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Former Employees Explain Reasons Why Valve Releases Games So Rarely

Tams

Gold Member
I hate this, "they print money they don't need to do anything", but while they haven't made any games they are still, by far, the best online store for PC. And it's not like there isn't competition EA, Microsoft and Ubisoft have been at it for more than a decade and Epic is going into 5 years; yet all of them are years behind compared to Steam, not just on the core functionality but the extra community stuff, like Steam Input and Steam Workshop or even something as simple as the community forums.

Steam doesn't print money by existing, it prints money because it's far above the rest.
Valve have done some nice things. Big Picture and controller support are unrivalled. Steam Workshop is... alright. Easier to use than modding sites, yeah, but they never were hard to use to be honest.

Steam still has nasty DRM (sorry, I don't care that it's 'better' than others), looks like it's from the late 2000s, and most of the forums are a cesspit.

No, most of it is them getting lots of money for doing very little and benefiting so greatly from being a first mover. Then add in customer inertia and a few Steam/Valve fanbois* on top, and there you have it.

*Who will often vehmently attack any attempts at any other PC digital games stores trying to get some of the market. Usually with 'I want all my games in one place' as their main reason.
 

Shut0wen

Member
Everything in this article is true except for the diversity part, even gabe himself came out saying letting developers do what they want was a mistake, look at phil spencers approach, its exactly the same way and there are far less games from ms studios, no wonder they ended up buying a shit load of studios just to save grace
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
I have a feeling Valve lost alot of good employees, hence the slow output of games.
 
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SomeGit

Member
*Who will often vehmently attack any attempts at any other PC digital games stores trying to get some of the market. Usually with 'I want all my games in one place' as their main reason.

By other PC digital game stores, you mean Origin and Epic, 2 platforms that don't offer a fraction of what Steam uses. You should notice that GOG never get the same amount of vitriol, maybe because it actually offers something Steam doesn't offer.
Saying it's all about "having all games in one place" is absurd, yes some people may say that, but most don't. Steam is just simply far above the rest, which contradicts the "they do very little" because if they are then the competition shouldn't be slacking behind this hard.
 

Fuz

Banned
Valve have done some nice things. Big Picture and controller support are unrivalled. Steam Workshop is... alright. Easier to use than modding sites, yeah, but they never were hard to use to be honest.

Steam still has nasty DRM (sorry, I don't care that it's 'better' than others), looks like it's from the late 2000s, and most of the forums are a cesspit.

No, most of it is them getting lots of money for doing very little and benefiting so greatly from being a first mover. Then add in customer inertia and a few Steam/Valve fanbois* on top, and there you have it.

*Who will often vehmently attack any attempts at any other PC digital games stores trying to get some of the market. Usually with 'I want all my games in one place' as their main reason.
Steam worlshop is a pile of rotting shit because it garden-walls mods.
 

SomeGit

Member
Steam worlshop is a pile of rotting shit because it garden-walls mods.

There are a lot of Workshop downloaders you can use to download manually, plus no one is forcing the modder to release exclusively on workshop.
 
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ok. So so due to the lack of diversity, Valve managed to produce iconic games and also released Alyx, a game that was an exception compared to the buggy uninspired AAA shovelware that other companies produced.
Thank you white males.
 
I'm in the software development industry. We also know universities have a recruitment bias towards whites so the funnel disproportionately favors more whites. I'm not even sure what you're arguing about, except that you know you're being dishonest. You don't need 85% white people to build software and can very easily have a more diverse population of greater talent and benefit.
No, forced diversity is the reason why most AAA games today at buggy, uninspired and boring pieces of crap. We don't want more of these. Valve is doing it right. Keep your opinion for yourself.
 
Who cares about diversity. Just make a good product people enjoy. If diversity happens naturally, cool. No quotas or tokenism though.

Nintendo is an iconic company that's been around 130+ years. Their real headquarters in Japan are dominated by Japanese men, but they make great products that people enjoy. What does this all mean? Who cares, just hire the best people and make good products that consumers want and will enjoy.
 

Rickyiez

Member
Must be nice working at Valve especially Steam App department where you just do some reskin once every blue moon
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
You never 'explained' anything(at least not in your comment to me), and I wasn't commenting on their corporate decisions.

And this is what I was saying in my initial comment, I couldn't tell if the responses are simply 'Valve defense force' responses, or 'triggered anti-wokeness' to come into a thread defending a corporation with it's decision making based on actual employee responses. Especially from two sentences which the article isn't even based around.

The reactions seem fairly thin skinned either way, but to jump off feeling you have to defend Valve that much, or being triggered by two sentences just seems silly.

It's a simple expose article that reveals some of Valve's corporate structure, involving actual Valve's employee testimonies. Now, if you actually work at or have worked at Valve, you can perhaps offer some valid counter-argument to the article, then yeah okay I'll listen to that. But as it is, your opinion is your opinion and you're entitled to it.
I am not sure you know what a hit piece is, lol. It's a hit piece because it lies about Valve and their output and uses those lies to take shot at them. If we are going to talk about vidya here we should be doing it from a place of fact.

I don't know what the "Valve defense force" is, but we can take a look at this. I mentioned Rocksteady in this thread, it's been 8 years since they released a game and the game they have coming out looks horrible. Valve released a GOTY-tier game in 2020. I mentioned Riot who focuses on live service games instead of releasing "boxed" titles constantly. Well, Valve maintains two of the biggest live service games out there as well. Nobody criticizes Riot for how they do business. Those are all just objective facts. Now, if you can point me to the "what's wrong with Rocksteady" article I wouild love to read it.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Who cares about diversity. Just make a good product people enjoy. If diversity happens naturally, cool. No quotas or tokenism though.

Nintendo is an iconic company that's been around 130+ years. Their real headquarters in Japan are dominated by Japanese men, but they make great products that people enjoy. What does this all mean? Who cares, just hire the best people and make good products that consumers want and will enjoy.
It means nobody actually cares about forced diversity and quota rates unless it's jammed in their face. And then at work HR gets into a big behind closed door roundtable deciding people's jobs not based on resume or talent, but based on whether they can check off a box in a demographics checklist.

The vast majority of electronics are probably made in Foxconn kind of factories. As long as the gadget works, nobody cares if it's 99% Asian people working there. Even if it breaks, nobody goes around saying "well if it was more diverse, it'd probably work".
 
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ZehDon

Member
giphy-downsized-large.gif
 

akimbo009

Gold Member
No, forced diversity is the reason why most AAA games today at buggy, uninspired and boring pieces of crap. We don't want more of these. Valve is doing it right. Keep your opinion for yourself.

I'm sorry, but diversity does make things better..sorry your monoculture can't handle that. Valve has released nothing of note for years so, so no, they aren't doing it right.

Since this thread has folks openly expressing their opinions against diversity seems totally ok to have a counter opinion. You may not like it but it's GAF and we have lots of opinions. Leave if you don't like that.
 
This is basically the same problem I have with the NBA
Since you mentioned sports. I just want to point out how ridiculous in trying to force diversity or trying to make up problems. That's what the OP's article is about.

The NBA and NFL are more than overwhelming black with the NBA at 80% with the rest being white. And for the NFL, last I checked the number hovers around 70% with the rest being almost all white, there's a few Pacific Islanders in there. My point? There's not too much diversity in those 2 leagues.

MLB on the other hand is arguably the most diverse sports league in the world, if not then at least for an American sports league. MLB has around 60% white players, 7% Black American players, 30% Latino players of any race, and 3% Asian players of any nationality. That's a very racially and ethnically diverse league. But guess what league gets called out for having a diversity problem and implied that it's a racist league? Yep, MLB. https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/us/world-series-mlb-black-players-youth-league-reaj/index.html

That's the kind of clown world we live in.
 

SaintALia

Member
I am not sure you know what a hit piece is, lol. It's a hit piece because it lies about Valve and their output and uses those lies to take shot at them. If we are going to talk about vidya here we should be doing it from a place of fact.

I don't know what the "Valve defense force" is, but we can take a look at this. I mentioned Rocksteady in this thread, it's been 8 years since they released a game and the game they have coming out looks horrible. Valve released a GOTY-tier game in 2020. I mentioned Riot who focuses on live service games instead of releasing "boxed" titles constantly. Well, Valve maintains two of the biggest live service games out there as well. Nobody criticizes Riot for how they do business. Those are all just objective facts. Now, if you can point me to the "what's wrong with Rocksteady" article I wouild love to read it.
"It's a hit piece because it lies about Valve and their output"

What lies about their output? Are you disagreeing with the term 'rarely' or disagreeing with the employees' statements? AFAIK, they release games steadily over the years, but it's not usually the games people are 'looking forward to' or big/innovative new IPs that people expect from them. It seemed to be a more subjective statement with that in mind, I never took it literally, but I can see an argument to be made in that. I don't care enough to debate it though, and the 'hit piece/agenda' comment from the commentor wasn't actually about that.

If it wasn't clear already though, I wasn't that interested in discussing Valve's actual business decisions or games releases, so I'm not interested in Rocksteady's output for a compare and contrast, you should take that up with others in the thread who are discussing that.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I'm sorry, but diversity does make things better..sorry your monoculture can't handle that. Valve has released nothing of note for years so, so no, they aren't doing it right.

Since this thread has folks openly expressing their opinions against diversity seems totally ok to have a counter opinion. You may not like it but it's GAF and we have lots of opinions. Leave if you don't like that.
Ive heard this many times, but what proof is there that forcing diversity instead of just hiring based on talent and budget is better? I've never seen a research paper with stats.

Most countries in the world skew to certain demographics. Asian companies skew hard to Asian people. Probabaly 95% of the population are locals. So what youre saying is if companies in Shanghai or Tokyo purposely hired foreigners or people who dont looks Asian, the products they make will suddenly boost up quality? If so, why?

On the other hand for the commoner seeing what happens around them without reports, if diversity is such a big booster to team performance, why dont sports teams purposely do quota hires? They all just seem to draft and gun for the best player to help their team within budget (usually to fill a weak position on their team). Makes no difference what they look like.
 

GloveSlap

Member
I'm in the software development industry. We also know universities have a recruitment bias towards whites so the funnel disproportionately favors more whites. I'm not even sure what you're arguing about, except that you know you're being dishonest. You don't need 85% white people to build software and can very easily have a more diverse population of greater talent and benefit.
In what bizarro world do universities have bias favoring whites? Whites (and Asians) have to have significantly higher grades and test scores to have parity with other races with regards to acceptance and scholarships.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
In what bizarro world do universities have bias favoring whites? Whites (and Asians) have to have significantly higher grades and test scores to have parity with other races with regards to acceptance and scholarships.
Exactly. Unless university admissions are all now done with face to face interviews where screeners can purposely trash minorities, I'm pretty sure most college/university admissions are simply applying to the school with your high school marks. The higher they are the better. Th more extra curricular activities you have the better.

At least thats how it was when I got accepted into universities.

If anything, racial bias doesn't even hold true for the typical "white people get all the best stuff" because Asians have the highest amount of disproportionate students vs. population base.

So if anyone wants to cry about racial bias, who knew universities are actually all Asian biased.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
You laugh, but they have been trying since last year. The ADL and SPLC put them on the shit list along with GAB and others because they don't moderate chat and let people put up user reviews and mods that "contribute to white supremacy" :


They basically want valve to censor and limit free speech like how epic does it with no forums or user reivews, all because of a handful of weirdos.
It's all about control, peasant.
 

iQuasarLV

Member
I'm sorry, but diversity does make things better..sorry your monoculture can't handle that. Valve has released nothing of note for years so, so no, they aren't doing it right.

Since this thread has folks openly expressing their opinions against diversity seems totally ok to have a counter opinion. You may not like it but it's GAF and we have lots of opinions. Leave if you don't like that.
Tell me, how is Hollywood doing with that forced diversity angle? Last I heard WB/Discovery cancelled every project with forced diversity in spite of it being finished products ready for release.
 

akimbo009

Gold Member
Ive heard this many times, but what proof is there that forcing diversity instead of just hiring based on talent and budget is better? I've never seen a research paper with stats.

Most countries in the world skew to certain demographics. Asian companies skew hard to Asian people. Probabaly 95% of the population are locals. So what youre saying is if companies in Shanghai or Tokyo purposely hired foreigners or people who dont looks Asian, the products they make will suddenly boost up quality? If so, why?

On the other hand for the commoner seeing what happens around them without reports, if diversity is such a big booster to team performance, why dont sports teams purposely do quota hires? They all just seem to draft and gun for the best player to help their team within budget (usually to fill a weak position on their team). Makes no difference what they look like.

Sports is a little different, and we are talking about Valve which does have a diversity problem if it's 85% white and male.

But for sports, are you arguing that it didn't get better once the diversity barrier was broken by the likes of Mays and Robinson? It absolutely did get better with diversity so it's a terrible argument cause yeah - it did get better which proves my point.

Oddly, the argument against diversity seems to be a strawman on this thread versus the evidence presented which is Valve's inability to deliver quality games consistently.

Let's get to that topic, which may or may not be diversity related (though those there do say it is part of the problem so they should know)... But right now Valve as a game developer isn't exceeding any expectations and deserves criticism.
 

RickMasters

Member
They're barely functioning as a company. They're literally coasting on having a storefront. They barely make anything.

I guess we're in Valve kool-aid land over here.
I have to agree with this. I thought they were gonna get serious for a while what with team fortress and portal after each other. I was convinced around that after portal 2 they would drop a megaton on us and announce half life 3.....we got that VR game instead...and more focus on store front deals.


Imagine being a dev at valve. You start off..probably a little starry eyed because your in the house that made half life. 5 years in on the job and may You take some initiative and have a whole game fully developed and sitting on your hard drive in your workstation...and NEVER get to release it. because of company heirachy based politics... What does a game dev even do at valve, these days? just tinker on ides that may never ghet released? I wonder how many internal build of half life 3 there are that will never see the light of day because...valve just being valve? I wonder how different they would have been if steam was not a massive success. I bet we would have seen far more games from them. Thats my only issue with valve...we didnt get enough games from the genius that made those games while they were in there prime as both creatives and programmers. counter strike was COD before it came along and yet its no longer mentioned in the same breath as other hitters. portal was genius and why those devs never got to do more genius things is beyond me. Team fortress could have become a bigger thing, especially when you look at where GAAS FPS games are today.


Valve care more about selling other peoples games than making their own, these days. I know they are a company with somewhat mysterious inner workings (or they atleast like to give off the perception) but I think its a crying shame we never got more games out of them.
 
People aren't getting Valve. This company is pure art. There's nothing more revolutionary in 2023 than a game publisher not publishing any games. While Ubisoft and the others are shitting out one turd of a "AAA" game after the other like they're trying to be a poop machine gun or something, Valve remains silent. Imagining the games never released by Valve is a lot better than what we'd actually have gotten.
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
This is not the first time Valve's odd inner workings are discussed. I remember their employee handbook circulating many years ago. In fact, here it is:


Edit: First edition 2012...

Welcome to Flatland

We want innovators, and that means maintaining an environment where they’ll flourish. That’s why Valve is flat. It’s our shorthand way of saying that we don’t have any management, and nobody “reports to” anybody else. We do have a founder/president, but even he isn’t your manager. This company is yours to steer—toward opportunities and away from risks. You have the power to green-light projects. You have the power to ship products. A flat structure removes every organizational barrier between your work and the customer enjoying that work. Every company will tell you that “the customer is boss,” but here that statement has weight. There’s no red tape stopping you from figuring out for yourself what our customers want, and then giving it to them. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Wow, that sounds like a lot of responsibility,” you’re right. And that’s why hiring is the single most important thing you will ever do at Valve (see “Hiring,” on page 43). Any time you interview a potential hire, you need to ask yourself not only if they’re talented or collaborative but also if they’re capable of literally running this company, because they will be
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Sports is a little different, and we are talking about Valve which does have a diversity problem if it's 85% white and male.

But for sports, are you arguing that it didn't get better once the diversity barrier was broken by the likes of Mays and Robinson? It absolutely did get better with diversity so it's a terrible argument cause yeah - it did get better which proves my point.

Oddly, the argument against diversity seems to be a strawman on this thread versus the evidence presented which is Valve's inability to deliver quality games consistently.

Let's get to that topic, which may or may not be diversity related (though those there do say it is part of the problem so they should know)... But right now Valve as a game developer isn't exceeding any expectations and deserves criticism.
Your argument is terrible because your racial issue of Mays and Robinson were at a time when groups of people were literally banished from joining MLB. It hasnt been like that for probably 60 or 70 years. So after decades of every baseball player able to be drafted and play in the MLB what we got now in 2023 are natural rosters based on budget and teams bettering their teams. And if it so happens a team skews to white or black or latin players who cares. The best talent for the positions and budget GMs will try to get.

Your way of making a pro sports team is looking at the roster and signing or cutting players based on demographic quotas looking at their racial bio.

Your argument for Valve will make sense if you can prove Gabe and his department of HR managers are bigots purposely hiring only white guys to spite everyone else.
 
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akimbo009

Gold Member
Your argument is terrible because your racial issue of Mays and Robinson were at a time when groups of people were literally banished from joining MLB. It hasnt been like that for probably 60 or 70 years. So after decades of every baseball player able to be drafted and play in the MLB what we got now in 2023 are natural rosters based on budget and teams bettering their teams. And if it so happens a team skews to white or black or latin players who cares. The best talent for the positions and budget GMs will try to get.

Your way of making a pro sports team is looking at the roster and signing or cutting players based on demographic quotas looking at their racial bio.

Your argument for Valve will make sense if you can prove Gabe and his department of HR managers are bigots purposely hiring only white guys to spite everyone else.

First, I'm not advocating anything for sports - not even my example - others did. And it has proven that opening up opportunities for more folks across racial lines was a huge benefit to the game - it's undeniable. And Robinson was only 50 years ago, and we still have racial issues in sports like folks throwing bananas at soccer players and similar shit. It's not a solved problem.

The whole point of diversity efforts is to open the door to more talent who to may otherwise not consider or have access to through traditional recruiting. Certainly if Valve continues to only social network or hire as they have been - whether consciencely it not - they're missing an opportunity to get more talent from different populations. Intentionally reaching out - and measuring the outcomes of that effort - is why % matters but it's not the point. The point is getting more talent from more populations with the inherited benefit of getting different viewpoints and thinking which you may otherwise not get.

It's not about being a bigot, it's about being competitive. And further, the lack of women is even worse. Fucking helmet party over there - super boring.

I think knee jerk reactionary responses like "fuck diversity" which seems to be the theme is short sighted and not supported by any evidence why it's good - and even the sports analogy is clearly wrong because we have 50 years of evidence supporting the fact more diverse sporting teams are more competitive.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
First, I'm not advocating anything for sports - not even my example - others did. And it has proven that opening up opportunities for more folks across racial lines was a huge benefit to the game - it's undeniable. And Robinson was only 50 years ago, and we still have racial issues in sports like folks throwing bananas at soccer players and similar shit. It's not a solved problem.

The whole point of diversity efforts is to open the door to more talent who to may otherwise not consider or have access to through traditional recruiting. Certainly if Valve continues to only social network or hire as they have been - whether consciencely it not - they're missing an opportunity to get more talent from different populations. Intentionally reaching out - and measuring the outcomes of that effort - is why % matters but it's not the point. The point is getting more talent from more populations with the inherited benefit of getting different viewpoints and thinking which you may otherwise not get.

It's not about being a bigot, it's about being competitive. And further, the lack of women is even worse. Fucking helmet party over there - super boring.

I think knee jerk reactionary responses like "fuck diversity" which seems to be the theme is short sighted and not supported by any evidence why it's good - and even the sports analogy is clearly wrong because we have 50 years of evidence supporting the fact more diverse sporting teams are more competitive.
Your assuming Valve is being bigoted or blind to hiring people. Can you prove that any company out there that skews to any demographic isnt opening their eyes to everyone?

Pro sports has been open to anyone being drafted or signed for a long time. Again, what proof do you have that a diverse team is automatically better than a team that so happens to skew to whites, blacks or whatever background? Most NBA teams are 80% Black and most hockey teams are probably 95% white. Most NHL teams are 100% whte.

I know youre trying to fight the fight for forcing diversity, but talent should be the most important factor and however that shakes out with the demographic is what it should be.

Dont assume that a team of 1 white, 1 black, 1 asian, 1 latino, 1 native is automatically better than a team of lets say 3 latinos, 2 asians. And if the team of 3 latinos/2 asians is constructed that way, it doesnt mean the HR manager is a bigot only skewing to two groups of people.
 
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ZoukGalaxy

Member
I always wondered, seriously, what all employees are doing all days at Valve ? Only managing... the store ? o_O

Not sarcastic.
 
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I'm sorry, but diversity does make things better..sorry your monoculture can't handle that. Valve has released nothing of note for years so, so no, they aren't doing it right.

Since this thread has folks openly expressing their opinions against diversity seems totally ok to have a counter opinion. You may not like it but it's GAF and we have lots of opinions. Leave if you don't like that.
leave what. We have seen the shitty diversified games and we have seen the excellent non-diversified games. You don't like it, fine, go to resetera to protest about it. There are many apes there who will congratulate you for your stance.
 

akimbo009

Gold Member
leave what. We have seen the shitty diversified games and we have seen the excellent non-diversified games. You don't like it, fine, go to resetera to protest about it. There are many apes there who will congratulate you for your stance.

Making shit up I see. How about you qualify your "diversity implies shitty" comment?

This is about lack of diversity in the employees at Valve as a contributing factor to their inability to deliver games consistently. The employees themselves are saying that - so see no reason why you'd dismiss them except to fit some made up narrative.

I don't even know what ResetERA has to do with this conversation except they apparently live in your head rent free.
 

FBeeEye

Banned
Strong womyn protagonist with all the antagonists being white guys. There will be two bad female characters: One is a literal Nazi (the only way womyn can be bad) and the other one isn't really a bad person and eventually joins the good side. The black people are all boring scientists that sound like white people with the occasional urban slang thrown in.

There. 20 million units lifetime sales.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Strong womyn protagonist with all the antagonists being white guys. There will be two bad female characters: One is a literal Nazi (the only way womyn can be bad) and the other one isn't really a bad person and eventually joins the good side. The black people are all boring scientists that sound like white people with the occasional urban slang thrown in.

There. 20 million units lifetime sales.
It literally is a caricature of tropes when they try to pander to the latest virtue.
 
Making shit up I see. How about you qualify your "diversity implies shitty" comment?

This is about lack of diversity in the employees at Valve as a contributing factor to their inability to deliver games consistently. The employees themselves are saying that - so see no reason why you'd dismiss them except to fit some made up narrative.

I don't even know what ResetERA has to do with this conversation except they apparently live in your head rent free.
inability to what? White dudes created Valve's videogames which are some of the most iconic games in gaming history. ALL Valve's games where created by white dudes. Get over it!
 

mckmas8808

Banned
Ive heard this many times, but what proof is there that forcing diversity instead of just hiring based on talent and budget is better? I've never seen a research paper with stats.

Most countries in the world skew to certain demographics. Asian companies skew hard to Asian people. Probabaly 95% of the population are locals. So what youre saying is if companies in Shanghai or Tokyo purposely hired foreigners or people who dont looks Asian, the products they make will suddenly boost up quality? If so, why?

On the other hand for the commoner seeing what happens around them without reports, if diversity is such a big booster to team performance, why dont sports teams purposely do quota hires? They all just seem to draft and gun for the best player to help their team within budget (usually to fill a weak position on their team). Makes no difference what they look like.

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just MAYBE...............current hiring isn't being based on talent and budget?
 
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