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The Valve Employee Handbook
- Thread starter Jintor
- Start date
The Omega Man
Member
this reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Bart cheats his way to the school of geniuses; everybody there did whatever they wanted, nobody was really studying; they were all geniuses.
neoism
Member
elevator guy
HAHAHHHHAHAHAAAAHHA!!
This just makes fun of every other job in the world....
Damn you valve.
shame I probably couldn't even make it as a tester.
At a brief glance, it seems consistent with Michael Abrash's notes on the inner workings of the company.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Harrington doesn't count because he just bought a boat and went sailing because he had so much money and that was what he wanted to do.
universalmind
Member
No wonder they never do anything good.
Glass Rebel
Member
So you're saying that he's still somewhere out there, probably working on Ricochet 2?
No, seriously, do we know what he did at Valve? Do we even know what Gabe does?
Apparently GAF likes to think making 1 game every 2 years (which sells ~3-4 million copies) means you can afford to give 250 employees an extra week-long fully comp'd holiday a year, have a free-form development environment free of pesky 'crunch' time and pay everyone much higher than average salaries.
Someone should really go and tell all the other studios they're doing it wrong.
Mr Touchdown
Member
You forgot, they also run Steam. Seriously, Steam is what's making them their money so that they can work on big luxury products AND have the work environment be sustainable and creative.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
They also net significant profits from avoiding publishers via distributing their own games digitally, and have an additional source of revenue in the TF2 item store.
The scope of Valve's business, number of employees, and variety in creative, internal projects is hinged on overall revenue which, yes, includes revenue from Steam. But the idea that Valve could not abide by this business philosophy without the comfort of a cut from Steam games is very silly. It ignores the fact is and always has been a privately owned, internally funded hugely successful games studio. They weren't pressed for cash before Steam and certainly weren't afterwards.
Perhaps I am late, but who cares how they afford it...?
I don't mind if Valve makes their profit off Steam or their games. If Steam makes them loads of dosh and that gives them the ability to structure a company like this then that's cool.
I'm still not sure what the fuck you're talking about.
Other developers HAVE used the Source engine to make other games. Zeno Clash, E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy, Dear Esther, Vindictus and Nuclear Dawn are some prominent examples. As for something "new and different", they've introduced two new successful IPs this gen in Portal and Left 4 Dead, along with experiments like Alien Swarm.
You want to think the company is more than Half-Life, but you complain that they aren't releasing more Half-Life. Valve has come out with more games at a faster clip than they have in their entire history, ranging from single-player campaigns to first person coop to multiplayer team-based to puzzle to top-down action to MOBA, and you're saying it looks to you like they're only about the digital distribution platform.
What?
He didn't forget to mention Steam; it's just irrelevant to their particular discussion ("Could Valve's business model survive without Steam?")
Hl2world only got infamy after hl2 came out. All the people that used to post there to figure out how to edit the leak then turned up their noses and blamed hl2world for pretty much everything.Looks pretty snazzy too.
Source to all this: www.flamehaus.com (of HL2world fame/infamy)
[EDIT] Here's the original posting of this stuff. http://www.flamehaus.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=163319&p=3637282#p3637282
Its kind of like politicians going to a brothel, but once the brothel is discovered they all quickly condemn the place even though they are hypocrites.
Took the thoughts straight out of my brain.
People trying to say that this kind of environment is only possible because of steam simply do not understand the reason for the environment... If they thought this would be a less profitable and less productive way of doing business, they would not do it.
The fact of the matter is they think this is the way you make the best games and make the most amount of money, and so far they are proving to be right.
That's the point I was trying to make.
Ultimately it doesn't really matter how Valve earns their money, but it does get very tiresome hearing gamers constantly sing their praises and wondering why other developers can't "be more like Valve".
Mr Touchdown
Member
Oop, my bad. Must have skipped that. MobileGAF taking some getting used to.
Glass Rebel
Member
What does it matter to you?
Valve could do exactly what they have been doing in terms of game development without Steam. They would be less wealthy, but their games are relatively low budget, and high return.
What they couldn't do is start from scratch without being started by two multimillionaires, that is what actually sets them apart from their rivals.
It's the reliance on publishers that necessitates a top-down company hierarchy. If you can become self-sufficient, then you gain the liberty to structure your company for quality rather than speed. I've heard that Nintendo, while not "flat" like Valve, has pretty open communication internally, and is constantly prototyping new games in and around larger projects.
we.are.the.armada
Member
Sounds like a paradise. Damn, I don't think they hire lawyers though.
Steam is just one of the by-products from the Valve eco-system. It's not why Valve is Valve. Valve is Valve because they're privately funded and had a visionary leader. When you don't have stock holders to answer to and you're accountable to no one but yourself, it changes the game considerably.
Think of most corporations as democracy. It's a horribly flawed system, but given the circumstances, it's the system with the most checks and balances to keep things from going horribly wrong.
Valve is the Monarchy. Monarchies are not an ideal form of government (since there are so many ways for things to go wrong and there are not checks and balances), but if you get a King who is enlightened and benevolent, it's the most productive form of government. This is Valve. The King is great with Valvedom. And its denizens reap the benefits.
Willkiller
Banned
I want to work at Valve :'(
Glass Rebel
Member
I alway wondered whether Valve would ever take the jump and dabble into publishing, maybe smaller indie titles. They have shown in the past that they'd rather integrate the teams and projects into Valve like they did with Left 4 Dead so it's probably not something they want to do but I'd still like to know how this would work out. Oh well, pipedreams.
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Basically sounds like a lot of startups except valve has stuck to their principles despite their sucess. Btw you know who would really hate it if this style became the norm? Producers and managers.
Guerrillas in the Mist
Member
Kelly Bailey left a while back, which went completely under the radar. I think he was one of the two behind that app. A shame, considering his impact on the HL games (and Portal.)
SouthernDragon
Member
I think I'll apply there. Hopefully they accept me after finishing grad school.
MrTroubleMaker
Member
that's cool
CrunchyFrog
Member
Sigh, if only. Finish HL3 Ricochet 2 assholes
Definitely.
The very people who get a shitload of money off the hard work from others.
Yes, the app is Morfo, which is very popular, the other former-Valver is Mike Dussault.
ThaiGrocer
Member
It was also very Valve-like of them to make a shitty release version and then slowly creep up in terms of quality.
I listened to an interview with Mike Morasky who's one of Valve's composers at the moment, and he basically said that Kelly Bailey left to do his own thing, tour in a band or something.
"God's Beard!"
Member
This would be the best place to work if I liked any of their games.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
I can't think of any other company that manages to do as much as Valve with only 250 employees.
PjotrStroganov
Member
I wouldn't dare work at Valve. I need structure in my life.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
The ~260 figure is a little old now, but, fortunately, the Handbook offers an updated number: 293 employees attended the 2012 company holiday to Hawaii. If we assume even just a handful didn't attend, that would put the total headcount at or over 300.
Edit: I don't mean to say/suggest that a further ~50 employees negates your general point.
I have no idea either
Are you questioning the fact that they have an employee handbook like most established companies have in some form or another, or the fact they made and effort to make it fun to read.