Dude. Fuck you. Wtf. Like seriously.
"How dare people have decent work times while I don't get mah GAMEZ?!"
jfc
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‘Valve Time’ allow Valve employees to have healthy work life balance
- Thread starter Arthands
- Start date
"How dare people have decent work times while I don't get mah GAMEZ?!"
jfc
If games were published and sold at an healthier pace, Valve wouldn't be able to distance itself from crunch-mentalities.
"Valve time" becomes a praiseworthy thing when in-house software is the most important voice in Valve's earnings and is produced and released at that relaxing, crunch-free pace that employees get to enjoy-
"Valve time" is not a praiseworthy thing when it means "we don't really need to do crunch because others do it for us".
How would you react if this same message came from a GameStop employee? "I don't get why people complain about crunch and stress in the videogame business, I work 8 hours a day tops". This woman is comparing her experience as someone who doesn't need to create games to have a salary to that of those who do.
How does having good work-life balance mean they are not working hard?
The company literally launched a game last year.
They are working on Valley of the Gods.
They are updating their decade old games like CS, DOTA, TF2.
They are updating their VR plattform every week and adding more and more headsets.
They worked on Proton so people can play Windows games on Linux.
They updated their Chat system to be more like Discord.
They added more and more controller suport.
They developed a SteamLink App for Android devices and iOS (that was rejected by Apple).
They are developing new hardware (Knuckles controllers) and an own VR headset.
They updated the internet café Steam licences/versions.
That happened all in 2018.
"tHeY dOnT wOrK hArD".
The Valve employee didnt say "I dont get why people complain about crunch". She said that the work-life balance at the company she is working for is good.
I wonder, do the people "blaming" Valve for profiting off other people's work - and thus are able to offer a good work/life balance - also apply the same to other situations.
For example, retail chain stores that treat their workers well wouldn't be in a position to do that without cheap garment manufacturing in foreign countries. Car assembly plants that treat their workforce well wouldn't be able to do that, either, without the manufacture of parts in places that don't/can't offer the same work/life balance.
Because otherwise you're just a bunch of hypocrites ripping apart a company that is actually doing some good in this industry,
I mean, that manufactured quote of yours is perfectly fine and understandable from an employee of a retail store (I should know, I've worked retail). Lack of understanding does not denote a lack of empathy.
For example, retail chain stores that treat their workers well wouldn't be in a position to do that without cheap garment manufacturing in foreign countries. Car assembly plants that treat their workforce well wouldn't be able to do that, either, without the manufacture of parts in places that don't/can't offer the same work/life balance.
Because otherwise you're just a bunch of hypocrites ripping apart a company that is actually doing some good in this industry,
I mean, that manufactured quote of yours is perfectly fine and understandable from an employee of a retail store (I should know, I've worked retail). Lack of understanding does not denote a lack of empathy.
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As a consumer I shouldn't really care.
Isn't insomniac also really small? Spiderman was also without crunch.
Simply put it Valve is an extremely unproductive company whose "innovation" culture ended on a bunch of people working on prototypes forever.
The post you're quoting doesn't say what you imply.
Valve is, at this point, a storefront first, a service company second, and a software company as a late third. You can't compare the working experience at Valve to that of people who actually need to release games to get paid. If Valve stuck to making games only they couldn't afford Valve time.
This is precisely the example I made.
I work in the fashion industry. It's made of relatively well off people working for absurdely rich people to sell stuff that is made by people who are borderline slaves. And I'd jump on anyone suggesting this is an industry with healthy working conditions all the same.
How would you react if a store owner said "People say we have it easy because we don't have to work under life-threatening conditions in tinctories, but I just call it having an healthy work environment*?
* we still sell the stuff made by those people, btw."
But how can other game companies do this then without extreme amount of work? Here in Sweden, like Paradox, where it would be illegal to do overtime as some companies do.
It is all about management and planning.
It seems that it is still the case, if you read Glassdoor reviews.
I really don't eat up Valve's marketing.
I mean, I understand why they are doing it: they need a shitload of new fresh employees due to the constant turnover, which is why they hire a lot of freshman from universities-schools.
The case of Campo-Santo may be different since their arrangement must be working only on proper Valve games, so they don't need to do grunt work.
They're maintaining 3 active multiplayer titles, handling the biggest PC Store and videogame backend, developping the biggest VR API on the market. But yeah "they are doing nothing".
Thats not what Jane is saying though. She says how she experiences working at Valve and she thinks it should be normal like that in 1st world country.
i work for a somewhat flat structure company also, they key to having a company like this work is being able to identify and hire individuals who are very driven and able to work well autonomously. small teams that communicate really well is very important. so to attract experienced individuals that can work well like this we offer things like unlimited holiday, 3 free meals a day and as im writing this i can see a masseuse setting up.... yeah its certainly not your normal company, but it works :)
This thread really made some pieces of shit come out of the woodwork, holy shit.
No one needs to fucking crunch. It's a barbaric practise proven time and time again to decrease productivity , not increase it.
No one needs to fucking crunch. It's a barbaric practise proven time and time again to decrease productivity , not increase it.
One of the worst place to bring up "lazy dev" memes and yet, plenty of our esteemed ERA members cannot hold back. But then, all hope for decent discourse is lost when you look at the recent "Epic Store" threads.
The problem is that if that was normal, she wouldn't get to have such a relaxing working experience.
Valve is a middleman. If you improve working conditions for people who actually create goods, and you don't increase prices, then the people who "pay" for those better conditions are the employers and the middlemen.
Unless she's advocating for some sort of "happy degrowth" of the industry where less games are published and sold, and thus games are created at a more relaxed pace. Good luck with that.
This is... largely not true, but what's undeniable is that if crunch becomes a standard, your production cycle is not healthy. The pervasiveness of crunch as a production standard in the videogame industry is a massive problem and something the industry itself suffers from. I don't think anybody is debating that.
The problem is advocating that "Valve time" is actually a functional, alternative production model when it's something that you can only afford when actually creating games isn't your primary business.
I would argue that creating games doesnt require crunch. Most of the games developed in middle europe are bound to EU laws. The folks I know at Ubisoft talk about a great work-life balance.
The guy I know who worked on the FF12 remaster (in China) was having a normal work day.
From what I know Piranha Bytes has a normal work life balance while also taking years for their games to come out.
It just seems to some other pubs/devs it became so normalized that they dont believe "It doesnt work any other way."
And I'd support your argument as rational. Crunch has a function but it's an emergency practice, not a standard. If you crunch all the time, then you're understaffed or you lack equipollent talent.
Ubisoft is probably big enough to be able to not afford crunch. However, people who need to compete with Ubisofts and similar giants probably feel they can only do so through crunch. The big risk of imposing working standard, as usual, is that of making the "big fishes" even more advantaged.
They have absolutely not, they just unofficially cancelled it and pretended it never existed.
Is that why several game companies can do it just fine and pump out several games a year without crunch?
User Banned (1 Day): Drive-by Trolling
When you're a game dev (Valuve) that doesn't release games i guess it achievable to have empty offices at 5:30 ? :P
You guys are god damn insane. Ban me. I don't care. Just make it perma if you do. FFS.
This happens too in the VFX industry.
A lot of people that work on these industries are passion-driven, which is good, but they can be easily abused by upper management since they are somewhat young & can endure that kind of job pressure (for a while).
They can afford to keep doing that "Valve time" mantra since they are still racking on cash (and they will keep doing that for a time)
Although, I think that creating games was never their main business plan;
They saw that gaming was an important factor to get people invested into a platform, so they went by that. And they have succeeded.
Their main competition was always Microsoft, and still is.
However, now with Epic Games giving them headaches by snatching exclusive 3rd parties games, I'm pretty sure Valve's "unofficial" upper management (along with Gaben) are pushing its employees to fast track games and their APIs/Linux/Hardware efforts.
Dude, that's a super tame message. Why would you be banned for it? I'm not particular to being called insane.
People in the thread for the most part aren't disagreeing with this statement. They're disagreeing with holding Valve as the company that best exemplifies this. There are other games made by other studios without crunch, those should be.
Is Jane working at any of those other studios? She, and as such this thread, is using valve as an example because that's the place she just started working at and is talking about.
Are you under the impression Valve has any say in how much (non-Valve) games are sold for? Because, as I understand your argument, the real people to blame are the devs and pubs who could increase game prices to offset better working conditions but don't (R*, Sony, MS, ActBlizz), and the devs/pubs who require a game to be out the door during a certain financial quarter (those same companies) to satiate shareholders and projected earnings, thus forcing crunch. Yes, Valve profit from the games other people produce, but they have no say in either those games costs, or the development procedures.
Does being a private company with a retail arm allow Valve the flexibility for better working conditions? Yes. But it seems weird that people are attacking Valve for this, when it would be a better idea to argue for industry-wide non-crunch practices and unionisation as a means of protecting workers.
Edit: Are you arguing that Valve should use their position to force other companies to not crunch? If you are, I think the only way that is feasible would be if they created a union, auto-opting in all Valve staff, and then issued a statement saying that the industry needs to move away from abusive/coercive working conditions. Which I would be all in favour of, btw.
I mean, that's great for Valve and all, but they're basically the only company in the industry that has the luxury of not having to produce games and still making tons of money.
Small devs have way more pressure to produce content, most large devs are accountable to stockholders. If they don't produce good content on a regular basis, then they can't exist. Valve can put out stinkers for a decade and it wouldn't matter.
I'm all for everyone having better work/life balance, but it's not like many places can emulate Valve.
I mean, maybe if publishers and developers got a better cut of sales then conditions could be better?
Small devs have way more pressure to produce content, most large devs are accountable to stockholders. If they don't produce good content on a regular basis, then they can't exist. Valve can put out stinkers for a decade and it wouldn't matter.
I'm all for everyone having better work/life balance, but it's not like many places can emulate Valve.
I mean, maybe if publishers and developers got a better cut of sales then conditions could be better?
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Unionisation - force all developers and publishers to adhere to strict working time conditions.
Also, Valve still make games. Come on now.
Valve has Fuck You Money for years and good on them for using it in a proper manner.
I long ago stopped caring or playing whatever Valve says/do/make, and I understand the frustrations many people here have expressed with them. But at the end of the day, they are private company, they have the luxury to do whatever the fuck they want, no matter how much the Internet screams. I already moved on from my love for the company, but that doesn't mean I want them to crunch or fail or make a "worthwhile" game anymore, glad I'm beyond it and more people should do that.
I'm happy now that they are using their money and power to make the lifes of their employees better in an industry known for being absolute shit to the wonderful people who produces the worlds we love.
I long ago stopped caring or playing whatever Valve says/do/make, and I understand the frustrations many people here have expressed with them. But at the end of the day, they are private company, they have the luxury to do whatever the fuck they want, no matter how much the Internet screams. I already moved on from my love for the company, but that doesn't mean I want them to crunch or fail or make a "worthwhile" game anymore, glad I'm beyond it and more people should do that.
I'm happy now that they are using their money and power to make the lifes of their employees better in an industry known for being absolute shit to the wonderful people who produces the worlds we love.
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User Banned (1 day): Lazy dev rhetoric
I would imagine some are terribly mistaken on the context here. Valve hasn't produced anything of note in quite some time. Their 30% cut from all game sales on the worlds largest video game storefront gives Valve employees that luxury.
The reason we don't have HL3/4/5 or CS2,TF3, etc. is due to Steam.
They don't need to worry about deadlines or crunch to survive.
The reason we don't have HL3/4/5 or CS2,TF3, etc. is due to Steam.
They don't need to worry about deadlines or crunch to survive.
If games took long because of this I'd have no problem, the industry would just need to stop announcing everything so far away and bring back middle tier games to fill the void.
"Valve doesn't make games anymore"
Who fucking cares. They make the best digital platform in the business, which revitalized the PC space. They actively encourage initiatives that better not just the PC space but gaming in its entirety. They put their time into features no one else even bothers with, like controller support.
If Valve never released another game I wouldn't care.
Who fucking cares. They make the best digital platform in the business, which revitalized the PC space. They actively encourage initiatives that better not just the PC space but gaming in its entirety. They put their time into features no one else even bothers with, like controller support.
If Valve never released another game I wouldn't care.
Three games they didn't come up with themselves or bought the company making the game and Artifact. Not exactly a great track record.
Work/life balance is extremely important and I'm not minimizing that. I'm just minimizing Valve's 'recent' game output.
Valve Time is term coined by the fans/media mostly used when Valve points out a certain date/window for their releases/big game updates, but they failed to deliver on time, usually having delays, which varies from hours to weeks. Reverse Valve Time has also been seen. More info here.