4 ms·

I might be an outlier, but I'm extremely attached to the Half-Life series and while it's difficult to not get HL3, I'm also not currently disappointed in any ga

I might be an outlier, but I'm extremely attached to the Half-Life series and while it's difficult to not get HL3, I'm also not currently disappointed in any game in the series. If the only thing I have to be disappointed in is the release cadence, then I'm probably okay with that? Someone in a Reddit thread pointed how Valve's structure reduces the fragility of a product by not basing it on one vision and that their games are based on a pretty pure collaborative effort. A writer becomes inherently less influential on the final product, but their individual contribution is more passionate and worked. One could argue for hours about the approach, but I think the results speak for themselves.

23B1 4y ago
There's plenty of other counterexamples of that though – visionaries with a singular vision being able to get a team to help them create something amazing. Not saying one is better than the other, but it'd be a damn shame if amazing stories like Portal don't get more airtime because of collective lethargy. It's too good to let flounder!
- pathartl 4y ago
  I'd suggest checking out "Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar" to learn about their design process. It's fascinating. There can absolutely be visionaries out there... Miyazaki, Kojima, Miyamoto are probably the top three right now. But there's a ton that are kinda went out with a whimper such as Molyneux, Wright, Carmack, Romero, the Housers, Schafer, Sweeney. I think abstraction is key. There's gotta be a happy medium between absolute control or almost a sense of worship and not allowing a singular person to guide the ship.
  - dolni 4y ago
    The key is not about how many people are guiding the ship, it is about their overall abilities. A BDFL is great if the dictator is competent. A committee is also great if the committee is competent (overall). Most people don't have what it takes to be a BDFL. But a few do. And for those people, the answer is to take good notes and get the hell out of their way.

23B1 4y ago

There's plenty of other counterexamples of that though – visionaries with a singular vision being able to get a team to help them create something amazing. Not saying one is better than the other, but it'd be a damn shame if amazing stories like Portal don't get more airtime because of collective lethargy. It's too good to let flounder!

pathartl 4y ago
I'd suggest checking out "Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar" to learn about their design process. It's fascinating. There can absolutely be visionaries out there... Miyazaki, Kojima, Miyamoto are probably the top three right now. But there's a ton that are kinda went out with a whimper such as Molyneux, Wright, Carmack, Romero, the Housers, Schafer, Sweeney. I think abstraction is key. There's gotta be a happy medium between absolute control or almost a sense of worship and not allowing a singular person to guide the ship.
- dolni 4y ago
  The key is not about how many people are guiding the ship, it is about their overall abilities. A BDFL is great if the dictator is competent. A committee is also great if the committee is competent (overall). Most people don't have what it takes to be a BDFL. But a few do. And for those people, the answer is to take good notes and get the hell out of their way.