Damn gabe you got your crew eating each other over there? Jesus
Sounds like he's not really in charge anymore or doesn't care what's happening. He's rich. Valve used to make my favorite games. They've changed.
Damn gabe you got your crew eating each other over there? Jesus
Yeah I bet it isn't seeing as you don't even game on the PC judging from your post history.
How dare you! You better make knee jerk proclamations on how you will not buy any product from Valve ever again based on the twitter thread of some guy you only knew about today.It sounds really wier odd to me. A lot.of it could be his perception though. Hard to say since i wasnt ever there
I feel like I've played enough TF2 to have seen the effects of the defensive coding and mucking up of things, purposefully or not. It was interesting to hear Carmack said those mega bonuses during the Doom boom led to some pathological behavior. Is the solution to make fewer bonuses for work done relative to others and focus on people just having their agreed upon salaries instead?
I feel like profit sharing structure would be best due to the incentive to help the company as a whole do better ie each project needs to be its best.
The problem is that they probably don't feel that this is enough of a goad to whip their employees performance with.
Put me in the "I am cynical as fuck anyway..." camp so I never really believed this happy go lucky environment that Valve claimed to be. They may aspire to it but when dealing with people I think some realities are inevitable.
Yeah I bet it isn't seeing as you don't even game on the PC judging from your post history.
How dare you! You better make knee jerk proclamations on how you will not buy any product from Valve ever again based on the twitter thread of some guy you only knew about today.
Sure, but I never read into any news story too much things can feel so different when you see it and actaully know what happened and it is one's opinion after all. It's hard to go by, just the same for reviews for me.Put me in the "I am cynical as fuck anyway..." camp so I never really believed this happy go lucky environment that Valve claimed to be. They may aspire to it but when dealing with people I think some realities are inevitable.
Yeah I bet it isn't seeing as you don't even game on the PC judging from your post history.
How dare you! You better make knee jerk proclamations on how you will not buy any product from Valve ever again based on the twitter thread of some guy you only knew about today.
Why would I work at a place like that? Do they get 6 figures? Even then I wouldn't last 6 months.
Corporates are like this. Why people assume they will simply go and work and get paid?
There will be trauma, harrowing moments. Best company to work for lists are mostly rubbish. No corporate can claim to be best place to work. Its everywhere.
Sorry for the ignorance but what happened in 1867?Call me shocked that professionals that are alienated from their work will chose to maximize their individual gain over anything else. No one could have predicted this, especially not in 1867.
There is an adjunct problem in that salaries are somewhat dicey to determine in a flat structure. From what I understand, at Valve a person's salary is determined by committee, if they want a raise then they have to lobby for it. They must have felt that they needed a more direct mechanism to bypass some of that bureaucracy via bonuses.tbh if you've got the money to pay bonuses then you've got the money to just include it in the damn salaries
Das Kapital by Karl Marx was published in 1867. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx'...n#Alienation_of_the_worker_from_their_productSorry for the ignorance but what happened in 1867?
If this has been answered already just point me in the general direction. Thank you :)
There is an adjunct problem in that salaries are somewhat dicey to determine in a flat structure. From what I understand, at Valve a person's salary is determined by committee, if they want a raise then they have to lobby for it. They must have felt that they needed a more direct mechanism to bypass some of that bureaucracy via bonuses.
Hmmm, this is an interesting thread. Thought I'd add my 2 cents and give some insights into how we've 'organized' Moon Studios, cause what we're doing seems to work well for us, so maybe someone can take something from it.
Generally speaking, we also like to think we're using a 'flat hierarchy', simply cause every voice in the team should matter. For that to work, you need to have someone at the helm who isn't a self-important bozo who thinks his way of doing things is the only way to go. I worked at companies before where good ideas were dismissed simply due to seniority and that's just silly to me.
So we've structured everything into Departments (Art, Animation, Tech, Design, etc.) and while we do have 'Department Leads', we're very cautious to ensure that people who do deal with managerial stuff aren't automatically in a 'higher position' than people who don't (another reason why we don't have 'ranks' in our titles, everyone at Moon is 'just' a 'designer' or a 'programmer' or an 'artist', but we don't specify in peoples titles that 'this person is better than that person'). In a lot of companies, in order to get a raise, you have to take on managerial tasks and to me that never made sense. If you've got an amazing artist who's best served making art and laying out the vision in terms of visuals, you're not doing yourself any favors by now splitting the persons time, forcing him to spend a certain amount of time per week on managing other people just to 'justify' a raise or a new title.
So you've got Department Leads who usually are the more organized folks in your company and they have to take responsibility for the Departments output. On top of that, we do syncup meetings twice a week with every department just so we can course-correct and so that people can speak up if they wanna take things into a different direction, if they have ideas they wanna push through or need help in some way to accomplish their tasks. Once a week we do a Weekly Team Sync where all the departments come together and that's where we usually discuss milestones, check whether we're on track or not and just generally have a very open discussion on how we'll handle the upcoming week.
On top of that, I'm sorta the 'Creative Director' at Moon, which means I'm reviewing everything non-Tech-related and we've got Gennadiy who's doing the same thing for Tech-related tasks. We're the ones that have to make sure that the projects are on track and I'm also still right there in the trenches with everyone doing design work, level designs, prototypes, etc.
This 'structure' seems to work nicely for us - We started Moon as a 2-person team and grew organically. It was always super important to us that we don't turn into a corporation where people might be disparaging to one another, where politics can affect your career (I'm allergic to brown-nosers), it's all a meritocracy where hopefully people always present their work to one another and can inspire each other. Everyone also has access to everything, everyone can play our builds and give feedback and have a say at any time. That obviously doesn't mean that every single thing a person brings up will automatically make it into the game, but at least you know that you've been heard and your suggestions are being considered by the respective departments. And if you really wanna push things through, you have plenty of opportunities to convince everyone else that your way is the way to go.
Now, of course I can't claim that we're doing a perfect job. Whenever people work together, there's always going to be a certain level of miscommunication, etc., but I think the goal should be that you strive for everyone to be able to do their jobs in the most efficient manner and feel happy with the job they're doing. It also helps that we're usually working on projects that we're all super passionate about - I don't think our structure would work if the games we'd be making wouldn't be passion projects. And I think our structure only works for smaller teams. We're currently 50 people and things are still manageable, but I'm pretty sure things would have to be organized differently if we'd grow to 100-150. Scale is a huge issue when it comes to how you manage a company and I think at some point when you've grown too much you might just lose touch with what exactly is going on at the studio. I think if people feel like we're all a big family and we do everything to just let them do their work, good things will come out of that and so far that's been a winning strategy for us :)
Just ends up making the person(s) responsible for the bonus review or the criteria for the bonus the kingmaker. It's pretty clear that Valve has gone completely off the rails as a creative studio and has instead morphed into an entity that chases maximum revenue at all costs. The paid mods fiasco was a huge sign. For a privately held company that now has zero money worries, their recent behavior is more than a little weird.
I can give you my Steam account if you want it has a good amount of games but as i said, i stopped using it sometime ago.Put me in the "I am cynical as fuck anyway..." camp so I never really believed this happy go lucky environment that Valve claimed to be. They may aspire to it but when dealing with people I think some realities are inevitable.
Yeah I bet it isn't seeing as you don't even game on the PC judging from your post history.
How dare you! You better make knee jerk proclamations on how you will not buy any product from Valve ever again based on the twitter thread of some guy you only knew about today.
Please note that most of the things I'm talking about at self-organizing companies occurred 5-10 years ago. It's ancient history now, and these places do learn from their mistakes. Ask about the bonus situation if you interview at one.
Generally speaking, we also like to think we're using a 'flat hierarchy', simply cause every voice in the team should matter. For that to work, you need to have someone at the helm who isn't a self-important bozo who thinks his way of doing things is the only way to go. I worked at companies before where good ideas were dismissed simply due to seniority and that's just silly to me.
So we've structured everything into Departments (Art, Animation, Tech, Design, etc.) and while we do have 'Department Leads', we're very cautious to ensure that people who do deal with managerial stuff aren't automatically in a 'higher position' than people who don't (another reason why we don't have 'ranks' in our titles, everyone at Moon is 'just' a 'designer' or a 'programmer' or an 'artist', but we don't specify in peoples titles that 'this person is better than that person'). In a lot of companies, in order to get a raise, you have to take on managerial tasks and to me that never made sense. If you've got an amazing artist who's best served making art and laying out the vision in terms of visuals, you're not doing yourself any favors by now splitting the persons time, forcing him to spend a certain amount of time per week on managing other people just to 'justify' a raise or a new title.
lot of it sounds like the standard corporate shtick (at least from my experience) ... nothing really that specific to the "self-organizing firms"
I hope someday the top brass at Activision realizes your talent is wasted on making support tasks for Call of Duty and give you another shot at Transformers. It's long overdue.
Hahaha, that'd be High Moon Studios. We're 'just' Moon, makers of the Ori series :)
I'll never work on Call of Duty, promise!
You guys are amazing, its super sad Ori isnt on the Switch though.Hahaha, that'd be High Moon Studios. We're 'just' Moon, makers of the Ori series :)
I'll never work on Call of Duty, promise!
It's pretty clear that Valve has gone completely off the rails as a creative studio and has instead morphed into an entity that chases maximum revenue at all costs. The paid mods fiasco was a huge sign. For a privately held company that now has zero money worries, their recent behavior is more than a little weird.
You guys are amazing, its super sad Ori isnt on the Switch though.
That's exactly what I was struck by.This sounds similar to my time at Microsoft. That's all I will say.
As I recall, the last time he aired some of this dirty laundry some other Valve employees had some stuff to say about the blog post, so I'm going to take it all with a grain of salt.
This is also important to keep in mind.
Given that, do we know what prompted this now? It's a lot of tweets to write just out of the blue.
I don't understand this comment. No one ever says, it's super sad Mario isn't on Xbox do they? Microsoft publishes Ori. I'm surprised it's even on Steam.
Because switch is perfect for indies and platformers, Sony put Crash on it.I don't understand this comment. No one ever says, it's super sad Mario isn't on Xbox do they? Microsoft publishes Ori. I'm surprised it's even on Steam.
Because switch is perfect for indies and platformers, Sony put Crash on it.
Sure, but on top of that, Ori would do gangbusters on Switch but its not gonna move Xbox units on its own so it would make sense, although its highly improbable.
Think about it from the other end, without Microsoft's involvement there might not have been an Ori to want in the first place. Kinda like the Bayonetta 2/3 situation.You guys are amazing, its super sad Ori isnt on the Switch though.
Im really thankfull it exists and Im not trying to undermine the game by wishing it was on handheld.Think about it from the other end, without Microsoft's involvement there might not have been an Ori to want in the first place. Kinda like the Bayonetta 2/3 situation.
Sure, but on top of that, Ori would do gangbusters on Switch but its not gonna move Xbox units on its own so it would make sense, although its highly improbable.
Well, you can see the indie success on the switch for yourself, they sell tons better than on all the other platforms, I wouldnt say its the same at all, Smash is a title that will sell systems like a halo or a gears, different ballpark.The portbegging on here about the Switch is ... something. Ori is an incredibly high quality game, it would do well on any healthy platform.
This is the type of logic you're using here: fighting games do well on Xbox, maybe Bandai Namco should port Smash to Xbox!
Hmmm, this is an interesting thread. Thought I'd add my 2 cents and give some insights into how we've 'organized' Moon Studios, cause what we're doing seems to work well for us, so maybe someone can take something from it.
Generally speaking, we also like to think we're using a 'flat hierarchy', simply cause every voice in the team should matter. For that to work, you need to have someone at the helm who isn't a self-important bozo who thinks his way of doing things is the only way to go. I worked at companies before where good ideas were dismissed simply due to seniority and that's just silly to me.
So we've structured everything into Departments (Art, Animation, Tech, Design, etc.) and while we do have 'Department Leads', we're very cautious to ensure that people who do deal with managerial stuff aren't automatically in a 'higher position' than people who don't (another reason why we don't have 'ranks' in our titles, everyone at Moon is 'just' a 'designer' or a 'programmer' or an 'artist', but we don't specify in peoples titles that 'this person is better than that person'). In a lot of companies, in order to get a raise, you have to take on managerial tasks and to me that never made sense. If you've got an amazing artist who's best served making art and laying out the vision in terms of visuals, you're not doing yourself any favors by now splitting the persons time, forcing him to spend a certain amount of time per week on managing other people just to 'justify' a raise or a new title.
So you've got Department Leads who usually are the more organized folks in your company and they have to take responsibility for the Departments output. On top of that, we do syncup meetings twice a week with every department just so we can course-correct and so that people can speak up if they wanna take things into a different direction, if they have ideas they wanna push through or need help in some way to accomplish their tasks. Once a week we do a Weekly Team Sync where all the departments come together and that's where we usually discuss milestones, check whether we're on track or not and just generally have a very open discussion on how we'll handle the upcoming week.
On top of that, I'm sorta the 'Creative Director' at Moon, which means I'm reviewing everything non-Tech-related and we've got Gennadiy who's doing the same thing for Tech-related tasks. We're the ones that have to make sure that the projects are on track and I'm also still right there in the trenches with everyone doing design work, level designs, prototypes, etc.
This 'structure' seems to work nicely for us - We started Moon as a 2-person team and grew organically. It was always super important to us that we don't turn into a corporation where people might be disparaging to one another, where politics can affect your career (I'm allergic to brown-nosers), it's all a meritocracy where hopefully people always present their work to one another and can inspire each other. Everyone also has access to everything, everyone can play our builds and give feedback and have a say at any time. That obviously doesn't mean that every single thing a person brings up will automatically make it into the game, but at least you know that you've been heard and your suggestions are being considered by the respective departments. And if you really wanna push things through, you have plenty of opportunities to convince everyone else that your way is the way to go.
Now, of course I can't claim that we're doing a perfect job. Whenever people work together, there's always going to be a certain level of miscommunication, etc., but I think the goal should be that you strive for everyone to be able to do their jobs in the most efficient manner and feel happy with the job they're doing. It also helps that we're usually working on projects that we're all super passionate about - I don't think our structure would work if the games we'd be making wouldn't be passion projects. And I think our structure only works for smaller teams. We're currently 50 people and things are still manageable, but I'm pretty sure things would have to be organized differently if we'd grow to 100-150. Scale is a huge issue when it comes to how you manage a company and I think at some point when you've grown too much you might just lose touch with what exactly is going on at the studio. I think if people feel like we're all a big family and we do everything to just let them do their work, good things will come out of that and so far that's been a winning strategy for us :)
And, well, Valve's output throughout the years really shows this concept nicely. There's basically no such thing as passion projects anymore, if there are they get very minimal resources. The only things that can get proper greenlight are "make money quick" schemes. You won't see a God Of War, a Mario Odyssey or a Sunset Overdrive from these guys anymore, because these guys are in a pit where the only way up is making enormous profit with the least amount of effort. So prepare for more DOTA2 skins, more card games, perhaps Valve's own Battle Royale, more mobile games, new ways to allow users to pay for useless shit and trade them for big money they all get a cut from. I'm not into the "lol those aren't even gamez" circle, but anybody knows how recent Valve projects are relatively low-effort, low-risk, maximum profit products with a lot of rehashed content and an increased focus on continous monetization. Which is too bad, considering these guys made some legendary games in the past - then again, those who did don't work there anymore, and for a reason.