever is needed. Your publisher has given you the IP to make 4 games released pretty frequently to each other. What you would probably do is assign 25 people to each game; the way Valve runs means that those 100 people can freely choose which game to work on, that means while 37 guys work on game A only 13 go to work on Game B.

That's my problem, and it's most likely the reason why none of us have seen hide nor hair of Half Life 3 yet, it's because everyone is working on something else. Call me old-fashioned or close-minded, but working on a project you need someone to take charge so something is done. Valve is the only one who can pull of this because they have Steam to back them up financially, anyone else trying this would probably fail.

So my question is this: Does anyone else question the way Valve is run? Or find it kind of dumb?

Agile Development [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development]. It is a fairly well-respected and well-known way of developing software, and they seem to use it (or a variant on it, since they are their own publisher) just fine. So, I honestly don't see the problem here.

 

[Hectix777]

*If TL;DR skip to the bottom*

Now before you start, I actually like Valve. They do good work, make good games, and have developed a character I assume every PC gamer has been trying to push as the mascot of video games (Gordon Freeman) and replace Mario with him. They have a positive track record, the one place I look to when judging something is their past. They gave us Team Fortress 2, Half Life, DotA 2, the Source engine (possibly the easiest and friendliest level engine I've ever used), and the Portal series (within minutes of someone reading this their will be at least 3 references to the cake being a lie and the end song to Portal 2 on here). They have a good model, especially with Steam backing up their ventures the way they do. It's just with the release of this Valve employee handbook that has me thinking.

I'm one for the creative process and all and supporting an artist's right to create freely, but the whole lack of leadership thing kind of disturbs me. For those of you not familiar with it, Valve recently released their employee handbook which can be summed up to this:"Work on what you want, don't worry about deadlines, work freely, answer to no one, be creative, enjoy it." I know someone will correct me st some point, and I am open to it if you wish to correct me. Now while this sounds like a good method of making games, it sounds a bit counter-productive. There's no better way I can explain this than with an example.

Let's say you ran a game studio and had about 100 employees all trained in whatever is needed. Your publisher has given you the IP to make 4 games released pretty frequently to each other. What you would probably do is assign 25 people to each game; the way Valve runs means that those 100 people can freely choose which game to work on, that means while 37 guys work on game A only 13 go to work on Game B.

That's my problem, and it's most likely the reason why none of us have seen hide nor hair of Half Life 3 yet, it's because everyone is working on something else. Call me old-fashioned or close-minded, but working on a project you need someone to take charge so something is done. Valve is the only one who can pull of this because they have Steam to back them up financially, anyone else trying this would probably fail.

So my question is this: Does anyone else question the way Valve is run? Or find it kind of dumb?

P.S. Can someone explain to me the appeal of Gordon Freeman?

No. No you're not.

You are never the only one, ever.

You fucking clown.

#CriticalMiss

Care to offer a little intellectual input into the debate rather than being a f#$*&@ clown yourself by just reciting phrases from a webcomic no one would really no about unless they frequent this site? Yeah I'm the clown here; 'course, 'course.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

*If TL;DR skip to the bottom*

Now before you start, I actually like Valve. They do good work, make good games, and have developed a character I assume every PC gamer has been trying to push as the mascot of video games (Gordon Freeman) and replace Mario with him. They have a positive track record, the one place I look to when judging something is their past. They gave us Team Fortress 2, Half Life, DotA 2, the Source engine (possibly the easiest and friendliest level engine I've ever used), and the Portal series (within minutes of someone reading this their will be at least 3 references to the cake being a lie and the end song to Portal 2 on here). They have a good model, especially with Steam backing up their ventures the way they do. It's just with the release of this Valve employee handbook that has me thinking.

I'm one for the creative process and all and supporting an artist's right to create freely, but the whole lack of leadership thing kind of disturbs me. For those of you not familiar with it, Valve recently released their employee handbook which can be summed up to this:"Work on what you want, don't worry about deadlines, work freely, answer to no one, be creative, enjoy it." I know someone will correct me st some point, and I am open to it if you wish to correct me. Now while this sounds like a good method of making games, it sounds a bit counter-productive. There's no better way I can explain this than with an example.

Let's say you ran a game studio and had about 100 employees all trained in whatever is needed. Your publisher has given you the IP to make 4 games released pretty frequently to each other. What you would probably do is assign 25 people to each game; the way Valve runs means that those 100 people can freely choose which game to work on, that means while 37 guys work on game A only 13 go to work on Game B.

That's my problem, and it's most likely the reason why none of us have seen hide nor hair of Half Life 3 yet, it's because everyone is working on something else. Call me old-fashioned or close-minded, but working on a project you need someone to take charge so something is done. Valve is the only one who can pull of this because they have Steam to back them up financially, anyone else trying this would probably fail.

So my question is this: Does anyone else question the way Valve is run? Or find it kind of dumb?

P.S. Can someone explain to me the appeal of Gordon Freeman?

No. No you're not.

You are never the only one, ever.

You fucking clown.

#CriticalMiss

Care to offer a little intellectual input into the debate rather than being a f#$*&@ clown yourself by just reciting phrases from a webcomic no one would really no about unless they frequent this site? Yeah I'm the clown here; 'course, 'course.

S'joke dude.

Captcha: High Time, fuck yeah.

 

[Tony2077]

*If TL;DR skip to the bottom*

Now before you start, I actually like Valve. They do good work, make good games, and have developed a character I assume every PC gamer has been trying to push as the mascot of video games (Gordon Freeman) and replace Mario with him. They have a positive track record, the one place I look to when judging something is their past. They gave us Team Fortress 2, Half Life, DotA 2, the Source engine (possibly the easiest and friendliest level engine I've ever used), and the Portal series (within minutes of someone reading this their will be at least 3 references to the cake being a lie and the end song to Portal 2 on here). They have a good model, especially with Steam backing up their ventures the way they do. It's just with the release of this Valve employee handbook that has me thinking.

I'm one for the creative process and all and supporting an artist's right to create freely, but the whole lack of leadership thing kind of disturbs me. For those of you not familiar with it, Valve recently released their employee handbook which can be summed up to this:"Work on what you want, don't worry about deadlines, work freely, answer to no one, be creative, enjoy it." I know someone will correct me st some point, and I am open to it if you wish to correct me. Now while this sounds like a good method of making games, it sounds a bit counter-productive. There's no better way I can explain this than with an example.

Let's say you ran a game studio and had about 100 employees all trained in whatever is needed. Your publisher has given you the IP to make 4 games released pretty frequently to each other. What you would probably do is assign 25 people to each game; the way Valve runs means that those 100 people can freely choose which game to work on, that means while 37 guys work on game A only 13 go to work on Game B.

That's my problem, and it's most likely the reason why none of us have seen hide nor hair of Half Life 3 yet, it's because everyone is working on something else. Call me old-fashioned or close-minded, but working on a project you need someone to take charge so something is done. Valve is the only one who can pull of this because they have Steam to back them up financially, anyone else trying this would probably fail.

So my question is this: Does anyone else question the way Valve is run? Or find it kind of dumb?

P.S. Can someone explain to me the appeal of Gordon Freeman?

No. No you're not.

You are never the only one, ever.

You fucking clown.

#CriticalMiss

Care to offer a little intellectual input into the debate rather than being a f#$*&@ clown yourself by just reciting phrases from a webcomic no one would really no about unless they frequent this site? Yeah I'm the clown here; 'course, 'course.

its true you are never the only one. its amazing how many people miss use those words

 

[Thoric485]

They made and continue making great games, while remaining independent and private, and dominate the digital distribution market despite EA and Microsoft's competition. Didn't even turn into assholes when the big money started flowing in.

I wish every dev studio was this dumb.

 

[jake557]

...is because there is no one on hand actively pushing the project.

How many games and developers have we seen ruined by either management or the publisher pushing too hard? A freeform approach is clearly working for them. Don't fix what isn't broken.

 

[Eric Morales]

As things stand I think it's hard to tell whether Valve's way of doing things is efficient or not. A lot of people seem to be of the opinion that "they're doing fine, so clearly it's working" but I don't think that proves anything.

Steam is so phenomenally successful (with good reason I might add, it's a great service) that they could probably stop developing games altogether and be just fine.

I don't think we'll be able to tell whether Valve's way of doing things works or not until Steam has some serious competition. I think you could get away with any corporate culture if you own something like Steam that is basically a license to print money.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Valve isn't run stupidly, it's run very smartly.

It's a company, and the only thing that would ruin it, is if they get their fanbase and customers to hate them. And if they don't get any money from sales.

Valve have done neither of those. They are richer than god, and everyone seems happy with that.

Of course we'd be HAPPIER IF THEY ANNOUNCED HALF LIFE FUCKING EPISODE SHITTING THREE. URRRRGHSJDSFALSDAS

 

[Erttheking]

Most of their games are just meh to me. I like the first Half-Life, Portal was okay, still just meh. Can understand why other gamers like them, but they haven't really made anything that has made me take notice. Have to say that I could give two shits that they are a respected company because I am here to play their games, not praise them for how well they treat their consumers. I would take a corrupt Capcom that went back to the days of the Nes and Snes ways of thinking, over Valve anyday. Alot of the ways they do business is really good, but I don't really like their games. Literally could care less that they give free DLC when the game it's for is not something I am going to buy in the first place.

For the people calling me a troll, go fuck yourselves and not being able to take somebody not liking your favorite game company.

This guy more or less sums up my thoughts in a nut shell. Also I think valve spreads themselves WAYYYYY too thin. Pick a project and focus on it for Pete's sake.

 

[TheFederation]

if they were doing this method the whole time, they've made some of the best games of the modern age, it seems to be working

 

[JoesshittyOs]

I think it's a funny sort of thing.

Yes, the business model at first glance seems rather shitty, because there really isn't one except for the "just try to keep yourself busy with whatever you want". It promotes creativity and it really does show in their games. It means that the people are actually putting effort into what they're making because they want to be making it. Basically, the business model for Valve is designed around people enjoying their work and having free reign to do what they want.

It's just goes to show you the talent of the people working there. And this is coming from someone who actually isn't a Valve fanboy.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

No. No you're not.

You are never the only one, ever.

You fucking clown.

#CriticalMiss

"Am I the only one" is a very common figure of speech that has been around for a long time that people need to stop freaking out about.

 

[getoffmycloud]

the OP is absolutely correct this wouldn't work if they didn't have steam providing money for them they would have no choice but to be a lot more focussed and if I am honest it would probably help there release schedule if they did just so say you work on this project but do what you want within it.

 

[conmag9]

They have created a method that
1) Makes them boatloads of money (the bottom line being the entire point of a business)
2) Makes good games because they have loads of talented employees and no forced completion times (as previously mentioned, that's shot a few wonderful sereis in the foot. I'm looking at you EA. Glaring, really).
3) Makes their employees happy, which helps you keep them aboard and creative, not to mention likely to recommend it to other creative types not interested in having their enthusiasm dampened by "how the system works".

The only disadvantage I'm seeing in practice is their lack of care over when something is completed. And you know what? A spectacular game long in the waiting is INFINITELY SUPERIOR to a rushed game that looses what could have made it great. Even when you're building on strong foundations, you can't push too fast or you'll end up with bug-ridden messes or formulaic crap. Valve does a great job and, better still, shows that you don't need to be a behemoth corporation never deviating from things that will sell to make golden mansions. That catches on? Oh, that'd be fantastic.

 

[Isalan]

Seems like a good idea to me, people work harder on something they want to do, rather than something they've been told to do.

I guess this explains why franchises generally only get worse and worse.

 

[Timmey]

I understand the argument but only IF no one is working on things such as HL3. Why would people who work for valve, and have the opportunity to work on one of the most anticipated games of our generation, choose to work on something else? everyone seems to assume all the employees are busy working on something else, but I have no idea why anyone would think that.

 

[endtherapture]

I think it's a good idea. Say you worked for Valve, and hated Half Life, and prefered L4D or Dota or something.

Your talents are easily going to be better spent working on Dota than on HL3.