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THRILLH0 · Jun 17, 2014

If you're a customer having problems, Valve could not give less of a fuck about you.

Up until a couple of years ago, every time I bought something during a sale - every single time - I would have to wait until the sale was over to download my purchase because Steam was too "busy".

I posted on forums, raised support tickets and sent emails. Did I hear a single peep back? Of course not. And I dared not claim a charge back through my bank as that could have got my account nuked.

Had anyone been able to say "hey sorry to hear that, we're looking into it" I would have been satisfied. Instead I just had to wait it out. It hasn't happened for at least 2 years but I won't forget that experience and it's one of the reasons I stan Origin so hard because their support process is light years ahead.

JaseC · Jun 17, 2014

Sub Zero said:
The just need to hire JaseC as a community manager and jshackles as a network technician

I've thrown my hat into the ring.

JaseC said:
I'll be your community manager, Valve. GAF's Steam threads are collectively my resume.

Dolor · Jun 17, 2014

Uthred said:
This seems like such a wildly false dichotomy that its tantamount to bullshit. At the most basic level the one thing Valve is absolutely not short on is money. They could hire a dedicated Community Manager so it would have exactly zero impact on their products.

Yes, but they've already shown time and again that they won't "just hire people", so that means the people they already have would have to do it which means they couldn't work on the things they are working on right now.

Septy · Jun 17, 2014

Valve is the company that panics about having to hire some dirty blue collar people who work with their hands, then promptly cans the project to avoid employing them.

If communication was important it would have evolved within Valve!

TitusGroan · Jun 17, 2014

Dolor said:
Yes, but they've already shown time and again that they won't "just hire people", so that means the people they already have would have to do it which means they couldn't work on the things they are working on right now.

This is bullshit though. Imagine if another corporation tried to get out of hiring staff for the same reason.

"Right ladies and gentlemen, going to need you all to stay behind after work this evening to empty the bins and clean the toilets. I know, I know, doesn't sound all that appealing, but the only alternative is that we spend money hiring cleaners, and that's a path we just don't want to go down."

"Hey everyone, just to let you know what we're going to need you to start sorting out your income tax payments with the Inland Revenue during your lunchbreak. I know, I know, we could hire a company accountant to do all that on your behalf and ensure that taxes are filed correctly, but who wants to spend money hiring an accountant, right? Anyways, see you all in the canteen, and don't forget to bring your calculators."

"Could I have everyone's attention please? Thanks. As you know, the computers have been playing up recently, and we need to try and get the sodding network fixes. The board and I have had a meeting, and decided rather than hire a couple of IT technicians to look over everything, we'll give everyone here a copy of IT For Dummies and do it all ourselves. I know some of you had appointments with clients booked this afternoon, but you'll just have to postpone until we sort the bloody network out."

If Valve is genuinely unwilling to hire specific people to do required jobs and tasks, and is instead just fobbing other staff members onto jobs, then that's fucking terrible management. No wonder we've still not got Half-Life 3, all the developers keep getting stuck on customer service and cleaning duties.

snoopeasystreet · Jun 17, 2014

They could probably do with a community manager but it would certainly take away from their mystique but whatever, Valve will be Valve and do what they want so they're almost impossible to predict.

ashecitism · Jun 17, 2014

TitusGroan said:
"Right ladies and gentlemen, going to need you all to stay behind after work this evening to empty the bins and clean the toilets. I know, I know, doesn't sound all that appealing, but the only alternative is that we spend money hiring cleaners, and that's a path we just don't want to go down."

"Hey everyone, just to let you know what we're going to need you to start sorting out your income tax payments with the Inland Revenue during your lunchbreak. I know, I know, we could hire a company accountant to do all that on your behalf and ensure that taxes are filed correctly, but who wants to spend money hiring an accountant, right? Anyways, see you all in the canteen, and don't forget to bring your calculators."

"Could I have everyone's attention please? Thanks. As you know, the computers have been playing up recently, and we need to try and get the sodding network fixes. The board and I have had a meeting, and decided rather than hire a couple of IT technicians to look over everything, we'll give everyone here a copy of IT For Dummies and do it all ourselves. I know some of you had appointments with clients booked this afternoon, but you'll just have to postpone until we sort the bloody network out."

I read all this with Cave Johnson's voice in my head :lol

HariKari · Jun 17, 2014

TitusGroan said:
If Valve is genuinely unwilling to hire specific people to do required jobs and tasks, and is instead just fobbing other staff members onto jobs, then that's fucking terrible management. No wonder we've still not got Half-Life 3, all the developers keep getting stuck on customer service and cleaning duties.

You're not wrong. People from inside Valve have said in various interviews that things only really get done if enough people want to sit down and deal with it. The TF2 and Dota guys take pride in their work, so those projects tend to have fewer problems.

But the store? the client? VAC? Who the hell knows what's going on behind the scenes and what they're doing with it all.

A customer has a problem or a game makes its way on Steam that really shouldn't? I get the sense that the reply is "oh well, not my problem".

Bananajama · Jun 17, 2014

Had a very simple but very uncommon problem with my account last year. Due to the reluctance of customer support to actually read my emails it took many back and forths repeating the same thing.

I eventually. Almost gave up and tried to phone them.

That was useless.

Missed out on an entire sale. Couldn't spend funds in my wallet.

All because there system couldn't cope with a small offshore account after what must have been an update to there back office systems.

Dolor · Jun 17, 2014

TitusGroan said:
This is bullshit though. Imagine if another corporation tried to get out of hiring staff for the same reason.

"Right ladies and gentlemen, going to need you all to stay behind after work this evening to empty the bins and clean the toilets. I know, I know, doesn't sound all that appealing, but the only alternative is that we spend money hiring cleaners, and that's a path we just don't want to go down."

"Hey everyone, just to let you know what we're going to need you to start sorting out your income tax payments with the Inland Revenue during your lunchbreak. I know, I know, we could hire a company accountant to do all that on your behalf and ensure that taxes are filed correctly, but who wants to spend money hiring an accountant, right? Anyways, see you all in the canteen, and don't forget to bring your calculators."

"Could I have everyone's attention please? Thanks. As you know, the computers have been playing up recently, and we need to try and get the sodding network fixes. The board and I have had a meeting, and decided rather than hire a couple of IT technicians to look over everything, we'll give everyone here a copy of IT For Dummies and do it all ourselves. I know some of you had appointments with clients booked this afternoon, but you'll just have to postpone until we sort the bloody network out."

If Valve is genuinely unwilling to hire specific people to do required jobs and tasks, and is instead just fobbing other staff members onto jobs, then that's fucking terrible management. No wonder we've still not got Half-Life 3, all the developers keep getting stuck on customer service and cleaning duties.

I understand your point, but they probably contract out for that stuff, and I would rather Valve stay the way they are if it means we continue to get the products that they are producing. You have to deal with the bad and the good of how they are, and I don't think people realize just how unique Valve is in being forward thinking and customer oriented/focused.

Yeah, they could hire some people for a call center or some PR people, but I think we have to address the idea that that might negatively affect their corporate culture (you need managers at a call center and for PR). I would rather have the minor annoyances of Valve as it is than try to persuade it to take even the tiniest step towards being more like a company like EA.

TitusGroan · Jun 17, 2014

HariKari said:
You're not wrong. People from inside Valve have said in various interviews that things only really get done if enough people want to sit down and deal with it. The TF2 and Dota guys take pride in their work, so those projects tend to have fewer problems.

But the store? the client? VAC? Who the hell knows what's going on behind the scenes and what they're doing with it all.

A customer has a problem or a game makes its way on Steam that really shouldn't? I get the sense that the reply is "oh well, not my problem".

A flat organisation sounds great in theory, but you need people specializing in different areas, and others overseeing to make sure shit gets done. I'm working in a pretty relaxed office environment atm (hence plenty of time to post on GAF) but I still get reviews and stuff with my bosses every couple of months to make sure I'm meeting targets and getting stuff done how they want.

If you don't have some sort of structure in an office, then things just coagulate and people get lazy. Where's the incentive to give good customer service if no-one's going to make sure you're treating the customer well? Where's the incentive to keep the storefront up to date if no-one's calling you out when it crashes and runs like ass? Who's going to handle HR and PR and reception if no-one is specialising in those areas?

Dolor · Jun 17, 2014

TitusGroan said:
A flat organisation sounds great in theory, but you need people specializing in different areas, and others overseeing to make sure shit gets done. I'm working in a pretty relaxed office environment atm (hence plenty of time to post on GAF) but I still get reviews and stuff with my bosses every couple of months to make sure I'm meeting targets and getting stuff done how they want.

If you don't have some sort of structure in an office, then things just coagulate and people get lazy. Where's the incentive to give good customer service if no-one's going to make sure you're treating the customer well? Where's the incentive to keep the storefront up to date if no-one's calling you out when it crashes and runs like ass? Who's going to handle HR and PR and reception if no-one is specialising in those areas?

This is exactly the type of culture they are trying not to cultivate at Valve. Are you really arguing that Valve isn't productive?

TitusGroan · Jun 17, 2014

Dolor said:
I understand your point, but they probably contract out for that stuff, and I would rather Valve stay the way they are if it means we continue to get the products that they are producing. You have to deal with the bad and the good of how they are, and I don't think people realize just how unique Valve is in being forward thinking and customer oriented/focused.

Yeah, they could hire some people for a call center or some PR people, but I think we have to address the idea that that might negatively affect their corporate culture (you need managers at a call center and for PR). I would rather have the minor annoyances of Valve as it is than try to persuade it to take even the tiniest step towards being more like a company like EA.

How can you say they're customer focused when they don't say anything to the customers? Even EA has got staff dedicated to talking to their customers and fans, and they're the fucking Soviet Union of the games industry. It's not forward thinking to say "What if we just don't talk to people?" Not when it leads to stuff like Diretide, or developers being kicked off Steam, or the Steam client running like arse/crashing without warning.

If you read the RPS interview, it's clear from their answers that Valve either don't understand at all what PR is, or they just don't care, and neither is satisfactory. Responding to the Diretide debacle with "Well people were already angry, so what's the point?" spectacularly misses the point that PR is supposed to make people less angry. You don't give PR statements to wind up customers, you give statements to inform them and hopefully calm them down. That Valve don't even get something as basic as that boggles the mind as to just how insular they are.

It's not going to destroy the culture of Valve to have an office with some dedicated community and PR staff there. PR dudes aren't fucking diabolical monsters from the underworld who suck the souls out of any mortal who lays eyes on them. They're dudes and dudettes. Give them an office, pay them to do their job, and watch them actually apologise for Valve's fuck-ups and engage with the community. Every single other game company does it.

HariKari · Jun 17, 2014

TitusGroan said:
I still get reviews and stuff with my bosses every couple of months to make sure I'm meeting targets and getting stuff done how they want.

They have that. In fact, Gabe has stated that they've been too reluctant to trim the fat and fire people that don't fit. A bunch of people either quit or were let go around the time of the Jeri Ellsworth thing, and some of them weren't exactly small names. They also use a form of peer stack ranking to determine how much money you make. At Steam dev days, one of the presenters joked about "why it's not a good idea to talk about what people are making". Might be some friction there.

Valve as it is now acts the same as it did before it had millions and millions of customers/users. It just isn't going to continue to work. They've got all these ambitions about the store, greenlight, SteamOS, Steam Boxes etc... and yet it's all poorly communicated (to the point of making partners salty about it) if it's even mentioned at all.

Given how much money they traffic in and how few people they need to manage it all (it's not a physical product after all) they should have rockstars for customer service. Like Zappos level fanatics that make Valve and Steam the best experience ever.

As it stands now, they're objectively the worst of the bunch in that regard.

ashecitism · Jun 17, 2014

Yeah, I think Valve have a yearly review thing around January. Last year was the mass layoffs and this year people were let go after SDD too.

Interfectum · Jun 17, 2014

TitusGroan said:
How can you say they're customer focused when they don't say anything to the customers? Even EA has got staff dedicated to talking to their customers and fans, and they're the fucking Soviet Union of the games industry. It's not forward thinking to say "What if we just don't talk to people?" Not when it leads to stuff like Diretide, or developers being kicked off Steam, or the Steam client running like arse/crashing without warning.

If you read the RPS interview, it's clear from their answers that Valve either don't understand at all what PR is, or they just don't care, and neither is satisfactory. Responding to the Diretide debacle with "Well people were already angry, so what's the point?" spectacularly misses the point that PR is supposed to make people less angry. You don't give PR statements to wind up customers, you give statements to inform them and hopefully calm them down. That Valve don't even get something as basic as that boggles the mind as to just how insular they are.

It's not going to destroy the culture of Valve to have an office with some dedicated community and PR staff there. PR dudes aren't fucking diabolical monsters from the underworld who suck the souls out of any mortal who lays eyes on them. They're dudes and dudettes. Give them an office, pay them to do their job, and watch them actually apologise for Valve's fuck-ups and engage with the community. Every single other game company does it.

PR is one giant bullshit factory and it's pretty crazy to see people here almost begging for Valve to be a part of that. That's not who they are or who they've ever been.

Now if we are talking about customer service I believe Valve has some work to do there, especially with account related problems.

Dolor · Jun 17, 2014

TitusGroan said:
How can you say they're customer focused when they don't say anything to the customers?

Because they make products that their customers love? See Steam, Dota 2, Half-life, Portal, etc....

Because they could easily use their clout with Steam to squeeze profit out of it (something EA would clearly do) but instead they let other stores sell Steam keys at no expense. And they are working on supporting open source software gaming for the first time ever so that we are never forced into a Microsoft (or any other) store or even their own exclusively.

You are willing to compare those things to having a call center or PR? Seriously, PR is designed to spin people, but you focus on that as their deficiency?

Get some perspective on this. Valve, for all their flaws, is way better than even the next best alternative (which is who exactly?). If they are that way even in part because of their corporate culture, than I say don't mess with their corporate culture.

TitusGroan said:
It's not going to destroy the culture of Valve to have an office with some dedicated community and PR staff there. PR dudes aren't fucking diabolical monsters from the underworld who suck the souls out of any mortal who lays eyes on them. They're dudes and dudettes. Give them an office, pay them to do their job, and watch them actually apologise for Valve's fuck-ups and engage with the community. Every single other game company does it.

Their entire corporate culture is based on a flat structure, so I am sure you are right that adding a non-flat structure to their organization would surely have no impact on it at all.

PR people's jobs are to spin the press. That isn't diabolical, but it is amazing people are actually asking for it here.

TitusGroan · Jun 17, 2014

HariKari said:
They have that. In fact, Gabe has stated that they've been too reluctant to trim the fat and fire people that don't fit. A bunch of people either quit or were let go around the time of the Jeri Ellsworth thing, and some of them weren't exactly small names. They also use a form of peer stack ranking to determine how much money you make. At Steam dev days, one of the presenters joked about "why it's not a good idea to talk about what people are making". Might be some friction there.

Valve as it is now acts the same as it did before it had millions and millions of customers/users. It just isn't going to continue to work. They've got all these ambitions about the store, greenlight, SteamOS, Steam Boxes etc... and yet it's all poorly communicated (to the point of making partners salty about it) if it's even mentioned at all.

Given how much money they traffic in and how few people they need to manage it all (it's not a physical product after all) they should have rockstars for customer service. Like Zappos level fanatics that make Valve and Steam the best experience ever.

As it stands now, they're objectively the worst of the bunch in that regard.

Fair enough on the peer review thing. You're right on the communication front though. They're bar none the biggest player in the PC gaming market, they're making money hand over fist, they should be using that to make sure their community staff and customer service staff are the best in the business. Not wanting to pay a curation department is one thing, but not even wanting to pay out for better customer staff is ridiculous.

If Valve just want to focus on the software side of things, they shouldn't have gotten into digital distribution in the first place. That's a market with its own rules and requirements, and if you're going to be a player there, you'd better follow the rules of the game. You don't get to run a huge store, yet keep the customers in the dark and at arms length.

HariKari · Jun 17, 2014

Interfectum said:
PR is one giant bullshit factory and it's pretty crazy to see people here almost begging for Valve to be a part of that. That's not who they are or who they've ever been.

This is the same company that said weeks before Half Life 2's original ship date that it was on track. We all know how that went. There's a happy medium between soulless corporate doublespeak and effective, to the point communication.

"We didn't realize Diretide was expected to be a yearly thing. We recognize that fans enjoy this event a great deal and are working to bring it back in a timely manner"

Instead they just say nothing and let it fester because it's no one person's job to go out there and calm things down.

TitusGroan · Jun 17, 2014

Interfectum said:
PR is one giant bullshit factory and it's pretty crazy to see people here almost begging for Valve to be a part of that. That's not who they are or who they've ever been.

Now if we are talking about customer service I believe Valve has some work to do there, especially with account related problems.

Oh grow up. If you've ever seen a trailer for a game that got you hyped, read an interview you found informative, or seen a developer stream you really enjoyed, you've benefitted from PR. Public relations isn't some comically evil army of robots trying to brainwash you, it's people getting information on games from the developer to you the customer. Yes, a lot of PR agents do bad jobs and spin things, but in most cases that's because the developers have done a bad job at making a game in the first place.

If you want pre-release information on games, you need PR. Just look at Nintendo's E£ streams. Twenty hours of gameplay footage streamed from the floor, and who do you think organised it all?

Interfectum · Jun 17, 2014

HariKari said:
This is the same company that said weeks before Half Life 2's original ship date that it was on track. We all know how that went. There's a happy medium between soulless corporate doublespeak and effective, to the point communication.

"We didn't realize Diretide was expected to be a yearly thing. We recognize that fans enjoy this event a great deal and are working to bring it back in a timely manner"

Instead they just say nothing and let it fester because it's no one person's job to go out there and calm things down.

You act like the Diretide incident brought the entire system down. I'd argue that the Diretide rage brought more attention to Dota 2 in the mainstream press and was a net positive for Valve in the long run.

EA spends millions on PR and bullshitting consumers on a daily basis and they get voted worst company of the year and are hated among many hardcore gamers. They also spent money on a press conference that was universally hated. A lot of good PR has done for them!

Interfectum · Jun 17, 2014

TitusGroan said:
Oh grow up. If you've ever seen a trailer for a game that got you hyped, read an interview you found informative, or seen a developer stream you really enjoyed, you've benefitted from PR. Public relations isn't some comically evil army of robots trying to brainwash you, it's people getting information on games from the developer to you the customer. Yes, a lot of PR agents do bad jobs and spin things, but in most cases that's because the developers have done a bad job at making a game in the first place.

If you want pre-release information on games, you need PR. Just look at Nintendo's E£ streams. Twenty hours of gameplay footage streamed from the floor, and who do you think organised it all?

Valve gives interviews, they talk about games when they are ready to and they have their own events to hype their products (ARGs, The International, etc). Their games also go on to sell millions and are played by millions of people. They have one of the most popular online gaming portals and one of the biggest F2P games on the market. Why do they need a dedicated PR team again? To make you feel better?

TitusGroan · Jun 17, 2014

Interfectum said:
You act like the Diretide incident brought the entire system down. I'd argue that the Diretide rage brought more attention to Dota 2 in the mainstream press and was a net positive for Valve in the long run.

The PSN hacking scandal got Sony and Playstation day-in day-out coverage and attention on pretty much every major news outlet. Still doubt they'd like to go through that again. When net attention on your product is focused around something that went wrong, that's not a positive, that's a negative.

EA spends millions on PR and bullshitting consumers on a daily basis and they get voted worst company of the year and are hated among many hardcore gamers. They also spent money on a press conference that was universally hated. A lot of good PR has done for them!

EA games still sell millions upon millions, their sports games pretty much own the market, and for all their horrible practices they're still, along with Activision, the biggest third party on the market.

I'm sure they cry themselves to sleep at night that they won an award on the internet.

Interfectum · Jun 17, 2014

TitusGroan said:
The PSN hacking scandal got Sony and Playstation day-in day-out coverage and attention on pretty much every major news outlet. Still doubt they'd like to go through that again. When net attention on your product is focused around something that went wrong, that's not a positive, that's a negative.

You are seriously comparing the PSN hack where gamers lost their personal information and ability to play games online to the Diretide incident where Dota 2 fans went nuts because Valve didn't realize how much fans loved their Halloween event?

Interfectum · Jun 17, 2014

TitusGroan said:
EA games still sell millions upon millions, their sports games pretty much own the market, and for all their horrible practices they're still, along with Activision, the biggest third party on the market.

I'm sure they cry themselves to sleep at night that they won an award on the internet.

And I'm sure Valve are crying themselves to sleep at night while they continue to dominate the PC space, are adored by their fanbase all while not having a dedicated PR firm to spin their messages.

TitusGroan · Jun 17, 2014

Interfectum said:
You are seriously comparing the PSN hack where gamers lost their personal information and ability to play games online to the Diretide incident where Dota 2 fans went nuts because Valve didn't realize how much fans loved their Halloween event?

I'm countering your example that negative coverage is somehow a good thing. DOTA fans were not happy about Diretide, and Valve would have been better off addressing the community directly in some fashion.

To answer your other point, they need customer service and PR guys because, for all their success, their community engagement is objectively some of the worst in the industry. Regardless of how successful their sales are, that's something that can be criticized and should be addressed.

Dolor · Jun 17, 2014

TitusGroan said:
I'm countering your example that negative coverage is somehow a good thing. DOTA fans were not happy about Diretide, and Valve would have been better off addressing the community directly in some fashion.

I think they answered it in the best way - not by talking about it, but by reinstituting Diretide.

If you think Valve's success is somehow independent of how they have designed their company (hire the best people and let them loose to make things that people want to pay for), then your argument makes sense. Unfortunately, I don't think it's incidental that Valve is fabulously productive with the culture they have. That culture has positive and negative aspects like any culture, but whose model is a better one to follow?

If a lack of hierarchy, PR and support staff made all companies act and think like Valve, I would recommend that most companies (maybe not the military) mimic Valve.

Atomski · Jun 17, 2014

TucoBenedictoPacifico said:
Professional bullshitters, mostly.

This is about how I feel.. everytime I read PR I just feel like I am being lied to or they are spinning facts in a way to make things better than they actually are.

BeesEight · Jun 17, 2014

Are we really going to try and paint Valve as the problem for Diretide? That was an example of the incredible toxicity of the Dota 2 community. Sure, it was an issue when people were upset they didn't get the exact same holiday event they had the year prior but no sane, rational expectation or recourse involves harassing other companies or sending threatening messages to community members. It would be akin to NeoGaf throwing a riot in the streets because Mass Effect 3 didn't have planetary probing.

The Diretide Fiasco stopped being a "Valve doesn't talk" problem and quickly developed into a "this game community has serious issues" problem. And that isn't going to get fixed with Valve saying "stop being entitled idiots and learn to temper your reactions."

TitusGroan · Jun 17, 2014

Dolor said:
I think they answered it in the best way - not by talking about it, but by reinstituting Diretide.

If you think Valve's success is somehow independent of how they have designed their company (hire the best people and let them loose to make things that people want to pay for), then your argument makes sense. Unfortunately, I don't think it's incidental that Valve is fabulously productive with the culture they have. That culture has positive and negative aspects like any culture, but whose model is a better one to follow?

Google, Apple, Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, or any other digital distribution network owner who operates a customer service/community feedback service worth a damn. Yes, none of them make Valve games, but Valve is hardly the be-all-and-end-all of game development anymore. Other companies have shown it is quite possible to make incredible games, and still not treat your customers like some leper colony you only want to interact with come feeding time.

If a lack of hierarchy, PR and support staff made all companies act and think like Valve, I would recommend that most companies (maybe not the military) mimic Valve.

And if you're going to make billions of dollars, yet still not employ community and customer staff worth a shit, then I'm going to criticize you. If every DD network had unannounced crashes, downtime and general bad periods like Steam, I'm not going to buy games online much longer.

It's not a badge of honour to treat your customer like some enemy you only interact with when all other options are gone. No-one's saying Valve needs to fling their doors open, but they need to step up and engage with the community when they fuck up. And flat office structure or no, they have fucked up more than once.

ashecitism · Jun 17, 2014

Just remembered this Washington Post article with Gabe where he talks about the workings of Valve.

Interviewer: It seems like a lot of this involves a lot individual experience for employees and you've figured out a way to make that really work with the current size of your organization. Are you at all worried about scaling that if you continue to grow?

Gabe: No. One of the nice things about having pretty distributed decision-making in the company is that it tends to scale really well. You can trust that lots of good decisions are being made all the time. That's one of the things that we try to explain when we're bring somebody in -- you guys know there are no monthly reports here? There's no "all of the information has to flow to Gabe." It's like, if I need to know something I'll figure out who is involved with it and find it because I'm just like somebody else. Nobody's going to put together a report for me so I can have a giant file of reports laying around that I never get around to reading. What that means is that a lot of bandwidth internally in the company frees up because you're not just constantly tracking a whole bunch of stuff so decision making is really distributed.

Where that bites you is if somebody makes a bad decision, like Diretide. I found out that we were doing something stupid when one of our customers mailed me and said "you're doing something stupid." I was like "really?" And I go and find out that yes, in fact, we're doing something stupid. That isn't a fault, it's just one of those trade offs. But we definitely in a sense have an army of customers who are always helping us stay honest. That's way better. We've essentially crowd-sourced supervision of a lot of these decisions to our customers and it works way better than almost any other system we could design. They're rabid, they're passionate, and there are a lot of them.

BeesEight said:
Are we really going to try and paint Valve as the problem for Diretide? That was an example of the incredible toxicity of the Dota 2 community. Sure, it was an issue when people were upset they didn't get the exact same holiday event they had the year prior but no sane, rational expectation or recourse involves harassing other companies or sending threatening messages to community members. It would be akin to NeoGaf throwing a riot in the streets because Mass Effect 3 didn't have planetary probing.

The Diretide Fiasco stopped being a "Valve doesn't talk" problem and quickly developed into a "this game community has serious issues" problem. And that isn't going to get fixed with Valve saying "stop being entitled idiots and learn to temper your reactions."

Of course Valve were a problem for Diretide. They didn't bother to give heads up for their community that there won't be a silly Halloween event. Then when people got pissed they let it fester and then people got even more pissed. Valve isn't at fault for people flooding Volvo's FB page, but they sure as hell could have mitigated or forego the whole situation.

ViviOggi · Jun 17, 2014

It's true, lack of communication is one of Valve's biggest issues and one that could be fixed easily. If hiring dedicated community managers goes against their corporate culture they can still set better communication as a goal to work towards and put it in their guidelines. Their employees have proven to be exceptionally good at talking to their games' communities on the occasions they felt like doing so.

BeesEight said:
Are we really going to try and paint Valve as the problem for Diretide? That was an example of the incredible toxicity of the Dota 2 community. Sure, it was an issue when people were upset they didn't get the exact same holiday event they had the year prior but no sane, rational expectation or recourse involves harassing other companies or sending threatening messages to community members. It would be akin to NeoGaf throwing a riot in the streets because Mass Effect 3 didn't have planetary probing.

The Diretide Fiasco stopped being a "Valve doesn't talk" problem and quickly developed into a "this game community has serious issues" problem. And that isn't going to get fixed with Valve saying "stop being entitled idiots and learn to temper your reactions."

Stopped reading at toxicity

Pureauthor · Jun 17, 2014

BeesEight said:
Are we really going to try and paint Valve as the problem for Diretide? That was an example of the incredible toxicity of the Dota 2 community. Sure, it was an issue when people were upset they didn't get the exact same holiday event they had the year prior but no sane, rational expectation or recourse involves harassing other companies or sending threatening messages to community members. It would be akin to NeoGaf throwing a riot in the streets because Mass Effect 3 didn't have planetary probing.

The Diretide Fiasco stopped being a "Valve doesn't talk" problem and quickly developed into a "this game community has serious issues" problem. And that isn't going to get fixed with Valve saying "stop being entitled idiots and learn to temper your reactions."

The Internet is going to act like rabid monkeys. That isn't going to change anytime soon, for any service/product that has a significantly invested fanbase.

Valve should know this. Everyone who has to deal with social relations on the Intenet (AKA almost everyone on planet earth) should know this.

That they failed to account for it is squarely on them.

Saty · Jun 17, 2014

Here's a thought: even Microsoft has now formalized a channel for users to request and rank wanted features and capabilities. No such thing for Steam. Basic needs and additions are unaddressed for months and years, and nobody there is saying 'here's what we are working on and when you can expect it'.

T-shaped persons + flat structure might be ok for developing games but it isn't for a service\platform which requires timely response to feedback and request. We don't even know if Valve acknowledges the feedback and what the users want. You need constant communication. It is unacceptable that you still can't sort your Steam library in efficient way. Do we really need someone at Valve to be passionate about being able to assign infinite categories per game for it to be done? How can Valve employees use Steam and play with it and none has found it worthy to spend few minutes on a basic ability?

They are doing great work with Sharing, Streaming, Music but we've reached a situation where we can't see the forest for all the trees.

I'm currently the most displeased with Valve that i ever been and the funny thing is that it has less to do with their game development side. It's Valve's own doing.

It seems that for some quite years Valve has switched to a mode where they don't talk at all at what they're doing and what's coming before they something very concrete to show. The users are left completely in the dark about where the wind is blowing and we have no possible way to tell if Valve are working on the concerns or just doesn't care.

Valve often says how this approach is so that players don't get 'hurt' when they talk about something early only to be delayed and so on. This approach is misguided and probably goes against what the fans want. We want to hear what they're doing, especially on the Steam side, in a consistent and timely manner.

Valve's current behavior is doing a disservice for everybody involved.

1st Course · Jun 17, 2014

JoeTheBlow said:
The 2 times i've had to contact Valve for customer service were like talking, then shouting, at a fucking wall for an entire week.

I dread having a real issue that locks me out of all my games.

Yeah I read horrid stories of people getting hacked and losing everything without valve doing anything. Really bizarre how such a big game distributor doesn't have real time support.

jshackles · Jun 17, 2014

Saty said:
Here's a thought: even Microsoft has now formalized a channel for users to request and rank wanted features and capabilities. No such thing for Steam. Basic needs and additions are unaddressed for months and years, and nobody there is saying 'here's what we are working on and when you can expect it'.

T-shaped persons + flat structure might be ok for developing games but it isn't for a service\platform which requires timely response to feedback and request. We don't even know if Valve acknowledges the feedback and what the users want. You need constant communication. It is unacceptable that you still can't sort your Steam library in efficient way. Do we really need someone at Valve to be passionate about being able to assign infinite categories per game for it to be done? How can Valve employees use Steam and play with it and none has found it worthy to spend few minutes on a basic ability?

As someone who would jump at the opportunity to work at Valve and be involved with implementing these sorts of changes,

(I suppose you could say I am passionate about it)

I think I would find it difficult to improve Steam at all if I didn't have a way to effectively communicate with their customer base.

Sure, I can fix my own frustrations with the platform, but I'm just one of 75 million users.

So take something like the Steam guide that was created as a compilation of community suggested features: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=155977262 This was started in June of 2013 and has been updated occasionally as new popular requests were made. And although they have an "Implemented in 2013" and "Implemented in 2014" section with a few entries each, I'd argue that those suggestions really were not implemented as well as users would have like or were asking for. For example, "Show icons for DLC in the wishlist." is marked as "fixed in 2014", but it's still an issue for a lot of games (an issue which Enhanced Steam fixes).

So here is a list of literally hundreds of suggestions that your community is crying out for you to fix, and it's been compiled for over a year. I know firsthand that fixing a lot of these issues would be difficult, so if it's a matter of not having enough people, then hire more. If it's something you're working on - let us know. Surely it's not going to be earth-shattering news if you come out and say "Hey guys, we're working on an update that will let you type into the address bar in the Steam client. I know this is frustrating for a lot of people, so I just wanted to give you a heads up that we're working on a fix and hopefully it'll be available in the beta client soon." I don't think anyone would get the "PR is bullshit" feeling about an announcement like that - it's just good communication.

balladofwindfishes · Jun 17, 2014

Valve could have posted a picture of Ember Spirit's sword stuck into the ground or whatever with a caption "November" on their blog and could have avoided the entire Diretide problem. I think they got so caught up in development they forgot they had real people playing their games and looking for new content.

Nzyme32 · Jun 17, 2014

JoeTheBlow said:
The 2 times i've had to contact Valve for customer service were like talking, then shouting, at a fucking wall for an entire week.

I dread having a real issue that locks me out of all my games.

Perhaps off topic, but while the general perception seem to be agreed that their customer service is terrible, I have had to contact valve on 5 occasions, although 3 were in the past 3 years, 2 of those were very early on in steam terms, around 2004. These experiences were surprisingly painless compared to what others have said

The first 2 times I can barely remember how long they took, but it was less than a day, because I was able to play half life 2 the next day (having purchased it at launch and running into all manner of issues).

More recently I have only ever had to wait 1 day for an initial response with follow ups taking anywhere between a day and a week. One was for a switching a product for a different one, the other was to do with being unable to purchase, and the final one was a refund for an accidental purchase.

Obviously, everyone has had different experiences and situations with their customer service, but my only point is, it hasn't been terrible for everyone. Perhaps I am a bizarre outlier case.

1st Course said:
Yeah I read horrid stories of people getting hacked and losing everything without valve doing anything. Really bizarre how such a big game distributor doesn't have real time support.

That reminds me, when I joined GAF, I recall a couple of threads of people talking about such stuff. The threads got huge. They both claimed to be innocent parties but eventually detective GAF actually caught them bullshitting, and they got banned. Obviously this can't be true of everyone, but I still haven't seen a genuine persistent case get attention, particularly here on GAF. There was a big incident quite a while back, maybe 2009, where a bunch of people got their accounts locked or they got VAC banned for no reason other than Valve fucked up. Eventually, they got their stuff back and got a bunch of free games to compensate.

The one thing that genuinely piss me off with Valve, is their approach to VAC bans caused by a hijacked account. If the person who owns an account has it hijacked by someone else, and doesn't report it before the hijacker gets the account VAC banned, that original owner is permanently VAC banned, and that can not be reversed, even though the case I described earlier was.

BebopMcJigglypuff · Jun 17, 2014

I don't know, the only time I was really upset with valve was when they forced me onto the service to keep playing counterstrike ~11 years ago. My impression of steam has only improved over the years... though I would appreciate a proper sorting function on my games.

Uthred · Jun 17, 2014

People in this thread seem laughably uninfromed that public relations is a spectrum not solely a machiavellian bullshit factory.

Dolor said:
Yes, but they've already shown time and again that they won't "just hire people", so that means the people they already have would have to do it which means they couldn't work on the things they are working on right now.

Wont != Cant. Its bullshit.

Dolor said:
...and I don't think people realize just how unique Valve is in being forward thinking and customer oriented/focused.

Yeah, they could hire some people for a call center or some PR people, but I think we have to address the idea that that might negatively affect their corporate culture (you need managers at a call center and for PR). I would rather have the minor annoyances of Valve as it is than try to persuade it to take even the tiniest step towards being more like a company like EA.

Another wildly hyperbolic false dichotomy, the excluded middle between Valve and EA is continent sized, and the assumption that Valve is on the extreme "good" side of that divide is as laughable as thinking theyre uniquely customer oriented or focused. Valve's approach to customers is almost schizophrenic, while they do well (best in class really) in terms of non-abusive F2P in games like DOTA2 they are worse than regularly demonise companies like EA when it comes to basic everyday customer service and communication. There is no acceptable reason for the latter, they could easily address it, they could address it in ways that had literally no impact on their current corporate culture if they wanted to. But they simply dont want to and thats the problem.

OldAsUrSock · Jun 17, 2014

JaseC said:
I'll be your community manager, Valve. GAF's Steam threads are collectively my resume.

My vote goes to Jase.

or Jshackles

dantevsninjas · Jun 17, 2014

Ok, I volunteer. What does everyone want to know about Valve?

Dolor · Jun 17, 2014

Uthred said:
People in this thread seem laughably uninfromed that public relations is a spectrum not solely a machiavellian bullshit factory.

Wont != Cant. Its bullshit.

Another wildly hyperbolic false dichotomy, the excluded middle between Valve and EA is continent sized, and the assumption that Valve is on the extreme "good" side of that divide is as laughable as thinking theyre uniquely customer oriented or focused. Valve's approach to customers is almost schizophrenic, while they do well (best in class really) in terms of non-abusive F2P in games like DOTA2 they are worse than regularly demonise companies like EA when it comes to basic everyday customer service and communication. There is no acceptable reason for the latter, they could easily address it, they could address it in ways that had literally no impact on their current corporate culture if they wanted to. But they simply dont want to and thats the problem.

But at the end of the day, why risk a dilution in the quality of the things they produce that matter so that you can what, be assured that Valve is really working on stuff? Can you not see that already from their production?

What exactly do people want from Valve - Gaben whispering into their ear that everything's going to be ok when something goes wrong? I've had a couple of service interactions with Valve via Steam and neither were settled to my satisfaction, but if I step back, I see that 99.9% of my interactions with Steam/Valve are great. They obviously respect me as a customer enough to develop the best service around and to constantly be adding to it (workshop, Linux, family sharing, streaming, etc), so I don't really care if they don't coddle me on my one particular service hang-up that I have one time in 3 years.

Sure, they are miles away from EA, and there is potential for middle ground, but all this thread strikes me is people wanting Valve to pay them more attention. I don't need Valve's attention and I would frankly rather them focusing on continuing to make great stuff. Let the imitators focus on PR and customer service. I have no doubt EA can do that well and that could be their differentiation from Valve.

-COOLIO- · Jun 17, 2014

naw, people just need to chillax. stop expecting things that you weren't promised.

Uthred · Jun 17, 2014

Dolor said:
But at the end of the day, why risk a dilution in the quality of the things they produce that matter so that you can what, be assured that Valve is really working on stuff? Can you not see that already from their production?

What exactly do people want from Valve - Gaben whispering into their ear that everything's going to be ok when something goes wrong? I've had a couple of service interactions with Valve via Steam and neither were settled to my satisfaction, but if I step back, I see that 99.9% of my interactions with Steam/Valve are great. They obviously respect me as a customer enough to develop the best service around and to constantly be adding to it (workshop, Linux, family sharing, streaming, etc), so I don't really care if they don't coddle me on my one particular service hang-up that I have one time in 3 years.

Sure, they are miles away from EA, and there is potential for middle ground, but all this thread strikes me is people wanting Valve to pay them more attention. I don't need Valve's attention and I would frankly rather them focusing on continuing to make great stuff. Let the imitators focus on PR and customer service. I have no doubt EA can do that well and that could be their differentiation from Valve.

You seem incapable of responding with anything other than outlandish hyperbole, its been made quite clear what people "want" several times. If you genuinely think this thread is about people wanting Valve to pay them attention then you havent been reading it very well. Whether its the former or the latter its clear that this is going nowhere so I'm out.

TrAcEr_x90 · Jun 17, 2014

Isn't Valve slowly sort of starting their own yearly reveals? Soon there will be a E3 of the Valve world!

Skinpop · Jun 17, 2014

I like that PR is almost non-existent with valve, I hope it stays that way. It's really just a waste of resources.

Dolor · Jun 17, 2014

Uthred said:
You seem incapable of responding with anything other than outlandish hyperbole, its been made quite clear what people "want" several times. If you genuinely think this thread is about people wanting Valve to pay them attention then you havent been reading it very well. Whether its the former or the latter its clear that this is going nowhere so I'm out.

I probably have been hyperbolic, so apologies for that.

But I have read most of this thread, and the two things people keep mentioning as lacking at Valve are more/better PR and more/better customer service.

That strikes me as customers wanting Valve to pay more attention to their needs. I just think that Valve is built around responding to the collective customer needs which means that very little attention is paid to individual concerns (as evidenced by their poor customer service) but a great deal of attention is paid by Valve employees to the improvement of the overall aggregate experience of its customers (as evidenced by their immensely popular games and Steam).

All I am saying is that that is a trade-off I am willing to take with them if that is what they can offer. I too wish they could walk and chew bubble-gum, but I don't think it is total BS to think that adding a management structure to a place like Valve (necessary if you have dedicated customer support personnel) could materially alter their workplace environment for the worse, and that isn't a risk I support taking.

HariKari · Jun 17, 2014

Dolor said:
All I am saying is that that is a trade-off I am willing to take with them if that is what they can offer. I too wish they could walk and chew bubble-gum, but I don't think it is total BS to think that adding a management structure to a place like Valve (necessary if you have dedicated customer support personnel) could materially alter their workplace environment for the worse, and that isn't a risk I support taking.

The thing is, the communication and customer service isn't just a problem with regular people. Developers are constantly bitching at Valve to improve things and make it more of a two way street. There's really nothing stopping them from having a customer service focused team that operates in a similar manner to the rest of Valve. If given total freedom to solve problems, I'm sure the high caliber people that they hire would do a much better job of addressing the individual needs of customers.

You shouldn't dread Valve support. Horror stories should not pop up in every thread like they do. There is no reason for a corporation like Valve, with all of their resources, draw, and need, to have this problem. They do not need to change their culture to solve this problem.

Valve has benefited tremendously from being a first mover, the subsequent momentum, and from being a company that turns out quality titles that help feed back into all of it. They're just not invincible...

BeesEight · Jun 17, 2014

ashecitism said:
Of course Valve were a problem for Diretide. They didn't bother to give heads up for their community that there won't be a silly Halloween event. Then when people got pissed they let it fester and then people got even more pissed. Valve isn't at fault for people flooding Volvo's FB page, but they sure as hell could have mitigated or forego the whole situation.

I agree that Valve could have said something to stem the anger and disappointment that came when people didn't get the holiday game mode (which most people were pissed about when it finally did launch because they were only in it for the hats in the first place). Had Dota threads and forums been filled with upset people then I would be behind the rally that Valve was a large part of the problem.

But no company or person should think that because they didn't release a mode which was received at best with mixed reviews the first time it came out that it would escalate into other companies being harassed and people finding the personal contact information for individuals 100% unaffiliated with Valve to send them threats. That was the real problem but most involved would like to just dismiss the sheer asshattery that Diretide devolved into. And no one is to blame but the community for that irrational and ridiculous response.

Pureauthor said:
The Internet is going to act like rabid monkeys. That isn't going to change anytime soon, for any service/product that has a significantly invested fanbase.

Valve should know this. Everyone who has to deal with social relations on the Intenet (AKA almost everyone on planet earth) should know this.

That they failed to account for it is squarely on them.

No company should reasonably suspect that their fanbase is going to threaten and harass people completely uninvolved. It was grade A lunacy over such a minor and inconsequential event. To blame Valve for the outcome is pointless because at that time the community's behaviour was beyond accountable.

Like I said, would it be expected that Buick gets spammed messages because Mass Effect removes inventory management? Should random people receive threats because of it?

No, and to try and pin the blame on them for the community's juvenile response is ridiculous. This isn't something that is known. To wave it away because "the Internet is full of asshats so it's the fault of companies for interacting with them" is wholly the wrong attitude to take.

I do think that Valve should be more communicative and involved with their community but using Diretide as a sort of "inevitability of what will happen if you don't" is stupid. That problem is a different beast.

ViviOggi said:
Stopped reading at toxicity

Fight the good fight, ViviOggi.

Support NeoGAF

Valve really need a Community Manager. At the least...

Banned

gave away the keys to the kingdom.

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Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.

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The Everyman

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