I believe it. The whole "flat structure" of the company has always seemed too good to be true (or at the very least not for most people).
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Anon: "I worked at Valve a few years back, and I could write a book about what's wrong there" (Update: Verified ex-Valve employee comments in thread)
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Why does it have to be an either/or situation? The amount of revenue they pull in gives them a tremendous amount of freedom.
These obviously both have long term possible financial development. But long term is the operative phrase. VR does not yet have a huge financial upside (doubly so in the field of high end VR Valve courts), or at least not one that eclipses the raw dollars per man hour you could expect from working on a DOTA compendium. The Linux work was hedging against plausible cataclysmic behavior from Microsoft in the span of many, many years. The author's words gives the impression short term, low cost gain is in the genes of every team member which is why I wondered where difficult projects like the Linux initiative and VR hardware development fit in.
Well, let me bring the best excuse I've seen on this forum has for companies not doing what one wants.
'they dont want to, and it's their decision as creators not to.
Sure, if you ignore the others that have left over the years and said something similar.
I would not characterize that as a fear of windows, but a vision for the future. You can have that, though.
Now you can sweep away any companies contribution or innovation by declaring it will did good for their business, or in the case of this Linux development, somehow sometime benefit them in some way. Speaking of flat. That flattens everything a company can possibly offer into an equally self-serving maneuver.
I look at that Linux development, and how much it appears to be benefiting valve, and how much it benefits all of us, and I consider that a major stand out project that hugely improves the entire PC landscape with non-obvious benefits to valve. If you can dismiss that, you can dismiss anything.
I'm not saying they have to, I was replying to posters suggesting that doing so would be either infeasible or problematic.
What I came to say. No former employee fired or otherwise has ever anonymously said nice things about their employer and are obviously (emotionally) incentivized to do the opposite.
Doubtful, but it is likely that Valve works better for some people and that we mainly see the people for whom it was a shit work environment speaking up.
The characterization of the company as comprised of idle thumb twiddlers seems to be what some people are reading into this, which isn't what the story is actually saying anyway.
You can choose outside of the 2 though especially with Valve's financial security.
They have and look where it got them.
If they prefer to make games like Artifact, I'd rather them work on the service.
I love Portal and Left 4 Dead.
I like CS but its ok.
Not really a fan of Half Life but its okay too.
But with all these games coming out (from third parties) from all the ways possible, I dont mind if Valve focuses on one thing over the other.
this is what immediately came to mind after reading like 4 sentences of this
Why are we making threads based off of anonymous posts in comment sections again?
Like, did anyone click the link? None of that is in the article. Nobody is vouching for this point of view except the commenter themselves.
Like, did anyone click the link? None of that is in the article. Nobody is vouching for this point of view except the commenter themselves.
If you're blaming greed while defending capitalism in the same post you've lost me.
It's just the way the company see itself as. It sucks for the people who wanted more games from them, but that's the way Valve has decided to conduct itself as a business.
Valve has enough money to make a shit ton of games, but if they dont feel like they can pull it off, then there's nothing we can do.
This is a description of the market, not a description of capitalism. Valve does not acquire capital besides money and high end computers.
Quite the contrast from Jane's (Campo Santo's artist, now Valve's artist) experience there.
I also read most of it and some of it seems really weird. Take this, for example:
The only thing Valve created from scratch was Half Life. Every single project besides that was originally a mod or made by an external dev team, Portal included
Also, this:
Is this the same company that developed Proton, is allowing developers to use their network and dedicated servers for online for "free" and is launching a $999 VR headset aimed at a (still) mostly enthusiast market?
Also the Valve that is using their platform to do really cool stuff like LudoNarraCon, which, from the mouth of the organizers, helped a lot really niche titles?
I have a fuckton of criticism to Valve, especially with their use of algorhytms and the lack of a moderation team on what enters and not enters steam (with stuff like the rape game getting in there, although, never for sale) and some of that does seems plausible but man some stuff seems REALLY weird.
and i don't know why my post got aligned like this, sorry
Can't stress out the importance of a well documented chain of command with clear policies on escalation path and where the buck stops at. I work in tech (hardware) and I'm glad my company has this. No, most managers are not overbearing micro-managers, but when shit is about to hit the fan you know who you need to turn to to get the resources to avoid it (or at least try to) and there is a general expectation they WILL do something about it.
A company with a "flat" structure or "no hierarchy" is like fucking high school full of petty politics. Also, fuck Valve for using one my fave games ever (TF2, 3000h played) to experiment with the "hat economy". It worked so well, they are no longer game devs. :/
A company with a "flat" structure or "no hierarchy" is like fucking high school full of petty politics. Also, fuck Valve for using one my fave games ever (TF2, 3000h played) to experiment with the "hat economy". It worked so well, they are no longer game devs. :/
I don't expect you to spill what you know but yeah the Steam OS plus Proton along with doing VR hardware does feel like Valve could be building up to another Steambox (Hopefully this time built by Valve and not third parties perhaps with AMD CPU/GPU combos like the consoles).
I could be totally wrong though it can be hard to tell with Valve.
I would be willing to bet there is a person in every company with this same position. We live in a shitty world.
Has been obvious from the outside for quite some time now. Valve is no longer the indie-minded, community-first place it once was. It's now the rent-seeking middleman that churns out games that are so finely tuned to what it wants to play inside the studio that they're shocked when few people on the outside share their desire for Magic the Microgathering: Skinnerbox Evolved. Valve have more than lost their way.
Skimming through the thread and i will never understand era's hate for valve, some really embarrassing hot takes in here
I guess it mostly boils to, from what i've read: they are not making the games i like anymore
I guess it mostly boils to, from what i've read: they are not making the games i like anymore
I agree with you on the games front but in terms of Steam I struggle to find complaints that aren't nitpicks and as we've seen in the many comparisons between different platforms they are well ahead of the curve in functionality. I can't help but think that if any of the big guys were running Steam we'd be in for a lot more exploitation and anti-consumer practices while stuff like the Linux support would never have seen the light of day. I'm not saying Steam is perfect but I think the service has been maintained with a level of benevolence and long term perspective that wouldn't able to exist in a publicly traded tech company.
A lot of this stuff boils down to the public opinion that Valve sucks for not making games anymore. I agree that sucks, but I think Steam is more important than any game they could have ever made so it actually doesn't bother me.
Valve makes a ton of money yet produces so few games. It really is embarassing where we are now along with other big names like Activision and Epic. It seems like they are fine with one or two big IP's and that's it.
Yes I know Valve is making VR games but it doesn't change the fact they have produced very little over the years. Hire more people if that's what it takes to run a store and create games.
Yes I know Valve is making VR games but it doesn't change the fact they have produced very little over the years. Hire more people if that's what it takes to run a store and create games.
People still have this weird idea that Valve is just sitting on its ass all day, exploting indie devs.
How do you figure pushing Linux has "non-obvious" benefits to Valve? What do you think the SteamOS is?...Linux. Steam Machines run on Linux, so having as many games as possible running on their hardware is hugely important. The fact that they were an unmitigated disaster doesn't mean they didn't expect differently and won't try again. Valve has a huge stake in getting as much of Steam's library as possible to work on their machines without Windows.
Not necessarily with Valve, this was recent: https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/09/valve-loses-vr-engineers-in-recent-layoff/
I mean it makes sense from a project perspective seeing as Index is pretty much finished, but I'm not sure Valve's VR division is quite as large as you may think.
Treating any software release window given by Valve with any sort of faith doesn't seem particularly wise given their history. They were initially supposed to reveal these titles at what was going to be the 2017 Steam Dev Days which then never happened.
So yeah BIG grain of salt and all that for that one game coming out this year.
"flat structure" only works in Research I think. I worked at a few labs that used similar structuring, and it worked well, but there was always a main Leader type that needed to approve things.
These people apparently have never heard of CDProjekt. They have a fraction of the middleman business valve does and they're making bigger games than anyone in the industry.
It is remarkable how consistent these workplace criticisms of valve are. And how true they ring to a customer of theirs who pays attention to how they run things in a public facing capacity.
Wonder when these people worked there. We already know Valve has been making 3 AAA VR games since 2016.
This very much matches what we've heard about Valve, and what has been going on there for many years. The question at this point is whether they've truly righted the ship or not. Actually getting somewhere with VR and having games for it(allegedly), along with the acquisition of Campo Santo, makes it plausible that things may have changed for the better. Or perhaps their way of working has finally paid off, and what we've heard are things from people who were truly a bad fit(unlikely). I do think that pressure from Epic will be a positive influence on the company long term.
Ultimately I find it all of this very believable, and really quite sad, that what was once the premiere PC video game company completely fell apart due to shit culture and management(or lack their of).
Ultimately I find it all of this very believable, and really quite sad, that what was once the premiere PC video game company completely fell apart due to shit culture and management(or lack their of).
Holding CDPR up as a beacon is hilarious given the constant bad news coming out of there. At least I haven't heard of Valve crunching for months on projects
Well the account in the OP says a few years ago, so maybe before, or just as it started going. It does seem like VR has given the company a true focal point for all their employees to get behind and drive projects towards. Gabe's own comments point to them having often wanted a hardware+software business ala Nintendo, and wishing for that fixed environment to design software around.
Given that Campo Santo already had their own structure, it seems unlikely that Valve would foist something different on them, barring them being moved into the same building which I doubt would happen.
I'll believe these games when I can actually play them. Feels like I've been waiting forever for L4D3 and that's the biggest "no duh" game from Valve possible besides HL3
If they work and make decisions as a unit after valley of the gods ships, have to imagine their odds are better than as individuals just subsumed into the invisible hierarchy.
people using CDPR, the people that rejected Heaven's Vault on GOG because it didn't meet their criteria as someone good to look up to is just plain laughable lol
one year in and some of them still quite like it there
one year in and some of them still quite like it there
No leaders plus huge reliable revenue stream (Steam licensing fees etc) mean there's little to no impetus for them to ship anything, well, ever. So they play around with pet projects but never get to the point of going 'look we have to ship a product already to stay in business'. I guess occasionally someone pitches a skinner box and they all see dollar signs and ship that... But it clearly doesn't work. How did Left 4 Dead 3 not happen? Even if it was just L4D2 with better graphics and some extra maps... I know people are desperate for that.
Other studios have shipped games trying to fill that void because the demand is there.
Other studios have shipped games trying to fill that void because the demand is there.
It was always weird to me that p-body and atlas could get cosmetics only visible in their co-op modes, something they very clearly abandoned quickly as there was zero incentive to just re-acquire TF2 derivatives that only one other person in the whole world at a time could see.
Valve wanted some part of Portal 2 to be a GaaS revenue machine but couldn't make it work and somehow, the article makes it seem like they blame that for never making another narrative single player experience. Tragic.