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Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012)

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Re: Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012)

#101

Post by Ekaros »

SXX wrote: post #94
TheFreim wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would note that they do provide quite an immense amount of value to developers. Achievements, transferable inventory system, multi-player (steam networking), among other things. The 30% cut still feels high, especially since most games can't or won't take advantage of every single service Steam provides, but I do think they provide quite a bit of developer value that needs to be factored in.

You really missing my point here. Problem with platforms is that platform-holders are taking bigger cut from a small struggling companies than they take from likes of EA or Ubisoft. If you look at majority of small and mid-size game development studios Valve is basically taking half of their income unless your game earns more than $10,000,000. It's totally okay to like Valve or Steam as gamer. As fellow gamers I tota…

On other hand how much developer time would have been spend on building own distribution, billing and related customer support. Time spend on doing it yourself would not be free either.

30% for this is high, but then there is also the discoverability. Which I think does beat google by long way. So they probably would not have sold as many copies without popular platform.

Re: Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012)

#102

Post by ChocolateGod »

rjzzleep wrote: post #44
LauraMedia wrote: post #20

Chet Faliszek, writer for games like Half-Life and the lead writer for Portal/Portal 2 has since confirmed that this handbook was never given to employees. It was created and released as part of advertising them as an employer.

Valve has hired a bunch of FAANG engineers that brought their own toxic hiring practices to Valve. It's only a matter of time before those people promote their culture in that organization if they haven't done so already.

What culture?

Re: Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012)

#103

Post by sarchertech »

Hendrikto wrote: post #75
AddLightness wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very scared about the future though. What happens when Gabe is gone? The entire PC Gaming industry is essentially locked in to a single platform. If Steam decided to charge $10/mo people have so much invested into their libraries they would likely do it. What about $20 or $30 per month? I'm not sure why Steam always seems to be exempt from the "perils of digital ownership" arguments

> I'm not sure why Steam always seems to be exempt from the "perils of digital ownership" arguments Because they have been consistently good citizens for more than 2 decades. They built a reputation. Something other companies are eager to piss away at the first opportunity to sell out or squeeze their customers. It’s not surprising that Valve is successful and trusted with this approach. What is surprising is that it…

Which is a great way to run a business that you care about owning for a long time.

But as a consumer you have to think about what happens when leadership changes—PE buys them and starts reputation mining.

It takes a while to burn through the good will and for a few years you can make a lot more money off of that than you can continuing thing as usual.

Re: Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012)

#104

Post by holyknight »

monkeyelite wrote: post #45
supriyo-biswas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to believe that the principles outlined here weren't at least briefly followed when it's featured on their website too: https://www.valvesoftware.com/en/publications , but I'd be an open to a source which substantiates your claim. However, non-hierarchical structures are often open to manipulation and land-grabbing (see Tyranny of Structurelessness, etc.) so I am also skeptical that a company may have conti…

Also when you have a lot of money you can afford to be inefficient

how do you come up to this conclusion? Valve has by far the most revenue by employee from all the big players. They seem to be the most efficient at what they do.

Re: Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012)

#105

Post by justin66 »

FatalLogic wrote: post #86
moomin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least one former employee has confirmed that exactly the problems you are describing were a problem at Valve. https://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/

>"they pretty much killed off our project.” That project was CastAR — augmented reality glasses which Jeri Ellsworth is now working on as a separate project, having been handed the legal rights to do so by Valve . But how many billion-dollar companies would do that? Just give the rights to the ex-employees? I think most other companies would have not. So, in that sense, Valve is unusual, even if it's not the oranizat…

That's a pretty incomplete telling of the story. Tilt Five is in business and selling the product after the founders bought the tech back from CastAR (after the VC people ran it into the ground).

Re: Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012)

#106

Post by exmadscientist »

moomin wrote: post #31
supriyo-biswas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to believe that the principles outlined here weren't at least briefly followed when it's featured on their website too: https://www.valvesoftware.com/en/publications , but I'd be an open to a source which substantiates your claim. However, non-hierarchical structures are often open to manipulation and land-grabbing (see Tyranny of Structurelessness, etc.) so I am also skeptical that a company may have conti…

At least one former employee has confirmed that exactly the problems you are describing were a problem at Valve. https://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/

It seems their hardware teams have a particular problem with this. I'm in the area, know many people in their orbit, and they have a really poor reputation, so I knew to be cautious, but when I interviewed with them a while back I was really surprised at how poorly it was organized. I don't want to say much more publicly, but they sure earned their reputation.

Re: Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012)

#107

Post by NatKarmios »

raincole wrote: post #69
LauraMedia wrote: post #20

Chet Faliszek, writer for games like Half-Life and the lead writer for Portal/Portal 2 has since confirmed that this handbook was never given to employees. It was created and released as part of advertising them as an employer.

Source? This comment is literally the first search result of "Chet Faliszek Valve employee handbook" for me. I've waded through several pages and haven't found a credible source of him saying that.

I don't have the precise link to hand (sorry) but Chet posts frequently on TikTok, I recall seeing him say this.

Re: Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012)

#108

Post by YesBox »

bob1029 wrote: post #27

Valve gets a lot of heat for slowing down on first party gaming content, but I think Steam has been a net positive for the gaming community. There are certainly some cases where the accessibility has created "noise" and other trouble, but overall I think this is a good thing. Their 30% cut is absolutely justified once you start looking into everything they do for you as a developer and the market that you have access…

> Their 30% cut is absolutely justified

That is debatable. For one thing, Steam is partly (mostly?) built off the backs of games marketing their games and providing a Steam link (marketing costs money for the devs). Steam kick started this chicken/egg problem by creating their own great games first.

Second, Steam does not provide your game any marketing (algorithmic visibility) unless it's already successfully marketed outside of Steam (marketing is not free), and again later once it hits a certain number of sales.

Third, per Tim Sweeney, games during the retail era had a bigger margin for the the studios than they do today [1]

[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_NC1ZskeN47LHaYJziotbA0sqL...

edit: So I do feel a little upset that Steam gets free marketing for every game put on the site (important note you can (and should in most cases) place your game up on the site long before its ready to purchase, and steam will advertise other games on your page), doesnt provide any marketing in return (via the discovery queue) unless you bring in tens or hundreds of thousands of clicks, and then turns around and skims 30% of all my work which they are greatly benefiting from (e.g. what if the customer goes to my page, wish lists my game, then purchased a different game in the mean time? At least e.g. amazon has referral links)

Re: Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012)

#109

Post by ralphc »

moomin wrote: post #98
FatalLogic wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"they pretty much killed off our project.” That project was CastAR — augmented reality glasses which Jeri Ellsworth is now working on as a separate project, having been handed the legal rights to do so by Valve . But how many billion-dollar companies would do that? Just give the rights to the ex-employees? I think most other companies would have not. So, in that sense, Valve is unusual, even if it's not the oranizat…

Unfortunately, no-one’s investment in AR or VR has worked out. Even the “winner” (Oculus/Meta) has found the market to be disappointingly small.

There's a "Mega Replay" store near where I live, it has second-hand electronics, games and DVDs. The biggest section in electronics is the VR goggles, a lot of people have given up on them.

Re: Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012)

#110

Post by monkeyelite »

holyknight wrote: post #104
monkeyelite wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also when you have a lot of money you can afford to be inefficient

how do you come up to this conclusion? Valve has by far the most revenue by employee from all the big players. They seem to be the most efficient at what they do.

They hold a valuable resource developed from prior years of hard work. See also Google search.

Do you think Valve was operating this way when they were trying to make their first money on half-life?

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