Valve Software handbook for new employees [pdf] (2012) • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by vintermann » Sun, Aug 24, 2025, 4:07 PM UTC

squigz wrote: post #76

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 They're not, really, but they've given us little reason to distrust them. I'm also fairly confident there would be some fun legal stuff going on if Steam tried that. People have thousands - tens of thousands - of dollars worth of stuff on Steam. That isn't really the same as, say, having to watch ads even after paying…

Also, let's say we decided to not trust Steam because all corporations cash in on their goodwill eventually. What would be the alternative?

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

#142

Post by vintermann » Sun, Aug 24, 2025, 4:09 PM UTC

YesBox wrote: post #108

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 market…

> 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.

Oh, it's safe to say Steam acts as a big multiplier on whatever attention you manage to scrounge up. Not that this is ideal.

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

#143

Post by SXX » Sun, Aug 24, 2025, 4:17 PM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #101

SXX wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nothing of what Steam provides costs 30%. Discoverability and free marketing only provided to games that are already successful and have hundreds of wishlists. That's only possible to achieve if you game already have it's own following and community.

12+ years ago if you released on Steam it was a big deal and platform provided traffic to everyone, but today it's flooded with games so basically you're on your own.

The only thing that allow Valve to charge this much is network effect. They are not vendor-locked platform like App Store, but they do have nearly monopoly on PC.

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

#144

Post by SXX » Sun, Aug 24, 2025, 4:20 PM UTC

hamdingers wrote: post #112

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…

> I think Steam has been a net positive for the gaming community This is probably true on balance, but needs to be tempered with the reality that they also pioneered or popularized many of the worst parts of modern gaming. Always-on DRM, paid DLC, loot boxes and exploitive monetization, esports gambling (indirectly, they were complicit until legal pressure forced them not to be), FOMO monetization, "early access" and…

Valve did not do anything for Always-on DRM other than allowing it to exist on platform. On Steam itself DRM barely exists.

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

#145

Post by YesBox » Sun, Aug 24, 2025, 4:26 PM UTC

vintermann wrote: post #142

YesBox wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 market…

> 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. Oh, it's safe to say Steam acts as a big multiplier on whatever attention you manage to scrounge up. Not that this is ideal.

Unfortunately this isn’t true. Elaborating my point above, they only multiply the attention if the tens-hundreds of thousands of storefront views happen in a day or two. If you get a ten million views evenly spread out through the year, they won’t promote. (Speaking for games not for purchase yet)

I’m speaking from experience and it’s explained somewhere on howtomarketagame.com

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

#146

Post by bnj » Sun, Aug 24, 2025, 4:31 PM UTC

I've been looking for good examples of handbooks and staff materials that do the job well, this one seems a little heavy on the philosophy - I can see why it's been discussed as more of a recruitment tool. Anyone who has favorite examples of handbooks to link, I'd love to check them out.

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

#147

Post by Aeolun » Sun, Aug 24, 2025, 4:34 PM UTC

sarchertech wrote: post #103

Hendrikto wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You think Gabe will sell to PE? You need someone willing to sell to be able to buy something.

I’m betting that won’t happen, and that the next BDFL is not going to run the thing into the ground fast enough for it to matter to me.

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

#148

Post by vikingerik » Sun, Aug 24, 2025, 4:46 PM UTC

AddLightness wrote: post #64

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…

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

It's not exempt. I don't trust Steam long term and so don't spend any significant money on it. I only ever buy cheap games for like $8 or less, where I know I'll get that much worth of gameplay in a short time frame and it won't bother me if the platform ever later enshittifies.

Gabe says that the platform will fail-open if ever necessary, that it would revert to offline DRMless functionality. I believe that he has that intention, but the realities of operating from receivership or assimilation by Microsoft would likely be very different.

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

#149

Post by dafelst » Sun, Aug 24, 2025, 4:55 PM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #53

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.

It's a great pitch. Sounds like a utopia.

I have friends that work there, it is a great place to work, but not without it's problems.

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

#150

Post by likpok » Sun, Aug 24, 2025, 4:59 PM UTC

cubefox wrote: post #121

ralphc wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I tried VR once, with a bunch of short 360° documentaries and video games like Beat Saber and Half Life Alyx. It was incredible, far beyond any immersion one could ever create on a conventional screen, even with the best ray tracing in the world. I don't really understand why VR helmets they aren't more successful. My first guess is that any console needs exclusive high-profile games to be successful, and producing m…

VR is immersive, but it’s hard to fit in to life and there’s a limited array of content available. You can easily use a computer, watch TV or play video games while still being somewhat present with the people around you in reality. VR makes that impossible: you cannot see them, and they cannot see what you see (so even the experience of watching someone play is gone). Furthermore, this makes the experience hard to share — sharing it requires doing that as a whole activity, an activity which only one person can participate in.

Compare with setting up a home theater and having people over to watch a movie, or split screen gaming.

After all that you run into the limited content availability and, as you noted, the high price.

I do wonder why Meta hasn’t done something like license Skyrim or GTA for the quest. It shouldn’t be too expensive compared with the other investments, and would bring over some solidly popular (and big!) content.