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Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

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Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#41

Post by jacobsenscott »

gumby wrote: post #9

The reasulting reality of the managerless approach hasn’t been good. As the they say, “if you don’t have any managers you have politics”. I have several friends who used to work at Valve none of them hate the place, they still have friends there, etc. But they tell similar stories as to why things that normal companies do successfully are impossible at Valve. Perhaps it’s best summed up by something one friend said a…

You always have politics. Managers tend to be political ninjas, so they make it worse. I've been programming professionally for over 25 years at this point, worked at many places, and I couldn't tell you what value a manager brings. I know what they do - which is hold meetings that take time away from real work, and ask people "is it done yet". But I've never seen anything get done faster or better as a result of something a manager did.

I'm genuinely curious to hear from people who have had what they consider effective management, what did the manager do to make your work better?

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#42

Post by ants_everywhere »

gumby wrote: post #9

The reasulting reality of the managerless approach hasn’t been good. As the they say, “if you don’t have any managers you have politics”. I have several friends who used to work at Valve none of them hate the place, they still have friends there, etc. But they tell similar stories as to why things that normal companies do successfully are impossible at Valve. Perhaps it’s best summed up by something one friend said a…

> As the they say, “if you don’t have any managers you have politics”.

This reminds me of the classic essay "The Tyranny of Structurelessness"

https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#43

Post by daemoens »

nerdjon wrote: post #34
ric2b wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam isn't an unimpeachable monopoly, their competition is just so much worse.

I disagree, many of the competitors do what is necessary just fine. There is a strong sentiment with many gamers of just not wanting to use an alternative and it is basically a non starter for many other stores. Many complain about the very idea of not all of their games being in the same place. This isn't necessarily anything monopolistic done on Valve's side. But it would be very hard for another store to make any…

Many of these alternatives failed because they were forced onto users who had already paid over $60 for a game, and they were incredibly slow and clunky. They might have improved over time, but people still remember how bad these stores were at launch.

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#44

Post by nerdjon »

Systemmanic wrote: post #36
nerdjon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, many of the competitors do what is necessary just fine. There is a strong sentiment with many gamers of just not wanting to use an alternative and it is basically a non starter for many other stores. Many complain about the very idea of not all of their games being in the same place. This isn't necessarily anything monopolistic done on Valve's side. But it would be very hard for another store to make any…

I agree. I’ve met countless gamers who will simply not buy or play a game if it isn’t available on Steam. Myself included, and all of my gamer friends.

I never really understood this mentality, especially when on the console side people seem just fine with the idea of buying multiple consoles for exclusives. (not that I am agreeing with that either).

There isn't a cost to having multiple stores, you don't even need to keep them running at all time. I get the concerns over the Epic app, but Heroic exists.

Personally I have games on Steam, Xbox (cross buy between xbox and PC), Epic, and EA. Plus Game Pass.

The only annoying part is when I go to install or buy a game, finding where I have it or making sure I don't already own it somewhere. But there are launchers like Playnite to address that.

But it does feel like I am in the minority with this opinion.

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#45

Post by Shekelphile »

Hasu wrote: post #32
aaarrm wrote: post #11

This thing has always been a treat to look through; it's made with so much effort and care. I haven't read through it in a bit though and don't plan to read through it again currently so I may be off in some of the rest of my comment. I think Valve's flat structure strategy has mildly failed and they should try something else. Unless they still desire to all-in on the strategy of creating products and hoping to land…

> I think Valve's flat structure strategy has mildly failed and they should try something else. If all your failures are as "mild" as the "failure" of Valve's flat structure, you will have a very nice life. > However Valve kind of advertises itself as a video game company, and if someone is interested in making video games I feel like they'd actually be a bit disappointed after a while of working at Valve, simply bec…

> Steam would be completely enshittified by now.

Has it not already been shit for like 15 years? It's 2003 shitware with an electron skin on top of it, with a predatory skin marketplace that you can't withdraw funds from and lootbox mechanics included in all their live service games (of which that is all valve has made in the last 15 years excluding HLA).

Valve was never a good company. I would argue their early business model directly lead to the death of game modding in the first place because in their first few years they straight up stole the IPs of successful mods to turn into second rate games internally, usually not giving original developers any cuts of the proceeds beyond a normal position at the company.

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#46

Post by ARandumGuy »

Cyph0n wrote: post #25
jsheard wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone who seeks to emulate Valves internal structure you have to ask yourself one question - do you already have a core product with a near-unimpeachable monopoly which consistently brings in enough money to keep the entire company afloat, with enough left over to bankroll moonshot R&D projects on top? If not, you can't afford to operate like Valve. They cancel 10 projects for every one they ship, if not for Ste…

How is Steam a monopoly? The platform it runs on (Windows) is open, unlike the App Store. Competitors exist on said platform, including a store & game pass run by the platform owner. The fact that Steam still runs the show is a testament to their ability to just do things better than anyone else. Sure, there is a sort of network effect at play, but there is no other “moat” here - let alone a monopolistic one.

I'd describe Steam as a monolith, not a monopoly. There are several competing storefronts, and many games have been successful without releasing on Steam.

That said, the PC gaming landscape has completely warped around Steam. Epic had to offer huge incentives to get EGS exclusivity deals. Smaller games struggle without a Steam release, and even big companies with their own storefronts have decided the sales boost from Steam overrides the 30% cut Valve takes. And Steam is so entrenched at this point that it's difficult to see how a competitor could make a meaningful dent in Steam's market share.

Despite this, if we're going to have one dominant PC gaming storefront, Steam is probably the best we could hope for. Despite my many misgivings with Valve and Steam, it's difficult to imaging the situation improving if the dominant platform was run by a company like Microsoft or Epic. And it's fair to say that PC gaming wouldn't be nearly as big as it is today without the success of Steam.

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#47

Post by gibibit »

It would be interesting to compare the Valve organizational approach to that of W.L. Gore, which has a unique and successful approach described in Malcolm Gladwell's book "The Tipping Point" as it discusses the Rule of 150.

At Gore, it is a flat structure, but with self-organizing teams that take initiative and responsibility ("commitments") as appropriate for current goals.

https://www.gore.com/careers/working-at-gore

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#48

Post by Systemmanic »

nerdjon wrote: post #44
Systemmanic wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I’ve met countless gamers who will simply not buy or play a game if it isn’t available on Steam. Myself included, and all of my gamer friends.

I never really understood this mentality, especially when on the console side people seem just fine with the idea of buying multiple consoles for exclusives. (not that I am agreeing with that either). There isn't a cost to having multiple stores, you don't even need to keep them running at all time. I get the concerns over the Epic app, but Heroic exists. Personally I have games on Steam, Xbox (cross buy between xbox…

One reason I’ve heard is the stats and Achievements consolidation.

Cross play solves this somewhat but it’s not consistent.

PC is my main platform but I also have an Xbox (NHL games not available on PC), everything else is on Steam.

I wouldn’t buy a PS5 for an exclusive. TBH exclusivity is annoying and I don’t want to reward it.

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#49

Post by thih9 »

gumby wrote: post #9

The reasulting reality of the managerless approach hasn’t been good. As the they say, “if you don’t have any managers you have politics”. I have several friends who used to work at Valve none of them hate the place, they still have friends there, etc. But they tell similar stories as to why things that normal companies do successfully are impossible at Valve. Perhaps it’s best summed up by something one friend said a…

> Google tried this, notoriously dense grating and then firing basically all the managers at an all-hands. That didn’t work out well at all...

When did this happen? Sounds absurd. I’d love to read more if anyone has a postmortem or other sources.

Re: Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

#50

Post by AlexCoventry »

Shekelphile wrote: post #38
Cyph0n wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am saying it’s not a monopoly at all because it’s a) not the only player in the PC games store market and b) has no mechanism in place to be able to enforce such a position even if it was.

You can go back in history and apply that logic to any company and claim they weren't monopolies as a result. Standard oil and AT&T had plenty of competitors, none were able to grow beyond extremely small scale.

The key question is whether an antitrust target is engaging in uncompetitive practices. I haven't noticed any claims of Steam/Valve using uncompetitive practices (but I could have simply missed them.)
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