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I would be hesitant to take this as a manifesto of how to run a company. Valve was great 10 years ago, but they are now facing competition from GoG, Discord, in

by jbob2000 8y ago

I would be hesitant to take this as a manifesto of how to run a company. Valve was great 10 years ago, but they are now facing competition from GoG, Discord, independent distribution, bigger gaming companies, mobile gaming, etc. > How does Valve decide what to work on? > The same way we make other decisions: by waiting for someone to decide that it’s the right thing to do, and then letting them recruit other people to work on it with them. Is this why Valve hasn't released anything but mediocre hardware and steam updates? Where's the vision? What are they actually trying to do as a company? Are they just a place where people come and go and do whatever they want? Don't get me wrong, I do most of my gaming through Steam. But I don't play Valve games. And I sometimes chat on steam, but mostly Discord. And my favorite games, Factorio and Rimworld, can all be purchased independently (minus Steam's cut I might add!). With cloud computing in full swing, indie developers don't need a store to distribute with.

beaconstudios 8y ago
my understanding is that because valve's org chart is explicitly flat, the hierarchy becomes implicit and subject to internal politics. See this article for example: https://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/ https://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/ If the total flexibility is theoretically there but in practice it isn't, I can imagine you'd end up with a lot of people self-suppressing so they don't break the unofficial rules.
- ab_c 8y ago
  I've worked in a place with a "high school" office culture and it was horrific. At the time, the company had no structured way of determining your work performance so it was all based on people's opinion. If your manager thinks you're amazing and tells others, then that information gets passed up amongst the ranks. Social value (popularity) meant more for your career than actually doing good work. A former coworker once saw my email inbox and commented that I had a lot of unread emails (over 3000). A few weeks later, I got brought into an office by my manager where he kept stating how vital it was that emails need to be read. I do read emails -- I just don't read Github notification emails. Any office culture that revolves around rumors and reputations will likely be a dysfunctional one.
norswap 8y ago
Amen. And more importantly, still no Half-Life 3.
cloakandswagger 8y ago
I suspect there is quite a bit of turmoil inside the walls of Valve right now due to a series of large, failed bets that will eventually threaten their cash-cow platform. > Steam controller/Steam Link Huge flop. These are being practically given away now as Valve looks to get rid of their excess inventory. This being hardware, it had to be an expensive venture that failed to penetrate the living room. > Steam machines Another stinker, though Valve was able to successfully offload most of the risk onto OEMs with this one. Opportunity cost still bites. > VR I commend Valve for putting all their chips in on this, but it looks like the VR industry had yet another cold start. This will go down as an almost total loss. All the while Valve has been neglecting game development which, while admittedly much more expensive and less rewarding than running a sales platform, ensures that there's a sufficient amount of first party titles to keep users on Steam. With the advent of Fortnite and competing platforms from other triple-A studios, it's not so farfetched to imagine a complete fracturing of the games platform market over the next 5-10 years. Valve needs a return-to-roots moment to prevent this from happening
- KevanM 8y ago
  They have had some huge successes though, Counter-Strike and Dota 2 which provide ongoing incoming alongside the store. And they are releasing a DOTA 2 card game this year?
- zeroname 8y ago
  A failed big-budget video game title would be far more expensive than these little hardware experiments. Steam machines weren't expensive either, OEM PC costs are nothing compared to a "real" console rollout, with custom hardware contracts, permanent production lines and a whole advertising campaign.
  - cloakandswagger 8y ago
    Yes I said as much in my comment. There is still opportunity cost to all of these experiments which is especially impactful to a company as small as Valve.
- jbob2000 8y ago
SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
> But I don't play Valve games. I did, but they stopped putting them out. That would definitely be a reason that they haven't put anything out - valve feels super weird in that it seems like the whole company is in maintenance mode and enjoying being the biggest guy on the video game distribution block.
- KevanM 8y ago
  They bought Campo Santo to work on In The Valley of the Gods, so they are still a publisher.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    That's the same approach as with Portal 2, isn't it? And I guess that's not completely fair - I'm sure they keep making hats for TF2.
    - KevanM 8y ago
      This is true, you can never have enough hats and they have monetised their games to provide a (steady?) stream of income.
user9182031 8y ago
I was with you up until the part about cloud computing and indie developers. I don't see the connection. Steam on the other hand provides a great platform for indie developers to release their games and get some attention.
zeroname 8y ago
> Valve was great 10 years ago, but they are now facing competition from GoG, Discord, independent distribution, bigger gaming companies, mobile gaming, etc. "Facing competition" as in they are now taking in only 90% of the revenue as opposed to 100%? That's just healthy. > Is this why Valve hasn't released anything but mediocre hardware and steam updates? Valve is still supporting and updating successful titles like TF2, DOTA2 and CS:GO. >Where's the vision? What are they actually trying to do as a company? Are they just a place where people come and go and do whatever they want? If you read the handbook, the idea is that you allocate yourself to what you perceive to be the most valuable thing for the company. It's supposed to be self-organizing, just like the economy in the real word, which doesn't have a "vision" either. The thing with games studios is that a lot of projects get canned (preferably early) before anybody ever hears about it. It's the same for Valve. They're not actually that big. Other publishers have dozens of studios working for them, going in and out of business all the time. Nobody really pays attention to that, but when the guys at Valve don't release anything for years, people notice. > Don't get me wrong, I do most of my gaming through Steam. But I don't play Valve games. And I sometimes chat on steam, but mostly Discord. And my favorite games, Factorio and Rimworld, can all be purchased independently (minus Steam's cut I might add!). With cloud computing in full swing, indie developers don't need a store to distribute with. Discord is irrelevant to Valve's business, that's not where the money comes from. Valve is a store front, no indie can afford to just self-publish on PC without being on Steam. Factorio and Rimworld got popular through Steam.
- jbob2000 8y ago
  > Facing competition" as in they are now taking in only 90% of the revenue as opposed to 100%? That's just healthy. Wrong, that is a loss of 10% market share. In other markets, a drop like that would put you out of business. Valve isn't dead, they're just a bit ill and if they don't go to the doctor and get their head checked, it will kill them. > It's supposed to be self-organizing, just like the economy in the real word, which doesn't have a "vision" either. This only works because billions of people participate in the economy. At that scale, it's mathematically probable that someone will do something great. Valve is too small for this to work, they need focus and vision. > Factorio and Rimworld got popular through Steam. False. Both of these games reached popularity before they were on steam. Valve's moat is eroding. Between these games, Fortnite, and other mobile entrants, they are slipping.

beaconstudios 8y ago

my understanding is that because valve's org chart is explicitly flat, the hierarchy becomes implicit and subject to internal politics. See this article for example: https://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/ https://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/ If the total flexibility is theoretically there but in practice it isn't, I can imagine you'd end up with a lot of people self-suppressing so they don't break the unofficial rules.

ab_c 8y ago
I've worked in a place with a "high school" office culture and it was horrific. At the time, the company had no structured way of determining your work performance so it was all based on people's opinion. If your manager thinks you're amazing and tells others, then that information gets passed up amongst the ranks. Social value (popularity) meant more for your career than actually doing good work. A former coworker once saw my email inbox and commented that I had a lot of unread emails (over 3000). A few weeks later, I got brought into an office by my manager where he kept stating how vital it was that emails need to be read. I do read emails -- I just don't read Github notification emails. Any office culture that revolves around rumors and reputations will likely be a dysfunctional one.

norswap 8y ago

Amen. And more importantly, still no Half-Life 3.

cloakandswagger 8y ago

I suspect there is quite a bit of turmoil inside the walls of Valve right now due to a series of large, failed bets that will eventually threaten their cash-cow platform. > Steam controller/Steam Link Huge flop. These are being practically given away now as Valve looks to get rid of their excess inventory. This being hardware, it had to be an expensive venture that failed to penetrate the living room. > Steam machines Another stinker, though Valve was able to successfully offload most of the risk onto OEMs with this one. Opportunity cost still bites. > VR I commend Valve for putting all their chips in on this, but it looks like the VR industry had yet another cold start. This will go down as an almost total loss. All the while Valve has been neglecting game development which, while admittedly much more expensive and less rewarding than running a sales platform, ensures that there's a sufficient amount of first party titles to keep users on Steam. With the advent of Fortnite and competing platforms from other triple-A studios, it's not so farfetched to imagine a complete fracturing of the games platform market over the next 5-10 years. Valve needs a return-to-roots moment to prevent this from happening

KevanM 8y ago
They have had some huge successes though, Counter-Strike and Dota 2 which provide ongoing incoming alongside the store. And they are releasing a DOTA 2 card game this year?
zeroname 8y ago
A failed big-budget video game title would be far more expensive than these little hardware experiments. Steam machines weren't expensive either, OEM PC costs are nothing compared to a "real" console rollout, with custom hardware contracts, permanent production lines and a whole advertising campaign.
- cloakandswagger 8y ago
  Yes I said as much in my comment. There is still opportunity cost to all of these experiments which is especially impactful to a company as small as Valve.
jbob2000 8y ago

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago

> But I don't play Valve games. I did, but they stopped putting them out. That would definitely be a reason that they haven't put anything out - valve feels super weird in that it seems like the whole company is in maintenance mode and enjoying being the biggest guy on the video game distribution block.

KevanM 8y ago
They bought Campo Santo to work on In The Valley of the Gods, so they are still a publisher.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  That's the same approach as with Portal 2, isn't it? And I guess that's not completely fair - I'm sure they keep making hats for TF2.
  - KevanM 8y ago
    This is true, you can never have enough hats and they have monetised their games to provide a (steady?) stream of income.

user9182031 8y ago

I was with you up until the part about cloud computing and indie developers. I don't see the connection. Steam on the other hand provides a great platform for indie developers to release their games and get some attention.

zeroname 8y ago

> Valve was great 10 years ago, but they are now facing competition from GoG, Discord, independent distribution, bigger gaming companies, mobile gaming, etc. "Facing competition" as in they are now taking in only 90% of the revenue as opposed to 100%? That's just healthy. > Is this why Valve hasn't released anything but mediocre hardware and steam updates? Valve is still supporting and updating successful titles like TF2, DOTA2 and CS:GO. >Where's the vision? What are they actually trying to do as a company? Are they just a place where people come and go and do whatever they want? If you read the handbook, the idea is that you allocate yourself to what you perceive to be the most valuable thing for the company. It's supposed to be self-organizing, just like the economy in the real word, which doesn't have a "vision" either. The thing with games studios is that a lot of projects get canned (preferably early) before anybody ever hears about it. It's the same for Valve. They're not actually that big. Other publishers have dozens of studios working for them, going in and out of business all the time. Nobody really pays attention to that, but when the guys at Valve don't release anything for years, people notice. > Don't get me wrong, I do most of my gaming through Steam. But I don't play Valve games. And I sometimes chat on steam, but mostly Discord. And my favorite games, Factorio and Rimworld, can all be purchased independently (minus Steam's cut I might add!). With cloud computing in full swing, indie developers don't need a store to distribute with. Discord is irrelevant to Valve's business, that's not where the money comes from. Valve is a store front, no indie can afford to just self-publish on PC without being on Steam. Factorio and Rimworld got popular through Steam.

jbob2000 8y ago
> Facing competition" as in they are now taking in only 90% of the revenue as opposed to 100%? That's just healthy. Wrong, that is a loss of 10% market share. In other markets, a drop like that would put you out of business. Valve isn't dead, they're just a bit ill and if they don't go to the doctor and get their head checked, it will kill them. > It's supposed to be self-organizing, just like the economy in the real word, which doesn't have a "vision" either. This only works because billions of people participate in the economy. At that scale, it's mathematically probable that someone will do something great. Valve is too small for this to work, they need focus and vision. > Factorio and Rimworld got popular through Steam. False. Both of these games reached popularity before they were on steam. Valve's moat is eroding. Between these games, Fortnite, and other mobile entrants, they are slipping.