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Valve dev says about 3rd of the company is involved in VR

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4osav8/lighthouse_tracked_osvr/d4gdtr6

We are always hiring: http://www.valvesoftware.com/jobs/

There are a number of teams around the planet doing great things in this new space, it is truly exciting. But we all owe a huge debt to those in academia and niche industries that kept the dream alive after the 90s VR implosion. People like Mark Bolas at USC where Palmer Lucky got his start and Jaron Lanier now at MSR who popularised the term Virtual Reality and has never stopped thinking about the future of digitally mediated reality.

I was super fortunate to start at Valve right around the time Michael Abrash had begun the AR/VR research team. It was a much smaller team then than it is now, it has since grown to encompass about a third of the company, but the key individuals that solved most of the really hard technological problems and facilitated this generation of consumer headsets are still here working on the next generation.

Digitally mediated reality is one of those incredibly impactful technologies, short of human space flight or life sciences I can't imagine working on something of more significance right now.

The last estimate regarding Valve's employee count was 350-380 around a year ago.
 
i want to live in a virtual reality where we actually got hl3

not really surprised so much of them are on VR though. lots of manpower needed to undertake the vive's software pov
 

Arkanius

Member
Considering that around 20 people work for Dota 2 and I assume another 20-30 for CS:GO, I wonder what the rest is doing...
 
i want to live in a virtual reality where we actually got hl3

not really surprised so much of them are on VR though. lots of manpower needed to undertake the vive's software pov

I was watching one of Giantbombs E3 nightly shows and Cliff Bleszinski was talking about VR and Valve and about an unrelated game where you stepped through portals.

I can totally see a Portal 3 / Half Life 3 VR game coming out of Valve.
 

jsnepo

Member
I imagined a day when Gabe Newell arrives in Valve's office and tells everyone in a calmly but serious tone, "Everyone, it is time."
 
So with 100+ working on VR, five working on Steam, five working on CS:GO, two working on Dota 2 and one working on Team Fortress 2 that leaves plenty of people to work on HL3.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
I imagined a day when Gabe Newell arrives in Valve's office and tells everyone in a calmly but serious tone, "Everyone, it is time."

itistimeocjhu.jpg


itistime207jh9.jpg
 

EGM1966

Member
Came to post HL2 EP 3 posts - was too late.

Sounds like they're definitely getting behind it. Hopefully they make wrapping up the unfinished story they sold me years ago to fund the growth of their digital platform a title for VR I guess.
 

Bluth54

Member
Considering that around 20 people work for Dota 2 and I assume another 20-30 for CS:GO, I wonder what the rest is doing...
According to a comp TF2 player that recently visited Valve there are around 10 people who work on TF2 full time. I also doubt CSGO has 20-30 devs, it's probably a similar number to TF2 (but of course I don't know for sure). Also at least one Valve dev works on both TF2 and CSGO so there may be other people who work on multiple projects.
 

BHK3

Banned
Considering that around 20 people work for Dota 2 and I assume another 20-30 for CS:GO, I wonder what the rest is doing...

Dota 2 is like 15 people or less, csgo I read was like 5, tf2 the number as well. Not to mention these employees most likely work on other projects at the same time as well. Throw a few on steam development and the rest on games that we will never hear about or play in our lifetimes, whatevers left goes to VR.
 

Bluth54

Member
Nice to know there are still some people working at Valve who aren't making TF2 hats.
Aside from some weapon reskins all the cosmetic items made for TF2 for years have been made by the community (who share in the revenue made from the sales of those items). Valve even added an item importer into TF2 that certifies the item is actually is compatible for TF2. When Valve wants to add cosmetic items it takes them almost no effort, they just look at the TF2 workshop for highly rated compatible cosmetics that they like.
 

spekkeh

Banned
I just read this as one third of Valve moved their desk over to the VR area and then went off for a nice long dinner that lasts five months.
 
Aside from some weapon reskins all the cosmetic items made for TF2 for years have been made by the community (who share in the revenue made from the sales of those items). Valve even added an item importer into TF2 that certifies the item is actually is compatible for TF2. When Valve wants to add cosmetic items it takes them almost no effort, they just look at the TF2 workshop for highly rated compatible cosmetics that they like.

Just messing around here, man. :)
 
Valve employees work on basically whatever project they want, right? VR seems like a cool thing to work on.

I wonder if there's more to the AR aspect of the VR/AR team than we're aware of though. That's something Valve hasn't seemed to explore much yet.

HL3 being playable from start to finish in VR seems likely though. If playable at all, eventually, of course.
 

cheezcake

Member
Is this the part where GAF pretends Valve does nothing despite them being one of the primary contributors to the rapid commercialization of an entirely new gaming technology and ongoing development of two of the biggest games in the world.
 

Bluth54

Member
Is this the part where GAF pretends Valve does nothing despite them being one of the primary contributors to the rapid commercialization of an entirely new gaming technology and ongoing development of two of the biggest games in the world.
Don't forget about also working on updates to the third most popular game on Steam, as well as working on a new game engine.
 

daveo42

Banned
After seeing some of the stuff from The Lab, I'm kind of excited about what Valve could actually bring to the VR space. I still wish there was a better solution to locomotion in VR outside of teleporting or using an analog stick, but that limitation will more than likely be around for some time. Outside of just buying an omnidirectional treadmill.

A third you say... Hmmm

Actual first thought.

The other two are working on HL3.

Nah, they are working on new Dota heroes, hats, weapon skins and Steam issues in that order.
 

Nzyme32

Member
While I'm all for seeing a big Valve game again, people are way to absorbed in that meme. A third of the company working on VR doesn't even mean they are working specifically on games. The other stuff they do is as interesting to me, but their plans to keep solving things in VR are probably the most interesting right now.

Of course. We want AR/VR/MR to be ubiquitous.

Over the past four years or so I've seen many companies big and small bring their demos to show and tell. They all have bits and pieces of the larger puzzle. Good eye tracking, interesting haptic techniques, next generation display technologies. But most of them are narrowly focused on their thing, and struggle alone to make a successful product. Partially this was just because the market didn't exist but also many of them were/are just trying to boil the ocean. The minimum viable product is now a pretty high bar and that can stifle innovation. We can offer a running start, the traditionally "hard" parts of HMD technology, the things other than GPUs that kept VR niche for so long.

In return we ask that your device leveraging our technology works with our platform. And mostly that is it. We won't ask that it only works on our platform, we won't stop you from targeting other industries. This gives both you and your users freedom of choice and security that isn't dependant on either party's future decisions. It is a pretty good deal really. Our platform has a rapidly growing collection of great content for your end-users so your product won't be an orphan and you don't need to convince anyone to author for it. Day one people can fire up Tilt Brush and have their minds blown by your awesome new hardware.


Just a shame most of the output from that isn't going to be too visible anytime soon.
 
I imagined a day when Gabe Newell arrives in Valve's office and tells everyone in a calmly but serious tone, "Everyone, it is time."

The way Valve works last I checked was that people worked on whatever they wanted to. So if even one employee wants to work on HL3, then it's already happening. Conversely, if Gabe said that and everyone objected, they'd just keep working on hats.
 

Krev

Unconfirmed Member
The way Valve works last I checked was that people worked on whatever they wanted to. So if even one employee wants to work on HL3, then it's already happening. Conversely, if Gabe said that and everyone objected, they'd just keep working on hats.
Do people really believe this?

There's a level of corporate oversight going on. A team of game developers don't overnight decide they'd prefer to work on e-commerce/microtransactions/VR. Even if the extent of it is just hiring to stack the studio with employees with a background in wearables rather than game design, there has to be some level of top-down management.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
Do people really believe this?

There's a level of corporate oversight going on. A team of game developers don't overnight decide they'd prefer to work on e-commerce/microtransactions/VR. Even if the extent of it is just hiring to stack the studio with employees with a background in wearables rather than game design, there has to be some level of top-down management.

The people working in e-commerce and microtransactions and things like probably aren't the same people who were designing levels for Half Life 2. Valve actually employs a team of psychologists and economists - not really game developers - who manage their commerce stuff.
 
Pretty excited if thats true. The Lab is brilliant and really shows off what the Vive, Room scale, and VR in general can and should look and feel like.

If you all haven't had a chance to try The Lab on SteamVR I suggest you do so immediately.
 

Mupod

Member
There were some good arguments on the bombcast for HL3 VR. At this point that's the only way Half Life 3 makes sense for Valve, even if it'd piss me off.
 
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