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Valve New Employee Handbook (2012) [pdf]

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

#61

Post by daemoens »

nerdjon wrote: post #54
daemoens wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That only explains a couple of the stores but not all of them. Xbox and Epic don't fall in that category. I don't believe EA does either, but not 100% sure. To be clear here. I am referring to the being forced after buying a game. None of these, to my knowledge, you were forced to use after buying the game on Steam. Unlike Ubisoft.

The Epic store might not've been slow, but it was missing so much. It was launched with almost no features, not even reviews. They also didn't have any communities/forums/groups.

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

#62

Post by ZeroCool2u »

nerdjon wrote: post #54
daemoens wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That only explains a couple of the stores but not all of them. Xbox and Epic don't fall in that category. I don't believe EA does either, but not 100% sure. To be clear here. I am referring to the being forced after buying a game. None of these, to my knowledge, you were forced to use after buying the game on Steam. Unlike Ubisoft.

XBox and Epic absolutely do fall in that category. People, myself included, detest using either of those stores, because of their poor implementations. They're slow and unwieldy. The Xbox store on PC is actually so bad. I bought Forza as a chill on the couch and relax kind of game and it is one of the most regrettable purchasing experiences I've ever had. The Epic store is just outright unpleasant software.

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

#63

Post by jsheard »

slumberlust wrote: post #17
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…

It depends how you frame success. Game development seems to have slowed in the post-Steam boom world, but it's still there! DotA2, Artifact, Alyx, and currently Deadlock are all examples of relatively recent gaming products. From a purely financial perspective, they SHOULD continue to focus on marketplace dominance via STEAM. Whatever game is made for HL3/TF3 will ultimately fail to meet fan expectations (Duke Nukem…

> It depends how you frame success. Game development seems to have slowed in the post-Steam boom world, but it's still there! DotA2, Artifact, Alyx, and currently Deadlock are all examples of relatively recent gaming products.

They have however refocused on cash-cow live-service games rather than the polished single player experiences they were originally famous for. In the 13 years since Portal 2 they've only released one single player game, and that one was driven by their company-wide VR push more than anything else. It's harder to get excited about their games when they no longer want to make anything that can't be leveraged into an infinite money siphon.

They've also had an uptick in disastrous flops with Artifact and Underlords, hopefully Deadlock will be a return to form.

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

#64

Post by modeless »

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…

If you measure success by how happy your most disgruntled employees are, maybe it doesn't look good. But if you measure success by revenue, profit, or quality of products, it looks incredible. Valve has succeeded in a very competitive industry and consistently released top quality products over a period of almost three decades.

I don't buy people's excuses about them just exploiting a monopoly. Epic was gunning for them, Microsoft was gunning for them, all the big publishers tried to compete on PC game distribution, consoles try to take market share from PC, GoG and others exist. The failure of their competitors to unseat them doesn't mean Valve had it easy.

Google, on the other hand, is what you get when you try to optimize for employee happiness across the board. Their business has been successful (the monopoly argument seems more applicable in this case, at least in the last decade), but product quality is in the toilet and employee happiness ultimately couldn't be maintained in the face of bureaucracy and layoffs.

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

#65

Post by the8thbit »

daemoens wrote: post #43
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…

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.

> Many of these alternatives failed because they were forced onto users who had already paid over $60 for a game

I really doubt that hurt their adoption. Yes, it pissed people off, but that doesn't mean it suppressed adoption. Being slow and clunky, sure, but you're probably not going to get anywhere without some high value exclusives.

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

#66

Post by Zambyte »

wongarsu wrote: post #59
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…

> the competitors do what is necessary just fine But that's the issue. The competitors are fine. They aren't significantly better though. The only one with a compelling USP is GOG with their "no drm, download the installer, own the game even after we go under" pitch. Everyone else is just a steam clone with some exclusives and freebies. Without a compelling advantage network effect makes Steam the clear winner. It's…

FWIW, there are tons of DRM free games on Steam as well, it's just not a given like it is on GOG.

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

#67

Post by danjl »

The real answer is to stay small and avoid growth. Politics and management frustrations get worse with more people. Stay small and avoid all the idiocy. Growth is not mandatory. Especially with technology, you can scale profit without more employees. Profit sharing is better than equity.

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

#68

Post by prepend »

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…

For me, I don’t like launchers constantly updating and running at startup. Inevitably, they end up breaking something or popping up a modal when I’m trying to do something else.

I tolerate steam on my laptop because they were the first. I hate Epic and other launchers when I just want a game.

I will wait until it gets to steam. And have even skipped free games because I don’t want the mental load.

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

#69

Post by AISnakeOil »

gigatexal wrote: post #53

Does it also say there will ever ever be an end to Gordan Freeman’s story, never a HL3 ever so stop asking? Seriously one of the most tragic things of my very privileged life was getting so into the game and the story and then waiting patiently for HL3 after the cliff hanger ending of HL2 EP 2. Now I have trust issues.

Page 20 has an employee with a HL3 shirt. It really is one of the most tragic tales in gaming history.

Half-Life Alyx only being available on VR was the final nail in the coffin. I will never play it.

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

#70

Post by j_maffe »

daemoens wrote: post #55
throwup238 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that exactly what Steam did with the Orange Box? They just did it in the 2000s, years before anyone else.

They could get away with it because there was no competitor like Steam.

Yes, that's the effect a monopoly has on the market.
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