3 ms·

A couple sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo https://medium.com/dunia-media/the-nightmare-of-valv

A couple sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo https://medium.com/dunia-media/the-nightmare-of-valves-self-organizing-utopia-6d32d329ecdb https://medium.com/dunia-media/the-nightmare-of-valves-self-...

o11c 11mo ago
The second link is paywalled, but from the various sources I looked at, the diversity problems with Valve seem limited to "Valve refuses to spend company time/effort to support my cause". I have not seen any concrete claims of misbehavior, in direct contrast to some other video game companies. Additionally, when I actually look into the alleged statistics of claims that "Valve is primarily white and male", the numbers ... don't actually look that bad? We shouldn't expect any company to fit national demographics exactly.
- worldfoodgood 11mo ago
  Additional allegations of discrimination: https://discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com/valve-corporation-face-over-3m-in-damages-for-transgender-discrimination/ https://discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com/valve-c... Allegations of unpaid labor: https://web.archive.org/web/20160209211205/https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/44yl24/how_a_whole_language_of_the_steam_translation/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160209211205/https://www.reddi...
  - jimbokun 11mo ago
    Did the plaintiff win that suit? (A quick Google didn't find the outcome.) As for the second, I'm confused as to why anyone would provide unpaid labor to a large, profitable corporation.
    - josefx 11mo ago
      Going by the short update on this page, no: https://kotaku.com/former-valve-employee-sues-for-3-1-million-alleging-w-1778526962 https://kotaku.com/former-valve-employee-sues-for-3-1-millio...
    - xinayder 11mo ago
      I was a member of STS and I can say crowdsourced translations were a million times better than the now-paid translation teams Valve hires. And yes, while it was mostly "unpaid", during my time there (2016-2020), we had a year-end rally every year which the "fastest" teams to complete translations would receive Steam wallet codes for their effort. I received up to $350 the first year of rally. The next year they gave us Artifact keys... and then the one Valve employee managing the server left Valve, and STS was slowly being replaced by Crowdin they essentially killed crowdsourcing starting with Artifact. We (the STS members) had no access to new strings, then came Underlords, the new client... Only TF2 translations are crowdsourced to this day. The rest are done by their external teams.
  - xinayder 11mo ago
    Allegations of unpaid labor are for crowdsourced translations and have nothing to do with Valve as a workplace. This controversy is known and there are a few translators on Steam/Valve that came from the community, but nowadays it is mostly outsourced, and they do a terrible job (they replaced gamers with people who can't even bother to download the game to check the context a string is applied to).
jimbokun 11mo ago
Not going to spend an hour watching a video. The medium link says nothing about women and minorities specifically. It's a critique of flat management structures in general.
doright 11mo ago
Another source from 6 years ago: https://youtu.be/41XgkLKYuic https://youtu.be/41XgkLKYuic It seems like the flat management structure allowed an ad-hoc hierarchy of cliques to form in the office anyway, pitting entrenched teams of old-timers against new hires, but implicitly. When you think of the lack of support for TF2 over the years, this is illuminating. It's astounding that Valve/Steam are still as successful as they are in spite of this culture.

o11c 11mo ago

The second link is paywalled, but from the various sources I looked at, the diversity problems with Valve seem limited to "Valve refuses to spend company time/effort to support my cause". I have not seen any concrete claims of misbehavior, in direct contrast to some other video game companies. Additionally, when I actually look into the alleged statistics of claims that "Valve is primarily white and male", the numbers ... don't actually look that bad? We shouldn't expect any company to fit national demographics exactly.

worldfoodgood 11mo ago
Additional allegations of discrimination: https://discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com/valve-corporation-face-over-3m-in-damages-for-transgender-discrimination/ https://discriminationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com/valve-c... Allegations of unpaid labor: https://web.archive.org/web/20160209211205/https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/44yl24/how_a_whole_language_of_the_steam_translation/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160209211205/https://www.reddi...
- jimbokun 11mo ago
  Did the plaintiff win that suit? (A quick Google didn't find the outcome.) As for the second, I'm confused as to why anyone would provide unpaid labor to a large, profitable corporation.
  - josefx 11mo ago
    Going by the short update on this page, no: https://kotaku.com/former-valve-employee-sues-for-3-1-million-alleging-w-1778526962 https://kotaku.com/former-valve-employee-sues-for-3-1-millio...
  - xinayder 11mo ago
    I was a member of STS and I can say crowdsourced translations were a million times better than the now-paid translation teams Valve hires. And yes, while it was mostly "unpaid", during my time there (2016-2020), we had a year-end rally every year which the "fastest" teams to complete translations would receive Steam wallet codes for their effort. I received up to $350 the first year of rally. The next year they gave us Artifact keys... and then the one Valve employee managing the server left Valve, and STS was slowly being replaced by Crowdin they essentially killed crowdsourcing starting with Artifact. We (the STS members) had no access to new strings, then came Underlords, the new client... Only TF2 translations are crowdsourced to this day. The rest are done by their external teams.
- xinayder 11mo ago
  Allegations of unpaid labor are for crowdsourced translations and have nothing to do with Valve as a workplace. This controversy is known and there are a few translators on Steam/Valve that came from the community, but nowadays it is mostly outsourced, and they do a terrible job (they replaced gamers with people who can't even bother to download the game to check the context a string is applied to).

jimbokun 11mo ago

Not going to spend an hour watching a video. The medium link says nothing about women and minorities specifically. It's a critique of flat management structures in general.

doright 11mo ago

Another source from 6 years ago: https://youtu.be/41XgkLKYuic https://youtu.be/41XgkLKYuic It seems like the flat management structure allowed an ad-hoc hierarchy of cliques to form in the office anyway, pitting entrenched teams of old-timers against new hires, but implicitly. When you think of the lack of support for TF2 over the years, this is illuminating. It's astounding that Valve/Steam are still as successful as they are in spite of this culture.